Chapter 12 - Mental Illness

Question 1

Psychological Disorders

Answer 1

a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in a persons cognition, emotion regulation or behavior

- Thoughts emotions or behaviors are maladaptive or dysfunctional and are often accompanied by distress

Question 2

DSM-V

Answer 2

a unformed system used to classify disorders which explains and lists every illness.

• You identify the abnormal behavior and associate it with a disorder that meets the criteria

Question 3

Critics of DSM-V

Answer 3

• It casts too wide of a net and brings in any kind of behavior
  ○ This means that everyday life can be a symptom for a disorder
  ○ E.g. a person experiencing normal grief can be assumed having a depressive disorder
  • Labels can create stigma
    
    • Variability in diagnosis from field trials

Question 4

Risks and Benefits of Labels around Psychological Disorders

Answer 4

Labels Risks:
- Can be self-fulfilling
- Makes mentally ill individuals appear violent and creates challenges in society

Label Benefits:
- Guide medical diagnosis and treatment
Help mental professionals communicate about their cases and study the causes of treatments

Question 5

5 Axis of DMS-V

Answer 5

A1: clinical Disorders
- A measurement of all the different acute symptoms there are
- Includes anxiety attacks and manic episodes

A2: personality Disorders
- The conditions that effect intellectual ability and personality disorders

A3: General Medical Conditions
- Neurological or medical complications that stem from psychological conditions

A4: psychosocial and environmental problems
- Social sources of psychological stress
- E.g. romantic fallout, loss of employment

A5: global assessment function
- A numeric rating of a patients ability to function in general

Question 6

Anxiety Disorder

Answer 6

characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety

Question 7

Theories of Anxiety Disorders

Answer 7

• Conditioning: when one learns to associate two or more things that occur together
  ○ Can explain how frightening events trigger phobias
  • Cognition: excessive anxiety coming from illogical, irrational thought processes
    • Biology: the impact of genetic make up and the brain in creating a predisposition towards anxieties, OCD or PTSD

Question 8

Types of Cognitive Anxieties

Answer 8

○ Magnification: the tendency to interpret situations as far more dangerous, harmful or important than they actually are
○ All or nothing thinking: the tendency to believe that one’s performance must be perfect or the result will be a total failure
○ Overgeneralization: the tendency to interpret a single negative event as a never ending pattern of defeat and failure
○ Minimization: the tendency to give little or no importance to ones successes for positive events or traits

Question 9

Types of Anxiety Disorders: GAD

Answer 9

when individuals continually feel tense, fearful and in a state of autonomic NS arousal
- Source can be unknown

Question 10

Types of Anxiety Disorders: Panic Disorder

Answer 10

characterized by unpredictable minute long episodes of intense dread
- Source can be unknown

Question 11

Types of Anxiety Disorders: Phobias

Answer 11

characterized by persistent, irrational fear towards an object, activity or situation

- Individuals tend to avoid triggers that arouse their fear
- A strong fear becomes  a phobia if it provokes a compelling but irrational desire to avoid the dreaded situation.

Question 12

Types of Anxiety: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Answer 12

characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts(obsessions), actions(compulsions or both
- Becomes a disorder when obsessive thoughts persistently interfere with everyday life and causes distress

Question 13

Types of Anxiety: PostTraumatic Stress Disorder

Answer 13

characterized by haunting memories, nightmares and other symptoms for weeks after a severely threatening and uncontrollable event

- Victims are people who experience a traumatic event; disaster survivors
- The higher the distress the greater the risk of PTSD

Question 14

Mood Disorder

Answer 14

emotional extremes

Question 15

Depressive Disorders

Answer 15

characterized by profound and persistent sadness, despair and or a decreased interest in things
- Impairs ones ability to function

Question 16

Types of Mood Disorder: Major Depressive Disorder

Answer 16

a person experiences prolonged sense of hopelessness and lethargy
- Symptoms must occur every day and last for 2 or more weeks

