General Psychology (PY110)
Chapter 10
Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology
The scientific study of
mental disorders
and their treatment
Ab Normal
Meaning
Away From
Societal and cultural
attitudes make normal can
be a ‘moving target’
What is Abnormal?

Abnormality can be defined using
◦ Statistical methods – Is the behavior uncommon?
Abnormal
Abnormal
◦ Maladaptive – Is the behavior unrewarding or
damaging?
◦ Cultural – Doe the behavior violate cultural norms?
Perspectives

Abnormal behavior and thinking can
be linked to the four major perspectives
◦ Biological – Brain/body, chemical imbalance
◦ Behavioral – Actions/reactions that
include signs of disorder
◦ Cognitive – The effect of thinking – OCD,
paranoia
◦ Sociocultural – What is acceptable in one culture may not be
in another


No single perspective explains even one disorder
The biopsychosocial approach is used to explaining
abnormality
◦ This includes biological, behavioral, cognitive, and social/cultural
factors
Nature or Nurture
As with other areas of human development,
abnormality is linked to both genetic and
environmental causes
 Certain genetic types are more susceptible to
depression, but environment is also important


There is a 70% chance that if one twin has
schizophrenia, the other will as well – suggesting a
genetic (or biological) link
◦ Current research is trying to identify the specific
genes that make a person vulnerable to this disorder
How is Abnormality Decided?
What makes one person abnormal and another normal?
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

The DSM-IV was published in 1994 by the
American Psychiatric Association
◦ First edition released in 1952 described only about
60 disorders
◦ There are more than 300 known
disorders listed

Health insurance companies
require a DSM-IV classification
before they will pay for therapy
Three Major Categories
of Clinical Disorders
Mildest
Category
Specific Disorders within Category
Anxiety
disorders
Specific phobia, social phobia,
agoraphobia, panic disorder with and
without agoraphobia, generalized
anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive
disorder
Mood
disorders
Major depressive disorder, bipolar
disorder
Schizophrenic Schizophrenia (paranoid, disorganized,
catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual
Most Severe disorders
subtypes)
Anxiety Disorders
Disorders in which excessive anxiety leads to personal
distress and atypical, maladaptive and irrational behavior
Specific Phobia
Social Phobia & Agoraphobia
Panic Disorder
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Specific Phobia

Fear of something specific
◦ Snakes, spiders, tests,…
Marked by an excessive / unreasonable
reaction
 Phobias are learnt
by classical
conditioning

◦ we acquire
them by experience
Social Phobia

A fear of one or more social situations in
which there is exposure to unfamiliar
people or scrutiny by others
◦ May include eating in public, resulting in the
sufferer rejecting
all lunch and
dinner invitations
Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the fear of
places or situations from
which escape might be
difficult or embarrassing
◦ Includes crowds, standing in line or even being in
a car in heavy traffic
◦ Sufferers avoid leaving the security of their
homes
Panic Disorder

A condition in which a person experiences
recurrent panic attacks (sudden onsets of
intense fear – like they are in mortal danger)
◦ Some a reaction to something he dreads, such
as giving a speech, but other attacks occur
without any apparent reason
◦ Can occur with or
without agoraphobia

One explanation for
panic disorder is
a fear-of-fear
hypothesis
Generalized Anxiety Disorder

A disorder in which the person has excessive, global
anxiety and worry that they cannot control, for a
period
of at least 6 months
◦ The anxiety is not tied to any specific
object or situation

May be related to a biochemical
dysfunction in the brain, which
involves GABA, a major inhibitory
neurotransmitter
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

A person experiences recurrent obsessions or
compulsions that are excessive or unreasonable
◦ Obsession - a persistent intrusive thought, idea, or impulse
◦ Compulsion - a repetitive behavior that a person feels
compelled to perform

Thought to be caused by neurotransmitter imbalance
involving serotonin
◦ Sufferers may be helped
by using serotonin
boosting anti-depressant
drugs
Mood Disorders

Involve dramatic changes in a person’s
emotional mood that are excessive and
unwarranted
Major Depressive Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
Major Depressive Disorder

Major depression is characterized by symptoms such as:
◦ Feelings of intense hopelessness, low self-esteem, worthlessness,
and extreme fatigue
◦ Dramatic changes in eating and sleeping behavior
◦ Inability to concentrate
◦ Greatly diminished interest in family,
friends, and activities for a period
of two weeks or more
◦ Thoughts of suicide


Women suffer from major
depressive disorder twice
as often as men
Does not include normal grief and
extreme sadness
◦ It’s normal to grieve the death of a
close friend or relative
Bipolar Disorder

Mood swings between depression and
mania
◦ Symptoms of mania include:
 Abnormally elevated mood
 Inflated self-esteem with grandiose delusions
 Decreased need for sleep
 Constant talking, distractibility, restlessness,
and poor judgment


In bipolar I disorder, the person has
both major manic and depressive episodes
In bipolar II disorder, the person has
full-blown depressive episodes, but milder
manic episodes
Schizophrenic Disorders

Schizophrenia means “split mind,” as mental functions
split from each other
Cognition
(knowing)
Affective
(feeling)





