Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Psychological Disorders
- Medical Model - proposes that it
is useful to think of mental illness
as a disease.
- • Diagnosis – distinguishing
one illness from another.
- • Etiology – cause and developmental
history of an illness or disorder; origin
- • Prognosis – prediction about the
probably course of an illness.
- Criteria
- Deviance: different from what people in the person’s society/culture/religion consider normal.
- Maladaptive Behaviour: interferes with one’s social or occupational functioning.
- Personal Distress: Person with the disorder is suffering as a result.
- Psychodiagnosis and Prevalence
- Comorbidity- occurs when a person has two or
more diagnoses at the same time.
- Epidemiology - study of the distribution of mental or
physical disorders in a population
- Prevalence – percentage of population that has
a disorder during a specific time period
- Lifetime prevalence – percentage of people that ever
had the disorder in their lives.
- Anxiety Disorders
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder – chronic high level of
anxiety about various life matters. Some expect that
worrying about things will somehow decrease the
possibility of a negative outcome.
- Phobic Disorders – Unlike GAD, phobic
disorder is a fear of something specific. It
is a persistent, irrational fear of an
object or situation that actually present
no realistic danger.
- Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia –
Panic Disorder occurs when one has
recurrent attacks of overwhelming
anxiety that occur suddenly and
unexpectedly and begins to fear these
attacks.
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder -
Obsessions refer to thoughts
that one cannot stop thinking
about.
- Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder: This occurs if one
has a horrifying experience
where they believed they
could have died or witnessed
someone’s death.
- Etiology of Anxiety Disorders
- 1. Biological factors • Genetic predisposition, anxiety
sensitivity • Need GABA circuits in the brain
functioning well to remain calm. Valium affects GABA
• Concordance rates - Percentage of twin pairs or other
pairs of relatives who exhibit the same disorder.
- 2. Conditioning and learning • Acquired through classical
conditioning (pairing an event with fear) or
observational learning • Maintained through operant
conditioning – usually negative reinforcement
- 3. Cognitive factors -
Judgments of perceived
threat 4. Stress is a
precipitator of anxiety
disorders
- SOMATOFORM DISORDERS
- Somatization Disorder: (now called Somatic
Symptom Disorder) • person has many
physical complaints but appear to be
psychological in origin.
- Conversion Disorder • Psychological
problems converted to physical symptoms.
• Significant loss of physical function with no
medical reason
- Hypochondriasis (now called Illness
anxiety disorder) • Patient is constantly on
guard for a medical symptom and
misinterprets minor body
- DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS
- 1. Dissociative amnesia – issue of
memory, Individuals can lose some or
all of their memory including who they
are.
- 2. Dissociative fugue – issue of memory and
travel. Person is usually found in a different
city and they have no memory of how they
got there or who they are.
- 3. Dissociative identity disorder – formerly
called Multiple Personality Disorder.
- Mood DIsorders
- 1. Major depressive disorder Symptoms include
sad mood for at least 2 weeks, disinterest in
activities that usually bring the person pleasure
- 2. Dysthymic disorder - (now known as
Persistent Depressive Disorder) one has
less symptoms of depression but it is
chronic and continues for at least 2 years.
- 3. Bipolar disorder (manic-depressive disorder)
Alternates between depression and mania Symptoms
of mania: elevated or irritable mood, sleep little and
still have adequate energy, talkative, racing thoughts,
- 4. Cyclothymic disorder – less severe form of bipolar
disorder
- Rates of Mood Disorders – up to 10% of
Canadians will have a major depressive
episode sometime in their lives.
- Mood Disorders and Suicide - Women
attempt suicide 3 x more often than men.
However, men complete suicide 4 times
more than women.
- Etiology of Mood Disorders
- • Genetic vulnerability - Mood disorders run in families and
it is generally believed that one must have a genetic
vulnerability to get them.
- • Biological and Neurochemical factors – One may have
a predisposition toward abnormally low chemical levels
in the brain such as serotonin and norepinephrine.
- • Hormonal factors - Stesses results in
high cortisol levels which may result in
depression