Perspectives on Psychological
Disorders
• Society: Behavior is abnormal when it does not
conform to the existing social order.
• Individual: One’s own sense of personal wellbeing determines normality.
• Mental-health professional: Personality and
degree of personal discomfort and life functioning
determine normality.
Approaches to Psychological
Disorders
• biological model: Disorders have a
biochemical or physiological basis.
• psychoanalytic model: Disorders result from
unconscious internal conflicts.
• cognitive-behavioral model: Disorders result
from learning maladaptive ways of thinking
and behaving.
Approaches to Psychological
Disorders
• diathesis-stress model: People biologically
predisposed to a mental disorder (diathesis)
will tend to exhibit that disorder when
particularly affected by stress.
• systems approach: Biological,
psychological, and social risk factors
combine to produce disorders.
Diagnostic & Statistic Manual of
Mental Disorders (4th edition)
• A publication of the American Psychiatric
Association that classifies over 230
psychological disorders into 16 categories.
• The most widely used classification of
psychological disorders.
Diagnostic Categories of DSM-IV
Diagnostic Categories of DSM-IV
Mood Disorders
Disturbances in mood or prolonged emotional
state.
• depression
• mania
• bipolar disorder
Depression
• A mood disorder characterized by
overwhelming feelings of sadness,
• lack of interest in activities,
• and perhaps excessive guilt or feelings of
worthlessness.
Mania
• A mood disorder characterized by euphoric
states,
• extreme physical activity,
• excessive talkativeness,
• distractedness,
• and sometimes grandiosity.
Bipolar Disorder
• A mood disorder in which periods of mania
and depression alternate, sometimes with
periods of normal mood intervening.
Causes of Mood Disorders
• Most psychologists now believe that mood
disorders result from a combination of
• biological factors,
• psychological factors,
• and social factors.
Biological Factors
• Genetics appears to play a role in the
development of mood disorders.
• The strongest evidence for the role of
genetics comes from twin studies.
• Certain chemical imbalances in the brain
have been linked to mood disorders.
Psychological Factors
• Cognitive distortions may lead to the
development of mood disorders.
• cognitive distortions: An illogical and
maladaptive response to early negative life
events that leads to feelings of incompetence
and unworthiness that are reactivated
whenever a new situation arises that resembles
the original events.
Types of Illogical Thinking
arbitrary inference
selective abstraction
overgeneralization
magnification and minimization
Social Factors
• Difficulties in interpersonal relationships
may lead to mood disorders.
• The link between depression and troubled
relationships may explain why women are
more likely to suffer from depression-women tend to be more relationshiporiented than men.
Gender, Race, & Suicide
Anxiety Disorders
Disorders in which anxiety is a characteristic feature
or the avoidance of anxiety seems to motivate
abnormal behavior.
• phobias
• panic disorder
• generalized anxiety disorder
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
Types of Phobias
• specific: intense, paralyzing fear of some object
or thing
• social: excessive, inappropriate fears connected
with social situations or performances in front of
other people
• agoraphobia: involves multiple, intense fear of
crowds, public places, and other situations that
require separation from a source of security
Panic Disorder
• An anxiety disorder characterized by
recurrent panic attacks.
• panic attack: A sudden, unpredictable, and
overwhelming experience of intense fear or
terror without any reasonable cause.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• An anxiety disorder characterized by
prolonged vague but intense fears that are
not attached to any particular object or
circumstance.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• An anxiety disorder in which a person feels
driven to think disturbing thoughts
(obsessions) and/or to perform senseless
rituals (compulsions).
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• prepared responses: responses that
evolution has made us biologically
predisposed to acquire through learning
• not feeling in control of one’s life
• may be caused by an inherited
predisposition
• internal psychological conflict
Psychosomatic vs. Somatoform
• psychosomatic: Disorders in which there is
REAL physical illness that is largely caused
by psychological factors such as stress and
anxiety.
• somatoform: Disorders in which there is an
APPARENT physical illness for which there
is no organic basis.
Somatoform Disorders
•
•
•
•
somatization disorder
conversion disorder
hypochondriasis
body dysmorphic disorder
Somatization Disorder
• A somatoform disorder characterized
by recurrent vague somatic complaints
without a physical cause.
Conversion Disorder
• Somatoform disorders in which a dramatic
specific disability has no physical cause but
instead seems related to psychological
problems.
Hypochondriasis
• A somatoform disorder in which a person
interprets insignificant symptoms as signs
of serious illness in the absence of any
organic evidence of such illness.