Overview of Abnormal Psychology & Psychopathology: Understanding Psychological Disorders -, Study notes of Psychology

Download Overview of Abnormal Psychology & Psychopathology: Understanding Psychological Disorders - and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Unit 4  Abnormal Psychology  People are fascinated by abnormality as it relates to psychological disorders  Why? 1. It may be partly because we see something of ourselves in the abnormal (e.g. we all get depressed, anxious, withdrawn, antisocial) 2. It may be because many of us have felt bewildered and have felt the pain of a psychological disorder personally or through family and friends  Defining: - Norm-violation: a difference in the degree to which behavior or thinking resembles an agreed upon criteria (varies with culture and times; also often based on statistics) feeling sad, hallucinating  Thus abnormally as it relates to psychological disorders involves behavior - Considered atypical - Considered disturbing to others - Unjustifiable: not a normal reaction (e.g. laughing at a funeral) - Maladaptive: harmful  Psychopathology: study of mental disorders  Clinical psychology  Different views of “madness” through history - Primitive cultures: demonic possession (evil spirits) - Greeks (400 BC): disease (natural cause: imbalance in body fluids) - Middle Ages (15th-16th century AD): spiritual context (witches and devils) - Disturbed people in asylums (which were like prisons) - 1773 A critical turning point: Philippe Pinel- reformed French hospital system stated that madness was a sickness in response to severe stress and inhumane conditions  Models of mental disorders  Medical Model: mental disorders are diseases that have objective physical causes and require specific treatments  Psychological Models: mental disorders are attributed to the interaction of 3 factors 1. Biological: anatomy and chemistry of the brain’s other psychological processes 2. Psychological: unconscious conflicts, maladaptive ways of viewing the world and learning 3. Sociocultural: abnormality viewed differently around the world  Classifying mental disorders  Traditional break-down 1. Neurosis: symptoms related to ineffective attempts to deal with reality (try to reduce anxiety- such as with an obsessive individual) 2. Psychosis: general category for a number of severe mental disorders in which perception, thinking and emotion are impaired  DSM 4R (diagnostic and statistical manual): Classifies, but does not attribute cause - Helps in describing, treating and researching the cause of the disorder - Assumes medical model  230 psychological disorders and conditions are put into 17 categories, not including neurosis  Statistics - National Institute of mental health: 2006 - Mental disorders (all types) are common in the US - An estimated 26.2% of Americans ages 18 and older (1 in 4 adults) suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year  Types of Mental disorders 1. Personality disorder  Long standing, inflexible, maladaptive patterns of perceiving, thinking, or behaving  Subtypes of personality disorder - Narcissistic personality disorder  Need for constant attention, respond inappropriately to criticism, grandiose sense of self-importance  Why? Person does not grow out of view that he/she is the center of the world - Antisocial personality disorder (formally called a sociopath or psychopath)  Typically male  Violates rights of others: violent, criminal, in ethical, exploitative  Schizophrenia - A mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of the process of thinking and of emotional responsiveness - Most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid, or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social or occupational dysfunctions  Why personality disorder?  Emotional deprivation in early childhood  Learned from parents  Arrested moral development  Brain Abnormalities  Heredity  Anxiety disorders (originally grouped under “neurosis”)  Primary symptoms: anxiety (inappropriate to circumstances) or defenses that ward off anxiety  Subtypes of Anxiety disorders a. Phobias Diagnosis No Diagnosis Disorder Hit Miss No Disorder False Positive True Negative - Symptoms  Pervasive thought disturbance  Fluid thinking  Difficulty with selective attention  Withdrawal from social contact  Delusions (misinterpret real events)  Paranoid: some person or group is posing a serious person threat when there is none  Hallucinations (no actual stimulus)  Sometimes bizarre behavior (e.g. catatonic, odd gestures)  More sensitive to sensory stimuli example: Annick, she can hear voices if she chooses to  Why Schizophrenia? - Cognitive  Inability to keep thoughts in proper focus - Biological  Viral infection during pregnancy might impair development of fetal brain  Heredity  Neurotransmitter: too much dopamine being transmitted 7. Eating disorders  Deprive oneself of food or prevent food from being digested  Most are females - Anorexia Nervosa  1% of all adolescents  95% of adolescents are female  Fanatical dieting (self-starvation)  Intense interest in food, but view eating with disgust  Not aware that dieting behavior is abnormal  Menstruation can often be affected - Why?  