Chapter 10 - Disorders featuring somatic symptoms

Question 1

Factitious Disorder

Answer 1

• Patients intentionally produce or feign physical symptoms
• Often research their ailments and are impressively knowledgeable about medicine
• Also known as Munchausen Syndrome

Question 2

Conversion Disorder

Answer 2

• Characterized by medically unexplained physical symptoms that affect voluntary motor or sensory functioning
• Inconsistent with known medical diseases

Question 3

Somatic Symptom Disorder

Answer 3

people become disproportionately concerned, distressed and disrupted by bodily symptoms they are experiencing and their lives are greatly disrupted by these symptoms

Question 4

Illness anxiety Disorder

Answer 4

people who are anxious about their health become preoccupied with he notion that they are seriously ill despite the absence of bodily symptoms

Question 5

Psychological factors Affecting other medical conditions Disorder

Answer 5

Psychological factors adversely affect a person’s general medical condition

Question 6

Mind-body Dualism

Answer 6

Claims that the mind or soul is totally separate form the body

Question 7

Malingering

Answer 7

Intentionally feigning illness to achieve some external gain, such as financial compensation or deferment from military service

Question 8

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

Answer 8

Parents or caretakers make up or produce physical illnesses in their children, leading in some cases to repeated painful diagnostic testing, medication and surgery

Question 9

Conversion and somatic symptom disorders are known as this

Answer 9

Hysterical disorders

Question 10

Briquet’s syndrome

Answer 10

• type of somatization pattern
• ailments often include pain symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, and neurological type-symptoms
• discovered by Pierre Briquet

Question 11

Predominant pain pattern

Answer 11

• key symptom is pain

- concerns and disruption produced by the pain are disproportionate to its severity and seriousness

Question 12

Nancy School

Answer 12

• They were able to produce hysterical symptoms in normal people - deafness, paralysis, blindness, and numbness - by hypnotic suggestion and they could remove the symptoms by the same means
• Founded by Liebault and Bernheim

Question 13

Primary Gain

Answer 13

when their bodily symptoms keep their internal conflicts out of awareness

Question 14

Secondary Gain

Answer 14

when their bodily symptoms further enable them to avoid unpleasant activities or to receive sympathy from others

Question 15

Cognitive behavioral view

Answer 15

• They propose that the physical symptoms of these disorders yield important benefits to sufferers
• believe that rewards are the primary cause of the development of disorders

Question 16

Psychodynamic theorists

Answer 16

view gains as indeed secondary, that is, as gains that come only after underlying conflicts produce the disorders

Question 17

Communication realm

Answer 17

• some cognitive-behavioral theorists propose that conversion and somatic symptom disorders are forms of self-expression, providing a means for people to reveal emotions that would otherwise be difficult for them to convey

Question 18

What do theorists believe the purpose of conversion is?

Answer 18

• it is not to defend against anxiety but to communicate extreme feelings - anger, fear, depression, guilt, jealousy - in a “physical language” that is familiar and comfortable for the person with the disorder

Question 19

Who displays the most somatic reactions?

Answer 19

• Latin America

- Says that the psychological reactions to life events are often influence by ones culture

Question 20

How are Conversion and Somatic symptom disorders treated?

Answer 20

• Psychotherapy
• Psychotropic drug therapy
• both

Question 21

Pyschodynamic therapists treat conversion and somatic symptom disorder how?

Answer 21

• they try to get them to become conscious of and resolve their underlying fears, thus eliminating the need to convert anxiety into physical symptoms

Question 22

Cognitive-behavioral therapists treat conversion and somatic symptom disorder how?

Answer 22

• exposure treatments
• expose clients to features of the horrific events that first triggered their physical symptoms, expecting that the clients will become less anxious over the course of repeated exposures and more able to face those upsetting events directly rather than through physical channels

Question 23

Illness Anxiety Disorder (Hyperchondriasis)

Answer 23

Chronically anxious about their health and are convinced that they have or are developing a serious medical illness, despite the absence of symptoms

Question 24

Cognitive-behavioral theorists believe illness anxiety disorder

Answer 24

• Illness fears are acquired through classical conditioning or modeling
• People with the disorder are so sensitive to and threatened by bodily cues that they come to misinterpret them

Question 25

How do cognitive-behavioral theorists treat illness anxiety disorder?

Answer 25

• exposure

- response prevention

Question 26

Psychophysiological

Answer 26

a group of physical illness worsened or caused by an interaction of biological, psychological and socioculture factors

Question 27

Ulcers

Answer 27

lesions that form in the wall of the stomach or of the duodenum resulting in burning sensations or pain in the stomach, occasional vomiting and stomach bleeding

Question 28

Asthma

Answer 28

causes the body’s airways to narrow periodically making it hard for air to pass to and from the lugs

Question 29

Insomnia

Answer 29

difficulty falling asleep or maintaining sleep

Question 30

Tension headaches

Answer 30

Marked by pain at the back or front of the head or the back of the neck

Question 31

Migraine headaches

Answer 31

Extremely severe, often nearly paralyzing headaches that are located on one side of the head and are sometimes accompanied by dizziness, nausea or vomiting

Question 32

Two phases of migraines

Answer 32

• blood vessels narrow reducing the amount of blood flow to the brain
• later blood vessels expand allowing a rush of blood to the brain stimulating nerves and causing pain

Question 33

Hypertension

Answer 33

State of chronic high blood pressure

Question 34

Coronary Heart Disease

Answer 34

Caused by a blocking of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that surround the heart and are responsible for carrying oxygen to the heart muscle

Question 35

What psychological factors do theorists believe increases chances of psychophysiological disorders

Answer 35

Certain needs, attitudes, emotions, or coping styles may cause people to overreact to stressors and so increase their chances of developing psychophysicological disorders

Question 36

Social Readjustment Rating Scale

Answer 36

• created by Holmes and Rahe
• assigns numerical values in the stresses that most people experience at some time in their lives
• shortcoming: it does not take into consideration the particular life stress reactions of specific populations

Question 37

Pyschoneuroimmunology

Answer 37

seek to answer this question by uncovering the links between psychosocial stress, the immune system an health

Question 38

What is the downside to too much norepinephrine, cortisol and other stress hormones?

Answer 38

• Norepinephrine triggers an inhibitory message suppressing the immune system
• Cortisol and other stress hormones lead to a poorer immune system

Question 39

Resilient personality types

Answer 39

Remain healthy even after a stressful event and are less susceptible to illness

Question 40

Relaxation Training

Answer 40

Physical relaxation will lead to a state of psychological relaxation

Question 41

Biofeedback

Answer 41

Therapists use electrical signals from the body to train people to control physiological processes such as heart rate or muscle tension

Question 42

Electromyograph (EMG)

Answer 42

Provides feedback about the level of muscular tension in the body

Question 43

Meditation

Answer 43

A technique of turning one’s concentration inward, achieving a slightly changed state of consciousness and temporarily ignoring all stressors

Question 44

Mindfulness Meditation

Answer 44

Being mindful but not judgmental of their feelings and thoughts, including feelings of pain, they are less inclined to label them, fixate on them, or react negatively to them

Question 45

self-instruction training

Answer 45

Helps patients cope with pain, therapists teach people to identify and eventually rid themselves of unpleasant thoughts that keep emerging during pain episodes and replace them with coping self-statements instead

Question 46

T/F: Psychological interventions are, in fact, often most helpful when they are combine with other psychological interventions and with medical treatment

Answer 46

True