Question 17

Types of Mood Disorders:
Bipolar:

Answer 17

a person alternates between the feelings of hopelessness and mania
- Risen among adolescents
- mania: unreasonable elation and hyperactivity

Question 18

Theories of Mood Disorders: Psychoanalytical

Answer 18

depression results from anger at authority figures from childhood turned inward on the self(imagined or real) internalizing as guilt, shame, self hatred and self blame

Question 19

Theories of Mood Disorders: Biological

Answer 19

look at the function of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine systems in the brain

Question 19

Theories of Mood Disorders: Behavioral perspective

Answer 19

a learned theory which links depression to learned helplessness
○ Individuals view themselves as helplessness to escape a situation and experience negative moods

Question 19

Theories of Mood Disorder: Cognitive

Answer 19

disturbed or illogical thinking

Question 20

Personality Disorder and characteristics:

Answer 20

inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning

Characteristics of Personality Disorder:
- Withdrawal or avoidance of social contact
- Insecurity
- Instability
- Manipulative behaviors

Question 21

Theories for Personality Disorders: Psychoanalytical

Answer 21

blame is due to an inadequate resolution to the oedipal complex resulting in a poorly developed superego

Question 22

Theories for Personality Disorders: Cognitive

Answer 22

set of learned behaviors that have become maladaptive which are learned early on in life
○ Viewed as illogical

Question 22

Theories for Personality Disorders: Biological

Answer 22

results from lower than normal stress hormones

Question 23

Theories for Personality Disorders: Sociocultural

Answer 23

disturbances in the family, child abuse, child neglect and overly strict or protective parents.

Question 24

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Answer 24

lack of conscience for wrongdoing even towards friends and family members - Low EQ - People can be aggressive and ruthless or clever con artists - Aka sociopaths or psychopaths

Question 25

Two Types of Antisocial Personality Disorders

Answer 25

- Psychopaths: people who are incapable of empathy and forming loving relationships but they can pretend and they have no moral compass so do not feel guilt. - Born this way, nature argument - Sociopaths: people who are capable of empathy and guilt and are usually impulsive, hot tempered and erratic - Created due to traumatic experience, nurture argument

Question 26

Borderline Personality Disorder:

Answer 26

a mental illness centering on the inability to manage emotions effectively occurring in the context of relationships - Begins adolescence or early adulthood Loss neglect, bullying and forms of abuse can also lead to the development of BPD

Question 27

Avoidant Personality Disorder

Answer 27

extreme social inhibition and social avoidance due to feelings of inadequacy and hypersensitivity to criticism - Stem from fear of rejection or disapproval - Preoccupied with criticism or rejection in social situations - Views themselves as socially inept or inferior to others

Question 28

Dissociative Identity Disorders

Answer 28

individual exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities - Aka multiple personality disorder - Original personality denies any awareness of the other(s)

Question 29

Schizophrenia

Answer 29

a disease where the mind has suffered a split from reality and manifests itself through delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and or inappropriate emotional expressions - Victims can display both positive and negative symptoms: ○ Positive symptoms add ○ Negative symptoms take away

Question 30

Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

Answer 30

- Disturbed Perceptions and Beliefs - Disorganized Speech - Diminished and inappropriate Emotions and Actions

Question 31

Types of Schizophrenia

Answer 31

- Paranoid: preoccupation with delusions - Disorganized: disorganized speech or behavior or inappropriate emotions - Catatonic: immobility or excessive purposeless movement - Undifferentiated: many and varied symptoms(two or more of the above symptoms)

Question 32

Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nerosa

Answer 32

when people maintain a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight - The fear of being fat and begins often with dieting that doesn’t stop

Question 33

Eating Disorders: Bulimia Nervosa

Answer 33

person alternates binge eating with purging or fasting

Question 34

Eating Disorders: Binge Eating Disorders

Answer 34

significant binge eating followed by distress, disgust or guilt but without the purging or fasting