Mental disorder: A persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behavior, thoughts, or emotions that causes significant distress or impairment.
Medical model: Abnormal psychological experiences have biological and environmental causes and possible cures, defined by symptoms.
Disorder: A common set of signs/symptoms.
Disease: A known pathological process affecting the body.
Diagnosis: Determination as to whether a disorder/disease is present.
Classifying Disorders – The DSM
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): A classification system that describes the symptoms used to diagnose each recognized mental disorder and indicates how the disorder can be distinguished from others.
Causation of Disorders – Two Approaches
Biopsychosocial perspective: Explains mental disorders as a result of interactions among biological, psychological, and social factors.
Diathesis-stress model: A person may be predisposed to a psychological disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.
A New Approach - RDoC
Research Domain Criteria Project: A new initiative that aims to guide the classification and understanding of mental disorders by revealing the basic processes that give rise to them.
Example: Instead of focusing strictly on cocaine addiction, focus on what causes abnormalities in responsiveness to reward.
Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorder: Class of mental disorders in which anxiety is the predominant feature.
Phobic disorders: Persistent and excessive fear/avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations.
Specific phobia
Social phobia
Preparedness theory
Panic disorder: Sudden occurrence of multiple psychological and physiological symptoms that contribute to a feeling of stark terror.
Agoraphobia
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): Chronic excessive worry accompanied by at least three of the following:
Restlessness
Fatigue
Concentration problems
Irritability
Muscle tension
Sleep disturbance
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder & PTSD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Repetitive, intrusive thoughts and ritualistic behaviors designed to fend off those thoughts that interfere significantly with an individual’s functioning.
Intrusive thoughts = obsessions
Ritualistic behaviors = compulsions
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Chronic physiological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma, and avoidance of things that call the traumatic event to mind.
Depressive Disorders
Mood disorders: Disorders that have a mood disturbance as their predominant feature.
Major depressive disorder: A severely depressed mood and/or inability to experience pleasure that lasts 2 or more weeks.
Worthlessness
Lethargy
Sleep & appetite disturbance
Persistent depressive disorder: Less severe depression persisting for at least 2 years.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD): Depressive episodes in a seasonal pattern.
Negative thoughts contribute to depression.
Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder: A condition characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent high mood and low mood.
High mood = mania
Low mood = depression
Notable individuals thought to have bipolar disorder:
Isaac Newton
Van Gogh
Abraham Lincoln
Winston Churchill
Theodore Roosevelt
Schizophrenia – Psychotic Disorders
Schizophrenia: Profound disruption of basic psychological processes; a distorted perception of reality; altered or blunted emotion; and disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior.
Positive symptoms: Thoughts and behaviors not seen in those without the disorder.
Hallucinations: False perceptual experiences that have a compelling sense.
Delusions: False beliefs that are maintained despite their irrationality.
Disorganized speech: Severe disruption of verbal communications in which ideas shift rapidly among unrelated topics.
Grossly disorganized behavior: Behavior that is inappropriate for the situation.
Catatonic behavior: Marked decrease in all movement or an increase in muscular rigidity and overactivity.
Negative symptoms: Deficits in or disruptions of normal emotions and behaviors.
Emotional and social withdrawal: Flattened affect.
Poverty of speech: Speech contains/conveys little information because the phrases are vague/empty.
Cognitive deficits: Impairments in executive functioning, attention, and working memory.
Schizophrenia - Biological Factors
Dopamine hypothesis - the idea that schizophrenia involves an excess of dopamine activity
Disorders of Childhood and Adolescence
Autism spectrum disorder: Condition beginning in early childhood in which a person shows persistent communication deficits and restricted/repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities.
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Persistent pattern of severe problems with inattention and/or hyperactivity or impulsiveness that impairs functioning.
Conduct disorder: Pattern of deviant behavior involving aggression to people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, or serious rule violations.
Personality Disorders - Antisocial Disorder
Numerous personality disorders exist including:
Paranoid
Borderline
Narcissistic
Dependent
Anyone familiar with the term sociopath or psychopath?
Antisocial personality disorder: A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood/early adolescence and continues into adulthood.
Self-Harm Behaviors
Suicide: Intentional self-inflicted death.
Suicide attempts: Potentially harmful behavior with some intention of dying.
Nonsuicidal self-injury: Direct deliberate destruction of body tissue in the absence of any intent to die.