Abnormal Psychology
Definitions of Abnormal
Causes of Disorders
Types of Disorders
Abnormal Psychology
Definitions of Abnormal
1.Social Labeling
2.Self Labeling
3.Psychoanalytic
4.Humanistic
5.Legal – Insanity
6.Medical - Disorders
Abnormal Psychology
Causes of Disorders
1.Organic/Biological
2.Behavioral
3.Cognitive
4.Psychodynamic
5.Humanistic
Abnormal Psychology
Types of Disorders
Older Terms: Neurosis, Psychosis
DSM-IV-TR = Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (4th Edition, Text Revision)
gives objective, measurable criteria for diagnosing
psychological disorders
Does not suggest therapies or treatments
Does not discuss possible causes
Anxiety Disorders
• Anxiety disorders – persistent, excessive or
unrealistic anxiety and fearfulness that
impairs normal functioning
 includes maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety
(e.g., alcohol and drug use)
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Anxiety Disorders
 Generalized anxiety disorder
• “Free-floating,” unrealistic anxiety, chronic worrying lasting over 6
months
- Persistent high autonomic nervous system arousal
- May involve physical problems such as diarrhea
- Panic disorder
• Recurrent discrete episodes or attacks of extremely intense terror or
dread (“I feel like I’m dying”)
- Many physical symptoms such as chest pains, choking
- Panic attacks
- Can be triggered by specific phobias or can be spontaneous
Anxiety Disorders
• Phobia - an irrational, persistent fear of a
specific object, situation, or social activity.
 Example: phobia of dogs entails immediate terror in
virtually every encounter with any dog
Anxiety Disorders
 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
 Persistent, uncontrollable, repetitive thoughts
(obsession) and the need to perform some action
to relieve the obsessive thoughts (compulsion)
• Examples: Excessive cleaning, checking
• OCD’s cannot disengage attention from the obsession
• Very high frontal lobe activity (red)
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• Behaviorist Perspective - assumes they are
learned by associative learning processes
– e.g., you are bitten by a dog
• bite = UCS, dog = CS
– Problems:
• Anxiety disorders can emerge without trauma
• Traumatic experiences don’t always produce anxiety
disorders
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• Biological Perspective – Anxiety disorders arise
from physical problems and genetic influences
– chemical imbalances, in particular serotonin and
GABA systems.
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• Psychoanalytic explanations
Repressed urges and desires trying to
come into consciousness, creating anxiety
that is controlled by the abnormal behavior.
– e.g., shame of sexual urges may be expressed
through agoraphobia, obsessive cleaning, etc.
Causes of Anxiety Disorders
• Cognitive: Illogical, irrational thought processes
– Magnification - the tendency to interpret situations as far more
dangerous, harmful, or important than they actually are.
– All-or-nothing thinking - the tendency to believe that one’s
performance must be perfect or the result will be a total failure.
– Overgeneralization - the tendency to interpret a single negative
event as a never-ending pattern of defeat and failure.
– Minimization - the tendency to give little or no importance to
one’s successes or positive events and traits.
Dissociative Disorders
• Dissociative disorders – Break in conscious awareness, memory,
or sense of identity, usually as a result of extreme stress.
– Psychogenic Amnesia
– Dissociative Fugue – fleeing home and “coming to” with amnesia
for the trip and possible amnesia for personal information.
– Depersonalization Disorder –the person feels detached and
disconnected from themselves, their bodies, and their
surroundings.
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Dissociative Disorders
 Dissociative Identity Disorder
 Rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two
or more distinct and alternating personalities
 Formerly called multiple personality disorder, or “split
personality”
 Reaction to overwhelming stress?
 Assumes repressed memories
 Recognized by DSM-IV, but not all clinicians believe in
it
Mood Disorders
 Two Major forms of Mood Disorders
 Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder
 characterized by emotional extremes
 Prolonged, disabling disruptions in emotional state
 Note that functioning is almost always severely impaired
Mood Disorders
 Major Depressive Disorder
 mood disorder in which a person, for no
rational reason, experiences persistent
depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness,
and diminished interest or pleasure in most
activities
Mood Disorders - Depression
Depression
– Accompanied by negative cognitions
• Cause or effect?
