Psychological Disorders

• Described as a harmful dysfunction in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable
• Early Theories suggest that those afflicted were possessed by evil spirits

Medical Perspective: 

Psychological disorders are sicknesses and can be diagnosed, treated, and cured.

Biopsycho Social Perspective:

• Assumes biological psychological and sociocultural factors combine to interact, causing psychological disorders

I. Anxiety Disorders:

• A patient fears something awful will happen to them

• they are in a state of intense apprehension, uneasiness, uncertainty, or Fear

Phobias:

• A person experiences sudden episodes of intense dread
• must be an irrational fear

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD):

• Person is continuously tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal
• The patient is constantly tense and worried, feels inadequate, is oversensitive, can't concentrate, and suffers from insomnia

Panic Disorder:

• Marked by minute-long episodes of intense dread in which the person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, and other frightening sensations

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD):

• Persistent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) cause someone to feel the need (Compusion) to engage in a particular fashion

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Memories of events cause anxiety
• Flashbacks/nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely stressful event

II. Somatoform Disorders

• Occurs when a person manifests a psychological problem through a psychological symptom

Hypochondriasis

• Has frequent physical complaints for which medical doctors are unable to locate the cause

Conversion Disorder

• Report existence of sever psychological problems with no biological reason

III. Dissociative Disorders

• Disruption in the conscious process

Psychogenic Amnesia

• A person cannot remember things with no psychological basis for the disruption in memory

Dissociative Fugue

• People with psychogenic amnesia find themselves in an unfamiliar environment

Dissociative Identity Disorder

• Used to be known as multiple personality disorder 
• A person has sever rather than one integrated personality (usually 3)
• People with DID commonly have a history of childhood abuse or trauma

IV. Mood Disorders

Experience extreme or inappropriate emotion

Major Depression

• Unhappy for at least two weeks
• Depression is the common cold of psychological depression

Seasonal Affective Disorder

• Expreience depression during winter months
• Based on amount of sunlight
• Treated with light therapy

Bipolar Disorder

• Formally manic depression
• Involves periods of depression and manic episodes 
• Manic episodes involves feelings of high or low energy

V. Personality Disorders

• Well established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people's ability to function 
• Dominates personality

Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Lack empathy
• Little regard for other's feelings
• View the world as hostile and look out only for themselves

Dependent Personality Disorder

• Rely too much on attention and help of others

Histrionic Personality Disorder

• Needs to be the center of attention

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• Having unwarranted sense of self importance
• Thinking you re the center of the universe

VI. Schizophrenic Disorders

• Found in about 1 person out of every 100.

Symptoms:

• Disorganized thinking
• Disturbed Perceptions
• Inappropriate emotions & actions

Disorganized Thinking

• Bizarre, fragmented, distorted, or false beliefs
• Comes from a breakdown in selective attention- they cannot filter out information

Delusions

• Delusions of Persecution (Thinking someone is always after you)
• Delusions of Grandeur (" I am perfect; Deal with it)

Disturbed Perceptions

• Hallucinations- Sensory experiences without sensory stimulation

Inappropriate emotions/actions

• Laugh at inappropriate times
• Flat effect
• Senseless compulsive acts
• Catatonia- Motionless

Positive (+) Vs. Negative (-) Symptoms

• (+) Hallucination
• (+) Disorganized
• (+) Deluded in their talk (Word Salad)
• (+) Inappropriate tears/rage/laughter

• (-)Toneless voice
• (-)Expressionless face
• (-)Absence of appropriate thoughts
• (-)Mute
• (-)Very Rigid body

Types of Schizophrenia

Disorganized Schizophrenia

• Disorganized Speech/Behavior
• Flat/Inappropriate Emotion
• " Imagine the worst"
• Systematic, Sympathetic, Quiet, Pathetic, Apologetic

Paranoid Schizophrenia

• Preoccupied with delusions/hallucinations

"SOMEONE

                    IS        

                         OUT 

                                  TO 

                                        GET 

                                                 ME!!!!!!!
[Edit]

• when people lose grip of reality and believe that something is there but isn't.

Catatonic Schizophrenia

• Flat effect 
• Waxy flexibility
• Parrotlike repeating of another's speech or movements