Abnormal Psychology
A.K.A. Psychological Disorders
A “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior is
judged to be atypical, disturbing,
maladaptive and unjustifiable.
(* Adapted from websource)
Early Theories
• Abnormal behavior was
thought to be evil spirits
trying to get out.
• Trephining was often used
Perspectives and Disorders
Psychological School/Perspective
Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic
Cause of the Disorder
Internal, unconscious drives
Humanistic
Failure to strive to one’s potential or
being out of touch with one’s feelings.
Behavioral
Reinforcement history, the
environment.
Cognitive
Irrational, dysfunctional thoughts or
ways of thinking.
Sociocultural
Biomedical/Neuroscience
Dysfunctional Society
Organic problems, biochemical
imbalances, genetic predispositions.
DSM 5
• Diagnostic
Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders:
the big book of
disorders.
• DSM will classify
disorders and
describe the
symptoms.
• DSM will NOT explain
the causes or possible
cures.
Some of the Major Disorder
Classifications
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Anxiety Disorders
Somatoform Disorders
Dissociative Disorders
Mood Disorders
Schizophrenic/Psychotic Disorders
Personality Disorders
Cognitive Disorders
Eating Disorders
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.
Phobias
Papaphobia
• A person experiences sudden
episodes of intense dread or
abject terror
• Must be an irrational fear
• Visit: http://phobialist.com/
Coulrophobia
Metrophobia
Katsaridaphobia
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
GAD
• An anxiety disorder in
which a 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
• An anxiety disorder
marked by a minuteslong episode of
intense dread in which
a person experiences
terror and
accompanying chest
pain, choking and
other frightening
sensations.
Obsessive –Compulsive Disorder
• Obsessions are recurrent and
persistent thoughts, impulses, or
images that cause distressing
emotions such as anxiety or disgust.
[People with OCD recognize that the thoughts,
impulses, or images are a product of their mind
and are excessive or unreasonable.]
• Compulsions are repetitive
behaviors or mental acts that the
person feels driven to perform in
response to an obsession. The
behaviors are aimed at preventing
or reducing distress or a feared
situation. [In the most severe cases, a
constant repetition of rituals may fill the day,
making a normal routine impossible.]
(OCD)
Compulsions, cont.
•
•
•
Cleaning
To reduce the fear that real or
imagined germs, dirt, or chemicals
will "contaminate" them some
spend many hours washing
themselves or cleaning their
surroundings.
Repeating
To dispel anxiety, some utter a
name or phrase, or repeat a
behavior several times. They
know these repetitions won’t
actually guard against injury but
fear harm will occur if the
repetitions aren’t done.
•
•
Checking
To reduce the fear of harming
oneself or others by, for example,
forgetting to lock the door or turn
off the gas stove, some develop
checking rituals. Some also
repeatedly retrace driving routes
to be sure they haven’t hit anyone.
Ordering and arranging
To reduce discomfort, some like to
put objects, such as books in a
certain order, or arrange
household items “just so”, or in a
symmetric fashion, or to have
things perfect.
Mental compulsions
In response to intrusive obsessive
thoughts, some silently pray or
say phrases (again & again) to
reduce anxiety or prevent a
dreaded future event.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
a.k.a. PTSD
• Flashbacks or
nightmares following
a person’s
involvement in or
observation of an
extremely stressful
event.
• Memories of the
even cause anxiety.
Somatoform Disorders
• Occur when a person
manifests a
psychological
problem through a
physiological
symptom.
• Two types……
Hypochondriasis
• Has frequent
physical complaints
for which medical
doctors are unable
to locate the cause.
• They usually believe
that the minor
issues (headache,
upset stomach) are
indicative are more
severe illnesses.
Conversion Disorder
• Report the
existence of severe
physical problems
with no biological
reason.
• Like blindness or
paralysis.
Pol Pot
Dissociative Disorders
• These disorders
involve a disruption
in the conscious
process.
• Three primary
types….
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)
Dissociative Fugue
• Dissociative Fugue is one or more episodes of amnesia in which the inability to
recall some or all of one’s past and either the loss of one’s identity or the formation
of a new identity occur with sudden, unexpected, purposeful travel away from
home.
Specific symptoms include:
• The predominant disturbance is sudden, unexpected travel away from home or
one’s customary place of work, with inability to recall one’s past.
• Confusion about personal identity or assumption of a new identity (partial or
complete).
• The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of Dissociative Identity
Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a
drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., temporal lobe
epilepsy).
Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Dissociative identity disorder is characterized by the presence of two or more
distinct or split identities or personality states that continually have power over
the person's behavior.
