Psychology Abnormal Review

1. What is Trephining

• Original “treatment” for mental disorders.

• Thought patients were possessed by demons and drilled holes to let demons out.

• Worked because people were scared enough to “snap” back into normal

2. What is the definition of insanity?

• mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.

• Cannot distinguish right from wrong.

3. Factors to determine abnormal behavior?

• Distress• Maladaptiveness• Irrationality• Unpredictability• Unconventional or undesirable

4. Common methods used to treat mental disorders

• Drugs – Traditionally only work to get rid of or control symptoms but often don’t treat the actual disorder.

• Therapy – Various forms of therapy seek to figure out the cause and get the patient to work through it which treats the disorder.

5. Rosenhans Study

• Proved the criteria for establishing mental illness is fuzzy.

• Demonstrated problems with psychiatric hospitals

• Showed bias present in mental health diagnosis

6. Dissociative Disorders

• Characterized by episodes during which patients are unable to recall important personal information. These episodes of forgetfulness are too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

• Psychogenic Fugue, Psychogenic Amnesia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Depersonalization Disorder

7. Fugue vs. Amnesia

• Fugue: memory loss takes the form of lost sense of identity.

• During fugue, people have no memory of past lives but regain it quickly when the state passes.

• Amnesia: pervasive memory loss related to a specific event or events.

8. Examples of DID

• Different clothing or food choices• Different likes and dislikes• Different speech patterns or accents• Different allergies or reaction• Different genders

9. Depersonaliziation Disorder

• Dissociative Disorder in which the sufferer has strong feelings of being outside their physical or mental body.

10. Somatoform Disorders

• Characterized by the repeated presentation of physical symptoms in spite of negative findings and reassurances by doctors that the symptoms have no physical basis.

• Hypocondriasis and Conversion Disorder

11 & 12. Disorders

• Conversion Disorder: Paralysis, weakness or loss of function or sensation with no discernible physical cause.

• Hypocondriasis: A persistent worry about being sick. Every ache, pain or cough signals a serious disease.

13. Mood Disorders

• Mood disorders are clinical conditions characterized by a disturbance of mood or persistent emotional states that affect how a person acts, thinks and perceives his or her environment.

• Major Depression, Bipolar

14. Depression vs. Major Depression

• Major Depression- a severe depressive disorder in which the person may show loss of appetite, psychomotor behaviors, an impaired reality testing.

• Depression – Temporary feelings of sadness or lack of positive outlook.

15. Suicide

• More frequent during exit events:• Death• divorce • moving • losing a friend

16. Groups

• 2X as high for white American than African Americans

• 1 in 4 Native American teens• Physicians, lawyers, and psychologists• Elderly- nearly twice the national rate• College students – leading cause of

death.

17. Suicide Myths

• Only about 20% for attention• 75% of successful suicide made

previous attempts• Not necessarily “insane”, rather loss

of hope

18. Stages of Bipolar• Mood swings from mania to depression

unrelated to external events.

19. Types of Bipolar

• Bipolar I – has both phases but tend to be more in mania

• Bipolar II – has both but tend to spend more time in depression

20. Anxiety Disorders

• Mental and physical manifestations of anxiety not attributable to real danger.

• Panic Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, phobias

21. Phobias• a phobia is an irrational and excessive

fear of an object or situation.

• Three types:– Social phobias: deals with fears of other

people and/or social situations– Specific phobias: deals with fears of

specific things– Agoraphobia: deals with fear of being

trapped inescapable place or situation.

22. Phobias vs. fears

• What makes phobia different than fear?

– Unrealistic– Detrimental to ability to function– Not proportional to situation

23. Categories of Specific Phobias

• Specific phobias:– The natural environment– Animals – Medical – Situational

24. Panic Disorder

• Sudden attacks of anxiety unrelated to real danger and not proportional to the situation.

25. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• A persistent state of anxiety characterized by worst case reactions, a state of heightened attention and out of proportion reactions.

• The missing child example.

26. OCD

• characterized by the obsessive need to perform some task or tasks in order to lower anxiety levels.

• These tasks are often known as rituals.

27. Compulsions

• Compulsions: actions that the person performs, usually repeatedly, in an attempt to make the obsession go away.

• Obsessions: ideas that the person cannot stop thinking about.

 

28. PTSD

• An anxiety disorder that occurs after an individual suffers a traumatic event.

29. Types of Symptoms for PTSD

• Reliving the event• Avoiding situations that remind you

of the event• Feeling numb• Hyper-arousal or being “keyed up”

30. Personality Disorder

• Deeply ingrained, maladaptive patterns of behavior.

• Narcissistic, Borderline and Antisocial personality disorders

31. Borderline

• Borderline Personality Disorder is a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.

32. Narcissistic

• Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

33. Antisocial

• Antisocial Personality Disorder is a pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.

34. Schizophrenic Disturbances

• Emotions are blunted with bizarre thoughts.

• Hallucinations• Fragmented memories• Meaningless mental detours• Feelings of being watched or

observed

35. Delusions

• Auditory hallucinations• Visual hallucinations• Incomplete or imagined memories• Persecution or grandiosity

36. Types of Schizophrenia

• Disorganized type• Catatonic type• Paranoid type• Undifferentiated type• Residual type

37. Body Dismorphic Disorder

• Mental disorder when individuals can't stop thinking about a flaw with their appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined.

38. Anorexia vs. Bulimia

• Anorexia: Voluntarily not eating because of anxiety over weight and body image.

• Bulimia: Eating large amounts of food (bingeing) and then purging through throwing up, excessive exercise or use of laxatives.