Environmental: at a time when young women coming to grips with their changing bodies and sexuality, society bombards them with ads for rich foods and ads exposing a slim body - Bulimia Nervosa  Binge on high calorie foods in a short period of time and then purge  Secretive behavior  Aware that behavior is abnormal - Why?  Same as anorexia: environmental  Treatment of psychopathology  4 general steps of treatment - 1. Diagnosis: label - 2. Etiology: determine cause - 3. Prognosis: estimate cause of problem with and without treatment - 4. Treatment  Biomedical treatment - Deal with body, often by changing the brain’s function - Typically psychiatrists  In the past - Blood letting - Dunking in water - Trephining (drill holes in the skull)  Today - Drug therapy  Anti-psychotics: chlorpromazine (e.g. thorazine) block dopamine which has been implicated as a possible cause of schizophrenia  Tranquilizers: calm and relax (e.g. prozac) increase norepinephrine and serotonin  Lithium: bipolar disorder - Problems of drug therapy  Side effects (dry mouth, blurred vision)  Regulating dosage  Drug dependence  Interception of drugs  Not necessarily a cure - Psychosurgery  Prefrontal lobotomy  Cut connection between thalamus and frontal lobes  Thought to disconnect person from emotions and past trauma  BUT, brain damage including loss of memory, emotion, personality  Only used in most extreme cases (i.e. when nothing else works: intractable psychosis)  Electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT)  Originally used with schizophrenics, then used with severely depressed individuals  Now used only if drugs are ineffective or person is suicidal  Electrical current put through brain and each side of forehead  Loss of consciousness, followed by convulsive seizure (drugs given to minimize muscle contractions)  Not clear how it works, but may increase norepinephrine which elevates arousal and mood  Psychotherapy  Use of psychological methods to help people modify their behavior so they can move satisfactory adjust to their environment  It involves: - Emotional re-education - Interpersonal learning - Having person achieve greater self-knowledge  Types of psychotherapy - Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic - Problems stem from unconscious defenses pitted against unacceptable urges dating back to childhood  Person must achieve access to his buried thoughts and wishes, gain insight and resolve them (intra-psychic harmony): victory of reason over passion - Techniques  Therapists behind patient, remaining neutral and mostly silent 1. Free association  Bring unconscious (repressed) thoughts into consciousness, and these thoughts are interpreted by analyst (manifest vs. latent content) patient underlying meaning example: Patient talks about being possessive in a relationship (manifest), interpreted as due to father abandoning patient as a child (latent content) 2. Interpreting dreams  Manifest vs. latent content (horse example)  Person must not just remember things from the unconscious, but must regain access to the feelings that went along with them  This will allow for the catharsis: emotional release 3. Transference  Patient responds to analyst in personal terms  Analyst identified with a person who has been at the center of an emotional conflict in the person’s past  Behavior Therapy (behavior modification)  Importance of unlearning stimulus-response association and learning new S-R association 1. Classical conditioning techniques  Systematic desensitization: used with phobias 1. Learn relaxation technique: relax muscles when tense 2. Fear hierarchy: least to most feared situation 3. De-sensitization: imagine each situation while staying relaxed  Implosion flooding: used with phobias 1. No hierarchy 2. Continuous, intense exposure to anxiety provoking situation - Keep hand washer from washing hands - BUT, implosion may cause more anxiety  Aversion therapy - Learn negative association - Drinking and nausea  Positive association replaced with negative association example: Cheers- every time he says something obnoxious he gets shocked Friends- When Rachel sees a picture of Ross, Phoebe hits her  Use of operant conditioning  Reinforcement - Token economy: reward behavior with a token (positive reinforcement)  Punishment - Time out