Psychological Disorders: Mood Disorders and Schizophrenia Flashcards
Mood Disorders
disturbance in affect or emotion; also called affective disorders
Major Mood Disorders
Major Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia
Clinical Depression and behaviors
deeply depressed mood or an inability to experience pleasure that comes on fairly suddenly and is out of proportion with the circumstances surrounding it
Behaviors and thoughts change with depression: inactive, empty, attend selectively to negative aspects of the environment, and expect negative outcomes
Depression is often brought on by stressful events
Name 2 Facts about Depression
Depression is widespread: 300 million people suffer from depression and/or bipolar disorder; occurs in every country worldwide
Depression is twice as likely in women: gender gap starts after puberty
Most depressive episodes end on their own: therapy speeds recovery, but most will get better eventually without it
Bipolar Disorder
cycling RAPIDLY between manic episodes(extreme happiness) and depressive episodes; Depression following can sometimes even be worse than clinical depression; does not respond to medications in clinical depression well
Manic Phase Description
- Euphoric feeling
- Little need for sleep
- Speech is loud, flighty, hard to interrupt
o Can go on for a while - Extreme optimism and self-esteem
- Irritated easily, especially by advice
- Poor judgement
o Increase of impulsive and risky behaviors(Example: huge ideas without reasoning, switch from one to the next, delusions, irrational optimism) - Increase in creativity and boost in productivity
Bipolar One vs. Bipolar Two
Psychotic components/disorder; Break from reality, see things that aren’t really happening
vs.
cycling between episodes(can last from weeks to days)
Schizophrenia
long lasting psychotic disorder(involving a break with reality) characterized by disturbances in thinking, emotions, behavior, and perception
Takes on lots of different symptoms, can vary greatly from person to person; Can be handled with medication, have longer stages of remission over psychotic episodes; Can still work, have healthy relationships, etc.
Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia
excessive behaviors, outside social norm
Hallucinations(experiencing something that is not there); Believing you see Abraham Lincoln
Delusions(belief that is not true); Example: believing you are Abraham Lincoln
disorganized thinking, irrational thought(word salad: thoughts thrown together that do not really connect)
categorized set of words they may repeat
Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia
they lack a normal behavior
flat affect(not showing emotion in speech, no changes in emotions that are expected in conversation)
catatonia(person is unresponsive, yet awake, not in a coma); can be moved around, posed, just unmoving and awake
social withdrawal, Do not associate with other people
lack of speech, mute
What causes Schizophrenia?
Probably multiple factors(exposed to largely stressful event), Strong evidence that it is biological, neurogenerative disorder; Genetic Factors
High amounts of THC can trigger episodes; Onset can range from 18-21 years old; Multiple things that play a role, genetics can play component
Genetic factors in Schizophrenia
Some people can be exposed to same stressful event and only one develops disorder(genetics play big role, but more than that)
Example: Twins have same genotype(Identical: 100%, Fraternal: 50%); Look at concordance rate(how frequently will other twin get a disease that one twin has developed?)
o Identical Rate: 49%
o Fraternal Rate: 7%
- Seems like the more DNA shared, the more likely it is to develop(but it doesn’t mean it will, just higher risk!)
Example: Schizophrenia in Adopted vs Biological Family; More likely seen in biological family than adopted family
Dopamine Hypothesis
theory that it is excessive dopamine that causes schizophrenia, either creates excessive amounts or VERY sensitive to normal amount
evidence: drugs that block dopamine reduce positive symptoms of schizophrenia
**those without schizophrenia using drugs like this will experience hallucinations/delusions; Correlation between dopamine amounts, but does not mean that is all it is(correlation does not equal causation)
