Unit 5 ID Terms Part 1: Theories and Diagnosis of Psychological Disorders

Definitions from AMSCO Book. (Zuriyah Fishoe contributed to making this Knowt with me)

Psychopathology

The scientific study of mental disorders and different types of maladaptive behaviors associated with various disorders.

Mental illness

A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Psychiatric disorder

A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning, but as a medical doctor will use a medical/clinical approach to diagnosis and treatment more than behavioral or cognitive approaches.

Abnormal psychology

The field of psychology that focuses on the study and treatment of psychological disorders or mental illnesses.

Maladaptive behavior

Behavior that causes harm by making it difficult to fulfill the normal functions of everyday life. A teenager maybe unable to function normally at school or maintain friendships; an adult may not be able to hold onto a job or maintain close relationships.

Personal distress

A person’s individual perception of his or her own emotional distress. The person reports feeling pain and discomfort associated with the abnormality.

Atypical behavior

Behavior that deviates from what is considered socially or culturally normal. For example, someone may feel the need to check to make sure a door is locked over and over again, count cracks in a sidewalk, or eat hair and other nonnutritive substances.

Violation of cultural norms

Behavior that so deviates from what is culturally accepted that it is considered unacceptable and intolerable. For example, although the vast majority of people with psychological disorders are not violent, anger associated with delusions of being victimized can lead to violence against others.

Insanity

A legal term used to determine whether an individual can be held accountable for criminal behavior. It applies to someone who is incapable of determining if an act is wrong and cannot control their behavior. It refers to the inability to distinguish right from wrong or control one's actions during a criminal event. It is not a psychological diagnosis but a legal determination, and individuals deemed "not guilty by reason of insanity" are often sent to a treatment facility rather than prison, especially if their actions were due to mental illness.

Mental incompetence

A legal term used when criminal suspects are deemed mentally ill and unable to understand criminal proceedings or assist in their own defense. Individuals who are considered mentally incompetent are typically placed in a mental health facility until they are determined to be mentally competent to stand trial.

Psychosis

A severe mental disorder where an individual loses touch with reality. It can involve a range of symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, which impair the person's ability to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

American Psychiatric Association (APA)

The leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with 173,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members and supporters. Published the DSM-5.

Psychological disorder

A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Dysfunctional disorder

Refers to a mental disorder that disrupts a person's ability to function in daily life.

Mental disorder

A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

Trephining

Holes are drilled into a living person’s skull in order to release demonic spirits thought to be causing the person’s disordered behaviors.

Demonology

The study of beliefs that evil spirits or demons invading the mind are the cause of psychological disorders.

Four humors

Refers to the four bodily fluids identified by Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, as being related to mental and physical health. These humors include:

1. Blood

2. Black bile

3. Yellow bile

4. Phlegm

Hippocrates believed that an imbalance in any of these fluids could lead to mental illness, laying the foundation for the idea that psychological disorders arise from physical sources, not from supernatural causes. However, the theory of the four humors is no longer scientifically valid.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition

A manual used today as the source of criteria for defining psychological disorders. (commonly referred to as the DSM-5).

Lobotomies

A method for treating psychological disorders that involved damage to or complete removal of the frontal lobe.

Electroconvulsive “shock” therapy

Used in the most serious cases of depression and involves the administration of a short-duration electric current between the temples that causes a seizure. The seizure causes the brain to release a significant amount of neurotransmitters that improve mood.

Etiology

The study of the causes of disorders or diseases.

Eclectic

A broad-based approach that combines multiple established approaches to treat and diagnose patients with psychological disorders.

Medical model

Assumes that mental disorders have biological causes, and therefore can be treated with medicine. Improves conditions in hospitals BUT assumes a single cause for disorders. Biological Approaches.

Psychological models

Incorporate a number of different approaches to explain psychological disorders, including psychodynamic, psychosocial, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic models. These models not only help explain the formation of personality but also provide different perspectives on the possible causes of psychological disorders.

Psychodynamic model

Explaining mental disorders is based on the Freudian belief that psychological problems or disorders stem from repressing past trauma, memories, or thoughts in the unconscious mind to avoid anxiety. When these anxiety-producing thoughts try to break through to conscious awareness, they may cause mental distress and maladaptive behavior. The psychodynamic approach seeks to understand how individuals view the world and their relationships within it, emphasizing that all human functioning stems from forces within the individuals themselves, particularly in their unconscious.

Behavioral model

Based on the theory that all behavior, whether adaptive or maladaptive, is learned. Behavioral theories explain how behaviors are acquired and maintained. For example, a fear of buttons can develop based on classical conditioning. In the case of seven-year-old Natalie, a loose button became lodged in her throat, causing her to panic. After the incident, Natalie began to cry and hyperventilate when putting on a shirt with buttons. Even at seventeen, she could not touch buttons without experiencing panic.

Illness anxiety disorder (IAD)

Obsession with getting a serious illness. Previously known as hypochondriasis or hypochondria, can be explained using operant conditioning. As a child, a person with IAD may have experienced prolonged periods of emotional isolation from their parents. When the child became seriously ill, the parents provided significant attention. The child learned that experiencing illness was positively reinforced by receiving attention, care, and love. As an adult, this learned association between stress (the trigger) and the feeling of being seriously ill is reinforced by receiving medical attention.

