Unit 12

psychological disorder

a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior.

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ex. Being unable to work until you’ve washed your hands for 10 minutes.

attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

a psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

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ex. Jim hardly pays attention at school and fidgets a lot.

medical model

the concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital.

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ex. People went from blaming demons with illness to seeking to solve them medically

DSM-5

the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

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ex. Although the book is a good resource, it is not a

anxiety disorders

psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

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ex. generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, OCD, PTSD

generalized anxiety disorder

an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

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ex. Must be persistent after six months to be a disorder

panic disorder

an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations.

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ex. Puss in the forest after seeing death during the fight over the map

phobia

an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation.

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ex. arachnophobia is the fear of spiders

social anxiety disorder

intense fear of social situations, leading to avoidance of such.

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ex. Rob is afraid of performing in casual sports because he doesn’t want people to think negatively of him.

agoraphobia

fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one has felt loss of control and panic.

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ex. Kate doesn’t leave her house because she’s afraid of all of the risks that can happen.

obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

a disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions).

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ex. checking every single lock in your house before bed 3 times.

post traumatic stress disorder

a disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

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ex. Richard, a Vietnam vet, gets anxiety when hearing fireworks.

posttraumatic growth

positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.

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ex. Richard gets more appreciative of life when coming out of war

mood disorders

psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

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ex. major depressive disorder, mania, and bipolar disorder.

major depressive disorder

a mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

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ex. Tyrone is constantly tired and has no interest in doing anything at school

mania

a mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state.

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ex. Jim spends all of his money on lottery tickets because he was feeling goofy.

bipolar disorder

a mood disorder n which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

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ex. Hopi goes from thinking that everything is worthless in one week to being inspired and energetic in the next.

rumination

compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes.

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ex. Dwelling a mistake you made 4 years ago

schizophrenia

a psychological disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished or inappropriate emotional expression.

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ex. Josh constantly hears the voice of Mario telling him to jump on tables

psychosis

a psychological disorder in which a person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions.

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ex. Ron talks to what he thinks is his friend when there is nothing in front of him

delusions

false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

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ex. Those with paranoid tendencies are particularly prone to delusions of persecution.

hallucination

false sensory experience, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

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ex. Michael sees non existent gnomes.

somatic symptom disorder

a psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause.

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ex. vomiting, dizziness, blurred vision, difficulty in swallowing, severe and prolonged pain with no explicable cause

conversion disorder

a disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found

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ex. A person’s anxiety presumably is converted into paralysis

illness anxiety disorder

a disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease.

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ex. Having a cough and thinking you have cancer.

dissociative disorders

disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

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ex. A Vietnam vet who also experienced 9/11 was discovered to be a homeless person in Chicago who had no memory of his past

Dissociative identity disorder

a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities.

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ex. Marc Spector and Stephen Grant

Anorexia Nervosa

an eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly (15 percent or more) underweight.

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ex. Families of anorexia patients tend to be competitive, high-achieving, and protective

Bulimia Nervosa

an eating disorder in which a person alternates binge eating (usually of high-calorie foods) with purging (by vomiting or laxative use), excessive exercise, or fasting.

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ex. Families of bulimia patients have a higher-than-usual incidence of childhood obesity and negative self-evaluation

binge-eating disorder

significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory purging or fasting that marks bulimia nervosa.

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ex. Groose is pretty disappointed in himself for eating 10 packs of ramen, but that disappointment only lasts for 10 minutes before he goes for another 10 packs.

personality disorders

psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning.

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ex. A lot of people on social media seemingly have histrionic personality disorder

antisocial personality disorder

a personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members.

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ex. Henry Lee Lucas had brutally beaten, suffocated, stabbed, shot, or mutilated some 360 women, men, and children with no remorse.