Psychological Disorders Common Features

Affective Disorders  Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)  DSM-5 Criteria for MDD… 1. Depressed mood or irritable most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). 2. Decreased interest or pleasure in most activities, most of each day 3. Significant weight change (5%) or change in appetite 4. Change in sleep: Insomnia or hypersomnia 5. Change in activity: Psychomotor agitation or retardation 6. Fatigue or loss of energy 7. Guilt/worthlessness: Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt 8. Concentration: diminished ability to think or concentrate, or more indecisiveness 9. Suicidality: Thoughts of death or suicide, or has suicide plan

298 Million cases worldwide – represents 4.4% of the World’s population. Mainly year olds. More women report suffering from MDD than men this could be due to Biological, Cognitive or Sociocultural factors. E.g. Possible hormonal imbalance, never learnt effective coping mechanisms and/or grew up in a destructive community. 5.5% women compared to 3.2% men. Lasts an average of 37.7 weeks.

Eating Disorders  Bulimia  Characterized by frequent episodes of binge eating followed by inappropriate behaviors such as self-induced vomiting to avoid weight gain.  DSM-5 Criteria for Bulimia… 1. Recurrent episodes of binge eating. An episode of binge eating is characterized by both of the following: 2. Eating, in a discrete period of time (e.g. within any 2-hour period), an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat during a similar period of time and under similar circumstances. 3. A sense of lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g. a feeling that one cannot stop eating or control what or how much one is eating). 4. Recurrent inappropriate compensatory behavior in order to prevent weight gain, such as self-induced vomiting, misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or other medications, fasting etc.

 Compensatory Behaviour must occur once a week for 3 months to be classified as bulimia.  Lewinsohn (2002) discovered that women were generally more dissatisfied with their body image and met more of the criterion than men except for excessive exercise, which is almost entirely a male practice.  Due to unobtainable standards set by mainstream media, many people feel the need to overcompensate for any food they consume and this leads to psychological disorders like bulimia.  Women more commonly suffer from bulimia due to a number of different factors, which could be analysed from the 3 LOA’s, but obsession with physical perfection is a concept that is abused by marketing companies around the world and therefore leading to deeper psychological insecurities.