Chapter 6: Somatoform and Dissociative Disorders Flashcards
Definition of “somatoform”
Taking bodily form
Five factors to consider when diagnosing
1) Patient has lost or altered physical functioning
2) Symptoms cannot be explained by a known physical or neurological condition
3) Positive evidence that psychological factors are related to the symptom
4) The patient is often, but not always, indifferent to the physical loss
5) Symptoms are not under voluntary control.
Define conversion disorder
In which psychological stress is converted into physical symptoms
Somatization Disorder:
Define Briquet’s Syndrome
- The person had many physical complaints that began before age thirty, resulting in a complicated history of medical treatment.
- Complains involve many different organs and cannot be fully explained from known physical causes, nor are they under voluntary control.
Somatization Disorder:
What are four symptoms of Briquet’s Syndrome
1) History of pain related to at least four different areas, such as the head, stomach, back, joints, arms and legs, rectum, chest, or pain on sexual intercourse, menstruation or urination.
2) Fatigue, fainting, palpitations, menstrual problems, nausea, gas, indigestion, back pain, joint or limb pain, dizziness, sleep complaints, diarrhea or constipation, breathing difficulties
3) Pseudoneurological or conversion symptom that is not limited to pain, such as impaired coordination, paralysis, blindness, deafness, loss of sensation of touch.
4) Unnecessary surgery, addiction to prescription medicines, depression, attempted suicide are common complains of this syndrome
What is the difference between somatization and conversion disorder?
- Patient with somatization will suffer from many physical symptoms
- Patient with conversion generally has only one complaint
- Interestingly, symptoms occur more often on the right side of the body than the left, suggesting left-hemisphere involvement.
Define “pain disorder” (Psychalgia)
- Pain in one or more parts of the body causing marked distress or impairment.
- Psychological factors account for onset and severity.
- Involuntary
Define “hypochondriasis”
-Conviction of having a serious medical disease or fear of contracting one in spite of extensive evidence and reassurance to the contrary
What are the symptoms and behaviors of hypochondriasis?
- Conviction of having a serious medical disease or fear of contracting one in spite of extensive evidence and reassurance to the contrary
- Go to different doctors a lot because of inadequate care or diagnosis
- Refuses to accept that they are suffering from a mental disorder rather than something physical
Define “body dysmorphia”
Exaggerating a slight bodily imperfection to wholesale ugliness
How does one diagnose somatoform disorder?
Ruling out other disorders like Munchaussen Syndrome, malingering and factitious disorders.
Define “malingering disorder”
- Symptoms of malingering are under control
- Environmental goal with the symptom, such as sympathy, disability (SSI), getting out of work, etc.
Define “Munchaussen Syndrome”
Involves multiple hospitalizations and operations in which the individual voluntarily produces the signs of illness, not through underlying anxiety, but by psychological tampering
Who is at risk for somatoform disorder?
- Correlated with depression, alcoholism, and antisocial personality disorder
- Children of alcoholics
- Those with antisocial personality disorder
- Women, particularly those with moms who have or had it.
How does psychoanalysis explain how somatization disorder develops?
-Individual is anxious about some unacceptable idea and the conversion is a defense against the anxiety.
-Psychic energy is transmuted into a somatic loss
Anxiety is detached from the unacceptable idea, rendering it neutral.
-Because anxiety is psychic energy, it must go someplace.
-In this case, it debilitates a body part.
-The somatic loss symbolizes the underlying conflict.
How does the communicative theory explain how somatization disorder develops?
- People who have trouble expressing distress verbally
- Defending against depression, guilt or anxiety or anger.
- Physical illness distracts from psychological distress
Define “alexithymic” and how it relates to somatoform disorder.
- Meaning “no words for feelings.”
- These people are particularly prone to somatoform disorders
- Those with trauma who have not told about it are more likely to have physical symptoms and illnesses than those who disclosed information to others.
According to the “precept blocking view,” who is vulnerable to somatoform disorder?
-People with unbearable anxiety or distress or other distressing emotions
How does the “precept blocking view” explain somatoform disorder?
- The conversion process consists in blocking the precept from awareness
- Unbearable anxiety, or need to communicate distress or reinforcement of anxiety reduction
Who is at risk of dissociative disorder?
People who have suffered a strong psychological trauma sometimes experience a profound and lasting disturbance of memory.
Symptoms of dissociative disorder?
- Amnesia
- Depersonalization
- Derealization
- Identity confusion
- Identity alteration
Define “derealization”
When world seems unreal
Define “identity alteration”
In which one displays surprising skill that one did not know one had
Define “dissociative amnesia?”
A loss of personal memory caused by severe trauma.