• With dissociative identity disorder, there's also an inability to recall key personal
information that is too far-reaching to be explained as mere forgetfulness. With
dissociative identity disorder, there are also highly distinct memory variations,
which fluctuate with the person's split personality.
• The "alters" or different identities have their own age, sex, or race. Each has his
or her own postures, gestures, and distinct way of talking. Sometimes the alters
are imaginary people; sometimes they are animals.
• As each personality reveals itself and controls the individuals' behavior and
thoughts, it's called "switching." Switching can take seconds to minutes to days.
When under hypnosis, the person's different "alters" or identities may be very
responsive to the therapist's requests.
Mood Disorders
Extreme or inappropriate emotions
Major Depression
• A.K.A. unipolar
depression
• Unhappy for at least
two weeks with no
apparent cause.
• Depression is the
common cold of
psychological
disorders.
Seasonal Affective Disorder
• Experience
depression during
the winter months.
• Based not on
temperature, but on
amount of sunlight.
• Treated with light
therapy.
Bipolar Disorder
• Formally called manic
depression.
• Involves periods of
depression and manic
episodes.
• Manic episodes involve
feelings of high energy
(but they tend to differ
a lot…some get confident
and some get irritable).
• Engage in risky behavior
during the manic episode.
Personality Disorders
• Well-established,
maladaptive ways of
behaving that
negatively affect
people’s ability to
function.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Lack of empathy.
• Little regard for
other’s feelings.
• View the world as
hostile and look out
for themselves.
Borderline Personality Disorder
• The main feature of borderline
personality disorder (BPD) is a
pervasive pattern of instability in
interpersonal relationships, selfimage and emotions. People with
borderline personality disorder are also usually very
impulsive, oftentimes demonstrating self-injurious
behaviors (risky sexual behaviors, cutting, suicide
attempts).
Dependent Personality Disorder
• characterized by a long-standing
need for the person to be taken
care of and a fear of being
abandoned or separated from
important individuals in his or her
life.
• This leads the person to engage in
dependent and submissive
behaviors that are designed to
elicit care-giving behaviors in
others.
• The dependent behavior may be
see as being “clingy” to others,
because the person fears they
can’t live their lives without the
help of others.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
• Characterized by a long-standing
pattern of attention seeking
behavior and extreme
emotionality.
• These people want to be the
center of attention in any group
of people and feel uncomfortable
when they are not.
• While often lively, interesting and
sometimes dramatic, they have
difficulty functioning when
people aren’t focused exclusively
on them.
• People with this disorder may be
perceived as being shallow and
may engage in sexually seductive
or provocative behavior to draw
attention to themselves.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Having an unwarranted
sense of self-importance
& a belief that you are the
center of the universe.
• characterized by a longstanding pattern of
grandiosity (either in
fantasy or actual
behavior), an
overwhelming need for
admiration, and usually a
complete lack of empathy
toward others.
Schizophrenia
• Is a chronic brain disorder
that affects more than one
percent of the population.
• About 1 in every 100 people
are diagnosed with
schizophrenia.
• Researchers believe that a
number of biological and
environmental factors play a
role in the disease’s onset
and course.
• However, scientists do not
yet know which factors
produce the illness.
Types of Symptoms
(Schizophrenia)
• Positive symptoms
Hallucinations, such as
hearing voices, paranoid
delusions, and
exaggerated or distorted
perceptions, beliefs, and
behaviors.
Negative symptoms
A loss or a decrease in the
ability to initiate plans,
speak, express emotion, or
find pleasure.
• Cognitive symptoms
Confused and disordered
speech, problems with
memory, trouble with
logical thinking, and
difficulty paying attention
and making decisions.
[Symptoms usually first
appear in early
adulthood. Men often
experience symptoms in
their early 20s and women
typically first show signs of
the disease in their late
20s and early 30s.]
Disorganized Thinking
• The thinking of a
person with
Schizophrenia is
fragmented and
bizarre and distorted
with false beliefs.
• Disorganized thinking
comes from a
breakdown in selective
attention.- they
cannot filter out
information.
Delusions (false beliefs)
• Delusions of
Persecution
• Delusions of
Grandeur
Disturbed Perceptions
• hallucinationssensory experiences
without sensory
stimulation.
Inappropriate Emotions and
Actions
• Laughing at
inappropriate times
• Flat affect: A severe
reduction in emotional
expressiveness
• Catatonia- stoic,
motionless
Positive v. Negative Symptoms
Positive Symptoms
•Presence of
inappropriate symptoms
Negative Symptoms
•Absence of
appropriate ones.
Types of Schizophrenia (DSM-IV)
Disorganized Schizophrenia
• disorganized speech or
behavior, or flat or
inappropriate emotion.