– Often accompanied by anxiety and/or substance abuse
– Women’s risk of depression is double that of men’s
– Depression rates are increasing, especially in young
Mood Disorders
Manic Episode
 hyperactive, elated, wildly irrational optimistic or
irritable state
 Reckless investments, spending sprees, unsafe sex
Bipolar Disorder
 Rarer mood disorder, alternate between hopelessness &
lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania
 formerly called manic-depressive disorder
Schizophrenia
 1 in 100 young adults develop schizophrenia
 a group of severe disorders characterized by:
 Disorganized thinking and communicating
 Psychosis
 An inability to distinguish fantasy from reality
 Disturbed perceptions (usually auditory)
 Delusions - Believing things that are not real (conspiracy, Jesuscomplex)
 Hallucinations - Hearing or seeing things that are not there
 Inappropriate emotions and actions
 Flat affect
Schizophrenia
 2 major divisions or categories
 Chronic (process)
 Slow developing
 Usually negative symptoms (absence of appropriate behaviors)
 Absence of emotion (flat affect)
 Absence of movement (catatonia)
 Absence of social interaction (withdrawal)
 Low recovery rates
 Acute (reactive)
 Sudden onset
 Usually positive symptoms (presence of inappropriate behaviors)
 Presence of hallucinations, delusions
 Better recovery rate
Personality Disorders
 Personality Disorders
 characterized by chronic and enduring behavior patterns
that begin very early in life and impair social functioning
 persistent, rigid, and maladaptive pattern of behavior that
interferes with normal social interactions.
 usually without anxiety, depression, or delusions
 Tend to be especially ingrained and inflexible and hard to
treat
Personality Disorders
– Borderline personality disorder - maladaptive personality
pattern in which the person is moody, unstable, lacks a
clear sense of identity, and often clings to others.
– Has no coherent sense of self, instead becomes skilled at
pretending to be whoever they perceive they need to be at
the time
– Evidence for unstable “fear circuit”
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Personality Disorders
 Antisocial Personality Disorder
 Impulsive personality disorder in which the person (usually a man)
exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, including toward
friends and family members
 Antisocial personality disorder - disorder in which a person has no morals or
conscience and often behaves in an impulsive manner without regard for the
consequences of that behavior.
 may be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist
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Formerly called psychopath or sociopath
Shows little or no respect for social laws, customs or norms
Has little fear, regret, or feeling about anything
Many commit crimes, spend time in jail
Genetic basis – relatives are more likely to develop the disorder
Low levels of stress hormones, less frontal lobe tissue and activity
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
1. Psychoanalysis
2. Behavioral
3. Cognitive
4. Organic (Medical)
5. Humanistic
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Psychoanalysis
Analysis
Insight
Catharsis
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Behavioral
Systematic Desensitization
Symptom Substitution
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Organic (Medical)
Psychosurgery
Chemotherapy
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Humanistic
Client-Centered Therapy
(Carl Rogers)
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
1. Psychoanalysis
2. Behavioral
3. Cognitive
4. Organic (Medical)
5. Humanistic
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Psychoanalysis
Analysis
Insight
Catharsis
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Behavioral
Systematic Desensitization
Symptom Substitution
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Organic (Medical)
Psychosurgery
Chemotherapy
Psychological Therapies/Treatments
Humanistic
Client-Centered Therapy
(Carl Rogers)
What is “abnormal?”
 Psychological Disorder
 a “harmful dysfunction” where behavior is:
 *Emotionally distressing (maladaptive): Leads to
personal distress or harm, or harm to others
 Interferes with a person’s ability to function and adapt to the
stresses and everyday demands of life.
 *Unjustifiable: no identifiable and reasonable external
cause
DSM-IV-TR
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Version
IV, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) – the
guidebook of psychological disorders and
their symptoms.
 gives objective, measurable criteria for
diagnosing psychological disorders
- Does not suggest therapies or treatments
- Does not discuss possible causes
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Causes of Schizophrenia
• Psychoanalytic theories see schizophrenia as resulting from
a severe breakdown of the ego, which has become
overwhelmed by the demands of the unconscious id and
results in childish, infantile behavior.
• Behaviorists focus on how reinforcement, observational
learning, and shaping affect the development of the
behavioral symptoms of schizophrenia.
• Cognitive theorists see schizophrenia as severely irrational
thinking.
Causes of Schizophrenia
• Biological explanations focus on dopamine,
structural defects in the brain, and genetic
influences in schizophrenia.
• Bio-psycho-social model - explanation of
disorder that assumes a biological
sensitivity, or vulnerability, to a certain
disorder will develop under the right
conditions of environmental or emotional
stress.
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Insanity as a Legal Defense
• Insanity: A legal term defined as inability to understand that
certain actions are wrong at the time of a crime
• Under this definition, people with recognized disorders may be judged
legally sane
• Famous cases where insanity defense succeeded:
• John Hinckley Jr., Lorena Bobbitt, Deanna Laney
• Where insanity defense did NOT succeed:
• Jeffrey Dahmer, Andrea Yates
- Should we blame the person or nature/nurture?
- Insanity defense is used in less than 1% of criminal felony cases, despite
public perception that it is common (what heuristic is this?)