Psychological disorders and Therapies for those disorders

What are the 3 main components of therapy?

Identify the problem, find the cause, create and follow a treatment plan.

Who started more humane treatments for mental illness?

Philippe Pinel (France) and Dorothea Dix (US/Canada).

What is psychotherapy?

A talking treatment between a therapist and someone with psychological issues.

What is the biomedical approach?

Using medication or medical procedures to treat mental illness.

What is the eclectic approach?

Mixing various therapies based on what the client needs.

What do insight therapies focus on?

Helping people understand their thoughts and feelings.

What does humanistic therapy aim to do?

Boost self-awareness, self-esteem, and personal growth.

What is client-centered therapy?

Carl Rogers' therapy that uses active listening and unconditional positive regard.

What is active listening?

Echoing, restating, and clarifying what the client says.

What do behavior therapies focus on?

Changing learned behaviors, not inner thoughts.

What is systematic desensitization?

Slowly exposing a person to feared objects while they stay relaxed.

What is aversive conditioning?

Pairing an unwanted behavior with something unpleasant so the person avoids it.

alcohol = feeling sick → they stop drinking.

Exposure Therapy

Facing the feared thing (real or virtual).

Token Economy

Rewarding good behavior with tokens.

What is cognitive therapy?

Teaching people to think in more positive and realistic ways.

What is CBT?

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy; changes both thoughts and actions.

What is group therapy’s main benefit?

Support and feedback from others with similar issues.

What is family therapy?

Therapy that treats the family as a system and improves relationships.

What do antipsychotic drugs do?

They treat schizophrenia (hallucinations, delusions)

• It reduce dopamine activity.

• Example: Thorazine

• Side effects: can be strong.

What do antidepressant drugs do?

They increase serotonin and norepinephrine. It helps with depression and anxiety and it takes weeks to work.

Counterconditioning

Replaces bad response with a good one.

What are benzodiazepines used for?

Treating anxiety by calming the brain.

What is ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) used for?

Treating severe depression using electric currents.

Major Depression

Feeling deeply sad, hopeless, or tired most of the time for weeks or longer; loss of interest in things once enjoyed.

Bipolar Disorder

Mood swings between extreme highs (mania) and deep lows (depression).

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Depression that happens during certain seasons, usually winter, due to lack of sunlight.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Constant, excessive worry about many things, even when there’s no clear reason.

Phobias

Strong, irrational fear of specific things (like spiders or heights) that leads to avoidance.

Agoraphobia

Fear of situations where escape feels hard—like crowds, open spaces, or leaving home.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Unwanted, repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and actions (compulsions), like hand-washing or checking locks.

Panic Disorder

Sudden intense fear or panic attacks with symptoms like a racing heart, dizziness, or shortness of breath.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Anxiety and flashbacks after a scary or traumatic event, like assault.

Paranoid Schizophrenia

Strong delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations (seeing/hearing things) focused on paranoia or being followed or watched.

Disorganized Schizophrenia

Disorganized thoughts, speech, and behavior; may seem silly, confused, or inappropriate.

Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

Symptoms of schizophrenia that don’t clearly fit in one specific category.

Dissociative Amnesia

Inability to remember important personal info, usually after a traumatic or stressful event.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Person has two or more separate identities or personalities that control behavior at different times.

Dissociative Fugue

Sudden travel away from home with memory loss about who they are or how they got there.

Munchausen by Proxy

A caregiver (usually a parent) makes another person (like a child) sick on purpose to get attention or sympathy.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Has an inflated sense of self-importance, craves admiration, manipulative, and lacks empathy for others.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

Very emotional and attention-seeking; often acts dramatically to get noticed.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Ignores others’ rights, lacks guilt, often lies or breaks rules; may be aggressive or manipulative.

Hypochondria

Always worried about having a serious illness, even if medical tests show nothing is wrong.

Conversion Disorders

Psychological stress causes real physical symptoms with no medical reason.

Hysterical Blindness

Sudden blindness caused by emotional stress.

Glove-Hand Anesthesia

Loss of feeling in the hand as if wearing a glove, not following real nerve patterns.