Cognitive model

Sees psychological disorders as stemming from illogical, irrational, or maladaptive thought processes. Focuses on examining a person's thinking to understand their behavior. It evaluates perceptions, attitudes, areas of focus, memories, and how information is processed in order to make an accurate diagnosis of a mental disorder.

Fight-or-flight response

Occurs when people encounter something dangerous or even life-threatening and respond physiologically in a way that prepares them to fight or flee. Part of the SNS.

Humanistic model

Based on the belief that mental illness predominantly stems from issues involving low self-esteem, poor self-concept, and the inability to be one’s authentic self.

Conditions of worth

Refer to the conditions an individual believes they must meet to be worthy of love or acceptance, particularly from others, such as family or society. In the example, Ana believes she must pursue a practical career like accounting to be accepted by her family, even though her authentic passion is acting. This divergence between her real and ideal self creates incongruence and can lead to emotional distress, such as depression.

Diathesis-stress model

Developed in the 1960s by David Rosenthal and recognizes a combination of biological and environmental causes of psychological disorders. It suggests that individuals who are genetically or neurobiologically predisposed to a psychological disorder may exhibit symptoms of the disorder when exposed to environmental stressors that trigger these symptoms. The model assumes that genetic factors increase the risk of developing a disorder, but environmental events must occur for the disorder to manifest. For example, schizophrenia and clinical depression are seen as biologically-based, but they require environmental stressors to trigger the disorder.

Diathesis

Refers to the predisposition or biologically-based vulnerability to a particular mental illness. The natural tendency or genetic risk someone may have to develop a certain mental illness. It's like having a higher chance of getting a condition because of your biology or family history.

Stressors

Are those environmental events that can trigger the onset of a biologically-based disorder. The events/things that stress us out!

Protective factors

Refers to steps that can be taken to decrease the likelihood that a specific disorder will present itself.

Sociocultural model

Emphasizes societal and cultural influences in the individual’s environment.

Cultural syndromes

Are categories of similar symptoms and explanations of causes that occur in a culturally-specific context and are recognized within the culture.

Cultural idioms of distress

Involve expressions of distress that do not necessarily involve specific symptoms or disorders but provide shared ways of experiencing and expressing personal and social concerns within a culture.

Taijin kyofusho

This is a social anxiety disorder specific to Japan in which a man or woman experiences intense fear that his or her body, a bodily function, or appearance will embarrass others.

Susto

Specific to areas of Latin America, this psychological condition includes severe anxiety along with physical symptoms caused by what is believed to be a religious-magic traumatic event that separates the soul from the body. Symptoms may include apathy, insomnia, irritability, and physical symptoms such as diarrhea.

Amok

Originating in Southeast Asia, this condition begins as a period of brooding and manifests as a sudden and possibly homicidal explosion of rage usually caused by a perceived insult.

Hwabyung/Hwabyeong

Specific to the Korean peninsula, an overwhelming feeling of anger related to perceived unfairness. It is often caused by the buildup of unresolved anger that has been suppressed for a long time. The trigger is usually a family-related event, and symptoms include heat sensation, respiratory symptoms, and heart palpitations.

Cultural relativism

A concept that explains the intersection between psychopathology and culture. In this model, psychological disorders can only be fully understood within the context of the culture in which they occur.

George L. Engel

A psychiatrist who developed the biopsychosocial approach, an integrated model that combines biological (medical), psychological, and sociocultural factors.

Biopsychosocial approach

An integrated model that combines the biological (medical), psychological, and sociocultural models and is believed by most professionals to be a more thorough approach to use when explaining, diagnosing, and treating psychological disorders.

Any mental illness (AMI)

Refers to mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders diagnosed according to specific DSM-5 criteria. It includes a broad range of mental health conditions and is reported to affect 18 percent of adults (eighteen years or older) in the United States. It encompasses a variety of mental health conditions, excluding substance abuse, and can affect individuals differently in terms of severity.

Serious mental illness (SMI)

Refers to mental, behavioral, or emotional disorders that meet specific DSM-5 diagnostic criteria and result in serious functional impairment, significantly interfering with major life activities. It includes conditions that can substantially impact daily functioning and require more intensive treatment or intervention.

Lifetime prevalence

Refers to the percentage of the population that at some point in their lives will have experienced the condition.

David Rosenhan

Was a renowned psychologist and researcher best known for his 1973 study on psychiatric hospitals, where he and seven other individuals, referred to as pseudopatients, presented themselves to various psychiatric hospitals in the United States (On Being Sane in Insane Places Experiment”). He developed the Diathesis-stress model.

Pseudopatients

Individuals who are not actually mentally ill but pretend to be in order to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals for research purposes.

Schizophrenic

Refers to an individual diagnosed with schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder characterized by disruptions in thought processes, perceptions, emotional regulation, and behavior. The literal translation is “split mind” which refers to a split from reality. A group of severe disorders characterized by the following:

1. Disorganized and delusional thinking.

2. Disturbed perceptions.

3. Inappropriate emotions and actions.

Down Syndrome

It is named after John Langdon Down who was the first medical professional to describe the condition that later would be associated with individuals born with an extra 21st chromosome. In 1965, the term Down syndrome officially replaced the terms mongolism, mongoloid, and mongolian idiocy.

ADD/ADHD

Attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. This is typically diagnosed in childhood but can also affect adults. The diagnosis requires the presence of specific behavioral symptoms as outlined in the DSM-5. The disorder is often treated with medications, though some alternative therapies, such as neurofeedback, are also used.