Psych test study

Disorders - Chapter 15

Vocabulary:

Medical Model: mental illness — like physical illness — should be treated and diagnosed

DSM- 5: The current list/definitions of all mental disorders

 The 4 D’s in the DSM that classify a disorder

  • Disturbance of thought, emotion, or behavior

  • Dysfunction of developmental or biological processes

  • Distress (or disability) in everyday life

  • Deviant thought, emotion, or behavior (only if it interferes with life)


Psychotic Disorders: Disorders which interfere with someone’s ability to differentiate between real and imagined entities.

Schizophrenia - diathesis-stress; someone is predisposed but requires specific stressors for the illness to manifest

Cognitive Symptoms

  • Enlarged vesicles

  • Smaller prefrontal cortex

  • memory loss

  • disorganized speech

  • immobility

Negative Symptoms

  • Issues with memory

  • Reduced efficiency in neuron firing

Postive Symptoms

  • Hallucinations

Environmental Influence

  • Infection during pregnancy significantly increases risk of offspring schizophrenia

  • Abuse during childhood

  • Neglect during childhood

Genetic Influence

  • Schizophrenia is likely largely genetic (64-85%)

  • More primary links to schizophrenia = much higher risk

  • Dopamine theory / glutamine theory - each have holes in the plot

  • 17 different genes involved in schizophrenia


Depressive Disorders: Mental disorders that impact the emotions and mood that interfere with someone’s life.

Major Depressive Disorder: A substantial long term feeling of emptiness

The Nine Symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder

Cognitive

  • Depressed mood that stays low

  • Reduced interest/pleasure in doing anything

  • excessive guilt

  • Suicidal ideation without the intent / action of attempting suicide

  • Sluggishness/ restlessness

  • Lack of ability to concentrate/ think clearly

Physical

  • Significant change in body weight

  • Sleep disturbances

  • Daily fatigue / loss of energy

Origins of Depression

  • Traumatic life events

  • Epigenetics

  • helplessness

  • extreme stress

  • if your mother has a rough childhood she is more likely to have depression and pass it to her offspring

    • that woman is also more likely to have financially illiterate children

  • inheritance of “short serotonin genes”


Bipolar Disorders: Mental disorders which the patient experiences significant cyclical shifts in mood, alternating between major depressive and manic episodes.

Major Depressive Episodes:

  • BPD sufferers experience episodes of depression

  • Lowered motivation, self worth, typical symptoms

Manic Episodes

To be considered a full manic episode, symptoms must progress for a week or longer

Typically, people consider mania euphoria compared to depressive episodes

  • Distractibility

  • Indiscretion (bad choices)

  • Grandiosity (big choices)

  • Flight of Ideas (jumping from one topic to another in conversation)

  • Activity increases

  • Sleep (decreased need for sleep)

  • Talkativeness

Bipolar I Disorder

  • Mixed manic and depressive episodes

Bipolar II Disorder

  • Mixed depressive and hypomanic episodes (manic episodes lasting 4 days appx.)

Cyclothymia

  • Less intensive than BPDII that doesn’t meet full criteria

  • Still very hard to live with

Origins of BPD

  • Prenatal alcoholism

  • largely Genetic

Physiological Symptoms

  • reduced connectivity between amygdala and prefrontal cortex

  • Dramatic changes in seretonin and norepanepherine in the brain (swinging between manic and depressive episodes)


Anxiety Disorders: Disorders in which constant feelings of worry interfere with daily life.

Social Anxiety disorder

  • intense fear of humiliation/ embarrassment

  • Fear of social interaction

  • Avoiding social situations

  • isolationism

  • Concern with physical appearance

  • extremely self conscious behavior

Panic Disorder

  • Recurrent panic attacks

  • Severe fear of having another panic attack for at least a month after episode

  • Panic attacks

    • fear of death

    • feeling of impending doom

    • heart palpitations

    • dizziness

    • trembling

Agoraphobia

  • The fear of being in a circumstance where one cannot escape or get help

  • Results in being housebound

  • Avoidance of circumstances

  • Interferes with daily life

General Anxiety Disorder

  • Most common kind of anxiety disorder

  • Feelings of anxiety and worry proceeding a 6 month period

Specific Phobia

  • A person doesn’t typically have general anxiety

  • Severe fear of a specific event/ circumstance/ activity

  • Put effort into avoiding specific thing

  • anxiety when thinking about the specific thing

Origins of Anxiety Disorders

  • Deficiency of GABA inhibitory neurotransmitters

  • Unfavorable/ stressful childhood

  • Genetic predisposition

  • Epigenetic


Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - OCD

ODC is characterized by uncontrollable unpleasant thoughts, which are then followed by a specific calculated compulsion aimed at reducing anxiety.

Physical Symptoms

  • Hyperactivity of the limbic system, mistaking obsessions for anxiety

Cognitive Symptoms

  • Checking

  • Counting

  • Persistent and unpleasant uncontrollable thoughts

Origins of OCD

  • Prenatal infection

  • Deficiency of SPREAD2 neurotransmitter


Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD is characterized by persistent, uncontrollable symptoms in response to a traumatic event, persisting for at least one month.

Physical Symptoms

  • Impacts hippocampus, hypothalamus, pituitary gland

  • Inability to form or stop hypothamic-pituitary gland axis excitation event

Cognitive Symptoms

  • Flashback (vivid images of or surrounding the event that can occur during sleep or wake)

  • Decreased self image

  • Self blame surrounding the event

Origins

  • Traumatic event


Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative Identity Disorder

  • Linked to abuse but is NOT PTSD

  • Believed to be a coping mechanism gone wrong

  • no control over dissociation

Symptoms

  • 2 or more separate identities

  • blurred sense of self

  • lack of control

  • memory gaps

Causation

  • Early childhood trauma

Notes about the illness

  • It is NOT a personality disorder it is a dissociative disorder

  • It is controversial because some people think the therapist makes it happen

  • 70% of people commit suicide


Personality Disorders

Three clusters of Personality Disorders

Cluster A - Odd eccentric personality disorders

  • unusual thoughts odd behavior

  • intense feeling of not belonging

Schizoid Personality Disorder

  • Isolationism

  • No interest in reward/ criticism

Schizotype Personalty Disorder

  • Reclusive

  • Visualizations

  • thinking media is about them

Paranoid Personality Disorder

  • Distrust in others

  • Testing people to ensure loyalty

  • long term grudges

Cluster B - Dramatic-Emotional or Erratic Personality Disorders

  • Attention seeking

  • warped self image (often overly positive)

Histiornic Personality Disorder

  • wanting to be center of attention

  • overly seductive, flamboyant, attention seeking

  • displays of intense but in-genuine emotion

Borderline Personality Disorder

  • Overly sensitive amygdala

  • Believing that people hate them and talk about them

  • eating disorders, self harm more common

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

  • Inflated and positive sense of self

  • disregard for others

  • Social isolation resulting from behavior

  • Success in work

Antisocial Personality Disorder

  • dangerous

  • impulsive

  • violent

  • killers

Cluster C- Anxious/ Fearful Personality Disorder

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

  • no true compulsions and obsessions

  • Strict routine following

  • A “my way or the highway” mindset

  • inflated sense of self


Origins of Personality Disorders

  • distorted amygdala shape

  • having a psychological disorder

  • Abuse

  • Injury

  • trauma