4 th Edition Copyright Prentice Hall12-1 Psychological Disorders Chapter 12

Copyright Prentice Hall12-2 Abnormal Behavior By the standard of statistical rarity, behavior is abnormal when it is infrequent. Dysfunctional behavior interferes with a person's ability to function in day-to-day life. The criterion of personal distress is frequently used In identifying the presence of a psychological disorder. Departures from social norms are used to define deviant, and therefore abnormal behaviors; social norms, however, can change over time and vary across cultures.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-3 Abnormal Behavior Insanity, is a legal ruling that an accused individual is not responsible for a crime. Contrary to the public's understanding of the insanity plea, such pleas are infrequently used and rarely successful.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-4 Abnormal Behavior The medical model views abnormal behaviors as no different from illnesses and seeks to identify symptoms and prescribe medical treatments. The psychodynamic model considers abnormal behavior as the result of unconscious conflicts, often dating from childhood.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-5 Abnormal Behavior The behavioral model views abnormal behaviors as learned through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modeling. The cognitive model suggests that our interpretation of events and our beliefs influence our behavior. The sociocultural model emphasizes the importance of social and cultural factors in the frequency, diagnosis, and conception of disorders.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-6 Classifying and Counting Psychological Disorders The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) provides rules for diagnosing psychological disorders that have increased reliability.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-7 Classifying and Counting Psychological Disorders Epidemiologists study the prevalence and incidence of accidents, diseases, and psychological disorders.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-8 Classifying and Counting Psychological Disorders Phobias, alcohol and drug abuse or dependence, and major depressive disorder are among the most common psychological disorders.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-9 Classifying and Counting Psychological Disorders Many people suffer from more than one psychological disorder (co-morbidity).

Copyright Prentice Hall12-10 Anxiety, Somatoform, and Dissociative Disorders Anxiety involves behavioral, cognitive, and physiological elements. Phobias are excessive, irrational fears of activities, objects, or situations. The most frequently diagnosed phobia is agoraphobia.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-11 Anxiety, Somatoform, and Dissociative Disorders The DSM-IV also lists social phobia and specific phobia. Classical conditioning and modeling have been offered as explanations for the development of phobias.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-12 Anxiety, Somatoform, and Dissociative Disorders Most people who have the diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder have both obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are senseless thoughts, images, or impulses that occur repeatedly; they are often accompanied by compulsions, which are irresistible, repetitive acts.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-13 Anxiety, Somatoform, and Dissociative Disorders Somatoform disorders involve the presentation of physical symptoms that have no known medical causes, but psychological factors are involved. Among these disorders are hypochondriasis, somatization disorder and conversion disorder.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-14 Anxiety, Somatoform, and Dissociative Disorders Dissociative disorders involve disruptions in some function of the mind. In dissociative amnesia, memories cannot be recalled; in dissociative fugue, memory loss is accompanied by travel. Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality) is characterized by the presence of two or more personalities in the same individual.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-15 Mood Disorders The symptoms of depression include sadness, reduced pleasure and energy levels, feelings of guilt, sleep disturbances, and suicidal thinking. The lifetime prevalence of depression is twice as high among women as among men; prevalence rates around the world are increasing.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-16 Mood Disorders Suicide, which is often associated with depression, is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. The risk factors for suicide Include being male, being unmarried, and being depressed.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-17 Mood Disorders The risk factors for suicide include being male, being unmarried, and being depressed.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-18 Mood Disorders Bipolar disorder involves swings between depression and mania. The symptoms of mania include euphoria, increased energy, poor judgement, decreased sleep, and elevated self- esteem

Copyright Prentice Hall12-19 Mood Disorders Mood disorders tend to run in families, which suggests genetic transmission.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-20 Mood Disorders Depression may involve low levels of norepinephrine or serotonin. According to the learned helplessness model, depression can also be brought on when people believe that they cannot control outcomes.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-21 Mood Disorders A refinement of the learned helplessness model, the hopelessness model, suggests that typical ways of explaining negative events may be at the root of depression. Cognitive explanations focus on how errors in logic contribute to the development of depression.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-22 Schizophrenia Schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of the population. Although it is often confused with dissociative identity disorder, the two disorders are different. Schizophrenia is characterized by a split between thoughts and emotions and a separation from reality.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-23 Schizophrenia The symptoms of schizophrenia are classified as positive (distortions or excesses) or negative (reductions or losses). Positive symptoms include fluent but disorganized speech, delusions, and hallucinations. Negative symptoms include poverty of speech and disturbances in emotional expression such as flat affect.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-24 Schizophrenia The DSM-IV lists five subtypes of schizophrenia: catatonic, disorganized, paranoid, residual, and undifferentiated. Schizophrenia tends to run in families. The risk of developing the disorder increases with the degree of genetic relatedness between an individual and a family member who has schizophrenia.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-25 Schizophrenia Evidence of various brain abnormalities, including larger ventricles, in people with schizophrenia suggests a possible biological cause. The neurotransmitter, dopamine, seems to be involved in the development of schizophrenia..

Copyright Prentice Hall12-26 Schizophrenia Environmental influences on schizophrenia include stress and hostile family communication A predisposition to schizophrenia may be inherited, with the actual development of the disorder requiring the presence of other factors.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-27 Personality and Sexual Disorders Personality disorders are long-standing dysfunctional patterns of behavior. A person with antisocial personality disorder displays few of the signs usually associated with psychological disorders, such as anxiety. They are often described as deceitful, impulsive, and remorseless. Low levels of arousal may play a role in the development of this disorder.

Copyright Prentice Hall12-28 Personality and Sexual Disorders Gender Identity disorder (transexualism) is a sexual disorder in which a person believes that he or she should have been a member of the opposite sex. Paraphilias are disorders involving sexual arousal in unusual situations or in response to unusual objects. Fetishism is a paraphilia in which a person is sexually aroused by an object such as boots. One of the explanations for fetishism and perhaps other paraphilias is classical conditioning.