• Clang associations
• "Imagine the worst
Systematic, sympathetic
Quite pathetic,
apologetic, paramedic
Your heart is prosthetic"
Paranoid Schizophrenia
• preoccupation with
delusions or
hallucinations.
• Somebody is out to
get me!!!!
Catatonic Schizophrenia
• Flat effect
• Waxy Flexibility
• parrot like repeating
of another’s speech
and movements
Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
• Many and
varied
Symptoms.
Therapy
• It used to be that if
someone exhibited
abnormal behavior,
they were
institutionalized.
• Because of new drugs
and better therapy,
the U.S. went to a
policy of
deinstitutionalization.
Psychoanalytic Therapy
• Psychoanalysis
(manifest and latent
content through:
hypnosis, free
association, ink blot
interpretation, dream
analysis, etc.)
• Try to tap into the
Unconscious
Humanistic Therapy
• Client-Centered Therapy [Carl Rogers]
• These are non-directive therapies and use active listening
(a particular form of listening and is communication technique used in counselling, training and conflict resolution,
which requires the listener to feed back what they hear to the speaker, by way of re-stating or paraphrasing what they
have heard in their own words, to confirm what they have heard and moreover, to confirm the understanding of both
parties).
• Self-actualization - Self-actualization, according to Maslow, represents growth of an individual
toward fulfillment of the highest needs; those for meaning in life, in particular
• free-will - Humanistic psychologists explicitly endorse the idea that people have free will and are capable of
choosing their own actions (although they may not always realize this). They also take the view that all people have a
tendency towards growth and the fulfillment of their potential.
• unconditional positive regard
- differs from unconditional love in that there need not be
actual feelings of warmth and affection behind the attitude. Rather, unconditional positive regard requires that a
person be warm and accepting even when another person has done something questionable.
Humanistic psychologists believe that:
• An individual's behavior is primarily determined by his perception of the world
around him.
• Individuals are not solely the product of their environment.
• Individuals are internally directed and motivated to fulfill their human potential.
Behavioral Therapies
BT: The premise is that all behavior is learned; faulty learning (i.e.
conditioning) is the cause of abnormal behavior. Therefore the individual has to
learn the correct or acceptable behavior.
Counterconditioning - the conditioning of an unwanted behavior or response to a stimulus into a wanted behavior
or response by the association of positive actions with the stimulus.
Classical Conditioning
1.
Aversive Conditioning - Aversion therapy is a form of psychological treatment
in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being subjected
to some form of discomfort.
2. Systematic desensitization - The goal of systematic desensitization is to
overcome this avoidance pattern by gradually exposing patients to the phobic
object until it can be tolerated.
3. Flooding - The underlying theory behind flooding is that a phobia is a learned
fear, and needs to be unlearned by exposure to the thing that you fear.
Operant Conditioning
•
Token Economy -- A token economy is a form of behavior modification
designed to increase desirable behavior and decrease undesirable behavior with
the use of tokens.
Cognitive Therapy
• Changes the way we view the world (change our
schemas)
• A schema is a cognitive framework or concept that
helps organize and interpret information.
• Cognitive therapy (or cognitive behavioral therapy) helps
the client to uncover and alter distortions of thought
or perceptions which may be causing or prolonging
psychological distress.
Somatic Therapy
(or Body Oriented Psychotherapy)
Somatic treatments for mood disorders represent a class of interventions
available either as a stand-alone option, or in combination with
psychopharmacology, psychosurgery and/or psychotherapy (ex: talk-therapy).
Techniques are grouped into the following categories:
• seizure therapies, including electroconvulsive therapy and magnetic seizure
therapy
• noninvasive techniques, including repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation,
transcranial direct current stimulation, and cranial electric stimulation
• surgical approaches, including vagus nerve stimulation epidural electrical
stimulation, and deep brain stimulation
Somatic Therapy: Psychopharmacology
• Antipsychotics
(thorazine, haldol)
• Anti-anxiety (valium,
barbiturates, Xanax)
• Mood Disorders
(serotonin reuptake
inhibitors)
• Bipolar (lithium)
Group Therapy
• a type of psychotherapy that involves one (or more)
therapists working with several people at the same
time
• The key advantages of group therapy include: 1) allows
people to receive the support and encouragement of the other
members of the group, 2) Group members can serve as role
models to other members of the group, 3) Group therapy is very
cost effective for the individual participants, 4) Group therapy
offers a safe haven for people intimidated by one-on-one
therapy, 5) By working in a group, the therapist can see firsthand how each person responds to other people and behaves in
social situations