PoP wk 13

1. Psychological
Disorders

2. Psychological Disorders
 Psychological Disorder
 a “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior
is judged to be:
 atypical--not enough in itself
 disturbing--varies with time and culture
 maladaptive--harmful
 unjustifiable--sometimes there’s a good reason

3. Historical vs Modern Perspective
 Perceived Causes
 movements of sun or moon
 evil spirits
 Medical Model
 concept that diseases have physical causes
 can be diagnosed, treated, and in most
cases, cured

4. Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective

6. Psychological Disorders--Etiology
 DSM-IV-TR
 American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (Fourth Edition)
 Approximately 400 disorders
 17 categories

7. Two Major Classifications in the
DSM
Neurotic Disorders
• Distressing and can
impair functioning in
society; yet can act
rationally.
Psychotic Disorders
• Person loses contact
with reality,
experiences distorted
perceptions.
John Wayne Gacy

8. Anxiety Disorders
• a group of conditions
where the primary
symptoms are anxiety
or defenses against
anxiety.
• the patient fears
something awful will
happen to them.
• They are in a state of
intense apprehension,
uneasiness,
uncertainty, or fear.

9. Anxiety Disorders
 PET Scan of person with
Obsessive/ Compulsive
disorder
 High metabolic activity
(red) in frontal lobe areas
involved with directing
attention

10. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD)
• Flashbacks or
nightmares following a
person’s involvement in
or observation of an
extremely stressful
event.
• Memories of the event
cause anxiety.
• Exposure Therapy

11. Mood Disorders
• Experience extreme or inappropriate
emotion.

12. Depression

13. Mood Disorders- Suicide

14. Seasonal Affective Disorder
• Experience
depression during
the winter months.
• Based not on
temperature, but on
amount of sunlight.
• Treated with light
therapy.

15. Bipolar Disorder
• Formally manic
depression.
• Manic episodes involve
feelings of high energy
– Engage in risky behavior
during the manic episode.

16. Personality Disorders
• Well-established,
maladaptive ways of
behaving that
negatively affect
people’s ability to
function.
• Dominates their
personality.

17. Psychopathy and Empathy

18. Dissociative Disorders
• These disorders
involve a disruption
in the conscious
process.

19. Psychogenic Amnesia
• A person cannot remember
things with no physiological
basis for the disruption in
memory.
– Retrograde Amnesia
• NOT organic amnesia.
– Organic amnesia can be
retrograde or anterograde.

20. Dissociative Fugue
• People in a
psychogenic fugue
can find themselves
in an unfamiliar
environment.

21. Dissociative Identity Disorder
• A person has several
rather than one
integrated
personality.
• People with DID
commonly have a
history of childhood
abuse or trauma.

22. Schizophrenic Disorders
Symptoms of
Schizophrenia
1. Disorganized thinking.
2. Disturbed Perceptions
3. Inappropriate
Emotions and Actions
• About 1 in every 100
people are diagnosed with
schizophrenia.

23. Symptoms of Schizophrenia
• Positive and negative symptoms exist in
schizophrenia
– Positive: increase in behaviors (i.e.unusual
perceptions, thoughts, behaviors)
– Negative: loss of behaviors (i.e. motor movements,
social withdrawal, etc.)
• Some schizophrenics show both positive and
negative
• Better outcome for treatment in cases where
predominantly positive symptoms

24. Disorganized Thinking
• Fragmented and
bizarre thinking,
distorted with false
beliefs.
• Disorganized
thinking comes from
a breakdown in
selective attention.-
they cannot filter
out information.

25. Delusions (false beliefs)
• Delusions of
Persecution
• Delusions of
Grandeur

26. Disturbed Perceptions
• hallucinations- sensory
experiences without
sensory stimulation.
– Usually auditory
Louis Wain (1860-1939)
Anthropomorphic cats

28. Inappropriate Emotions and
Actions
• Laugh at inappropriate times
• Flat Effect
– Reduced facial expression
• Senseless, compulsive acts.
• Catatonic / Cataleptic-
motionless / waxy flexibility

29. Types of Schizophrenia

30. Disorganized Schizophrenia
• Disorganized speech or
behavior, or flat or
inappropriate emotion
• Clang associations
– Like rhyming words

31. Paranoid Schizophrenia
• Preoccupation with
delusions or
hallucinations.
• Somebody is out to
get me!!!!

32. Catatonic Schizophrenia
• Flat effect
• Waxy Flexibility
• Parrot like repeating
of another’s speech
and movements

33. Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
• Many and
varied
Symptoms.

34. Explaining Schizophrenia: The Brain
• Possible role of NTs
– Dopamine
– Glutamate
• Brain abnormalities
– Enlarged ventricles
– Brain dysfunction in temporal and
frontal lobes
– Hippocampus & amygdala smaller
in twin with schizophrenia

35. Genetics and Schizophrenia

36. The Role of Family and
Environment
• Family support
– Quality of family communication and
interaction
• may encourage/discourage development of
disorder, also trigger future episodes
• Exposure to chronic stress
– High-risk, low-income lifestyle may increase
susceptibility

37. The Rosenhan Study
• Rosenhan’s associates were
Malingering symptoms of
hearing voices.
• They were ALL admitted for
schizophrenia.
• None were exposed as
imposters.
• They all left diagnosed with
schizophrenia in remission.