Psychomotor
(doing)
Cognition
(knowing)
Normal
Person
Affective
(feeling)
Schizophrenic
Psychomotor
(doing)
Characterized by loss of contact with reality
More likely to require hospitalization
than sufferers of any other mental
disorder (40% of all hospitalized)
About 1% of the population
suffers from schizophrenia
The onset tends to be in late
adolescence or early adulthood
Symptoms classified as positive
negative, or disorganized
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Positive symptoms are the more active symptoms that
reflect an excess or distortion of normal thinking
or behavior, including hallucinations and
delusions
◦ Hallucinations tend to be auditory,
such as hearing voices that are not real
◦ There are different forms of delusions
 Delusions of persecutions involve thoughts of conspiracy
against you
 Delusions of grandeur involve believing that you are a
person of great importance, such as Jesus Christ
◦ Hallucinations and delusions are positive symptoms because
they refer to things that have been added
Negative and Disorganized
Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Negative symptoms refer to things that have
been removed or do not work ‘normally’
◦ deficits or losses
in emotion, speech, energy
level, social activity, and even
basic drives such as hunger

Disorganized symptoms include disorganized
speech, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate
emotions
◦ Disorganized speech is like a “word salad,” with
unconnected words incoherently spoken together
Five Subtypes of Schizophrenic
Disorder
Subtype
Symptoms
Disorganized
Disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, or
inappropriate emotion
Catatonic
Extreme movement symptoms ranging from excessive
motor activity to posturing (immobility for long periods)
Paranoid
Organized cognition and emotion, but with
hallucinations and delusions that are usually
concerned with persecution
Undifferentiated Mixed-bag category—symptoms fit the criteria of more
than one of the above three types or none of them
Residual
There has been a past schizophrenic episode, but
presently only some negative symptoms and no
positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions)
Two Major Types of Therapy
Psychotherapy
Biomedical
Therapy
Involves the use
of biological
interventions,
such as drugs
Involves the use
of psychological
interventions
Biomedical Therapies
Electroconvulsive
Therapy
Drug
Therapy
Psychosurgery
Electro-convulsive Therapy

Used to treat major depression when antidepressant drugs are no longer effective

Patient is anaesthetized with a muscle
relaxant and a
30-45 second
electrical shock
is administered
to the head

Effective but
often results in
memory loss
Drug Therapy
Lithium
Antianxiety
Drugs
Antidepressants
Antipsychotic
Drugs
Drug Therapies

Effective in treating symptoms of abnormality for
1/3 of sufferers
◦ Work partially or intermittently for 1/3, and Ineffective
for1/3
Lithium used to control mania associated with
bi-polar disorder
 Anti-depressants (including
SSRIs) used to correct
neurotransmitter imbalances
connected with depression
 Should be used in conjunction
with psychotherapy not a
replacement for it

Psychotherapies

Four major types
Psychoanalysis
Behavioral
Humanistic
Cognitive
Psychotherapies

Psychoanalysis and humanistic therapies are
referred to as insight therapies

They stress that a person achieve understanding
of the causes of their behavior and thinking

Behavioral and cognitive therapies are
usually referred to as
actions therapies

They stress that the
actions of the person
must change for therapy
to be effective
Psychoanalysis

Uses Free Association - patient spontaneously
describes thoughts, feelings, and mental images
◦ Brings conflict to a conscious level - provides clues to
the unconscious conflicts leading to a person’s problems
◦ Other ‘tools’ used include hypnosis and dream analysis

Resistance is a patient’s unwillingness to discuss a
particular topics
◦ When a resistance is
hit, it may provide
clues into
unconscious conflicts
Problems with Psychoanalysis
Transference can occur
when the patient acts
toward the therapist as
they did toward important
figures in their life, such as
their parents
 Psychoanalysis requires a
lot of time and is expensive
 Critics question the
validity of psychoanalysis’
main construct, unconscious conflicts and their
impact on behavior and thinking

Humanistic Therapy

Most influential humanistic therapy is Carl
Rogers’s client-centered therapy
◦ The therapist uses unconditional positive regard,
genuineness, and empathy to help the person to gain
insight into their true self-concept (Real
Ideal)
◦ Is often conducted in groups – reducing costs

To achieve this goal, the therapist is nondirective and involves:
◦ Genuineness - honestly sharing his own thoughts and
feelings with the client
◦ Active Listening - to achieve empathetic
understanding of the client’s feelings
◦ Mirroring - to echo these feelings back to the client,
so they can gain a clearer image of their true feelings
Behavioral Therapy

Psychotherapy which uses the principles of classical and
operant conditioning to change a person’s behavior from
maladaptive to adaptive
◦ Maladaptive behaviors are learned and
therefore can be unlearned


In counterconditioning, a
maladaptive response is replaced
by an incompatible adaptive response
Systematic desensitization is
counterconditioning where a fear
response to an object or situation
is replaced with a relaxation
response in a series of progressively
increasing fear-arousing steps
 Pioneered by Joseph Wolpe
Cognitive Therapy


Psychotherapy in which the
therapist changes the person’s
thinking from maladaptive to
adaptive
This is achieved by Ellis’s
ABC model
A refers to the Activating event (e.g., failure to be perfect)
B refers to the person’s Belief about the event (e.g., feeling like
a failure for normal levels of imperfection)
C is the resulting emotional Consequence (e.g., depression)

According to Ellis:
◦ A does not cause C; rather, B causes C