Unit 8 - AP Psychology Notes

Unit 8 Study Guide PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS  Psychological disorders: a “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable  Disorders must cause the person distress in order to be classified as disordered  ADHD: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder  Extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can derail social, academic, and vocational achievements, and these symptoms can be treated with medication and other treatment  Medical model: concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital  Early theories: o Abnormal behaviors were believed to be caused by evil spirits trying to escape the body o Trephination was often used (cutting into people’s skulls to get the spirits out) o Later on, the policy turned to institutionalization, but treatments were quite brutal because the goal was to get rid of their disorders completely (they’d beat them, pull their teeth out, and even use animal blood) o Philippe Pinel tried to revolutionize the field with “moral treatment,” where patients could do things they enjoyed to help them cope with their disorders  The DSM-V is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders o 5 different axes of DSM:  Clinical syndromes  Personality disorder or mental retardation  General medical conditions  Psychosocial & environmental problems  Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale  DSM classifies disorders and describe the symptoms of them  DSM won’t explain any causes or possible cures for mental disorders  There are two major classifications for disorders o Neurotic: distressing but one can still function in society and act rationally (ADHD, depression, anxiety) o Psychotic: person loses contact with reality, experiences distorted perceptions (schizophrenia)  Each school of psychology has different causes for psychological disorders o Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic: internal, unconscious drives o Humanistic: failure to strive to one’s potential or being out of touch with your feelings o Behavioral: reinforcement history and the environment you’re in o Cognitive: irrational, dysfunctional thoughts or ways of thinking o Sociocultural: a dysfunctional society o Biomedical/neuroscience: organic issues, biochemical imbalances, genetic predispositions Anxiety Disorders  Anxiety disorders: a group of conditions where the primary symptoms are anxiety or defenses against anxiety o The patient fears that something awful WILL happen to them o They are always in a state of uneasiness, uncertainty, or fear o Freud said that the anxiety is free-floating b/c the cause isn’t known  Phobias: when a person experiences episode of intense dread or fear (the fear must be irrational or not normal) o Examples include claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces), arachnophobia (fear of spiders), acrophobia (fear of heights), agoraphobia (fear of not being safe), and social phobia (shyness taken to an extreme) o Flooding may be used to help the person overcome the phobia  Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): when a person is continuously tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal (always in fight-orflight mode) o The patient is constantly tense & worried, feels inadequate, is oversensitive, can’t concentrate, and suffers from insomnia o Persists for 6 months or more o Many people with GAD were maltreated and inhibited as children (it goes away as you get older though)  Panic disorder: marked by minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, and other frightening sensations  Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): persistent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) causing someone to feel the need (compulsion) to engage in a particular action (obsession about dirt and germs may lead to compulsive hand washing)  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): flashbacks or nightmares following a person’s involvement in or observation of an extremely stressful event o Memories of the event cause anxiety o PTSD growth: when a person overcomes their PTSD and succeeds more in life  Two perspectives that explain anxiety disorders: o Learning: classical conditioning & observational learning o Biological: natural selection, genes, and overarousal of brain areas involved in impulse control & habitual behaviors (GABA plays a key role) Somatic Symptom Disorders  Occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom  There are two types o Illness anxiety disorder:  Formerly known as hypochondriasis  Person has frequent physical complaints, but doctors can’t find the cause  They usually believe that the minor issues (headache, upset stomach) are indicative of a more severe illness (aka, “I have a headache, I MUST have a brain tumor.”) o Conversion disorder:  Report the existence of a severe physical problem with no biological reason (blindness or paralysis) Dissociative Disorders  These disorders involve a disruption in the conscious process (they lose periods of awareness)  A person’s conscious awareness is said to dissociate from painful memories, thoughts, & feelings  There are three types o Psychogenic amnesia:  Person cannot remember past memories (retrograde amnesia) but there is no actual physiological cause behind it  NOT organic amnesia (organic amnesia can be retrograde or anterograde) o Dissociative Fugue:  You can’t have this without having psychogenic amnesia  People with psychogenic amnesia that find themselves in an unfamiliar environment and most times just start a whole new life o Dissociative Identity Disorder:  Used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder  Occurs when the person has several personalities rather one integrated personality  People with DID commonly have a history of childhood abuse or trauma Mood Disorders  People experience extreme or inappropriate emotion  Major Depressive Disorder: people become unhappy for at least 2 weeks with no apparent cause o Other symptoms include depressed or irritable mood, diminished interest or loss of pleasure, significant weight change, sleep disturbance, fatigue, and psychomotor agitation or retardation) o Depression is common among all psychological disorders (everyone gets sad)  Seasonal Affected Disorder: o Experience depression during winter months o Based on amount of sunlight available, not temperature o Treated with light therapy  Bipolar Disorder: o Formerly known as manic depression o Involves periods of depression and mania (being really hyperactive) o Manic episodes involve feelings of high energy (they tend to differ a lot though; some may feel confident and others may get irritable)  o Engage in risky behaviors during manic episodes Norepinephrine & serotonin levels affect mood disorders (low serotonin = depression) Personality Disorders  Well-established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively impact people’s ability to function  Antisocial Personality Disorder: o Lack of empathy o Little regard for other’s feelings and people are impulsive o View the world as hostile and look out for themselves  Dependent Personality Disorder: people rely too much on the attention and help of others  Histrionic Personality Disorder: needs to be the center of attention (whether acting silly or dressing provocatively)  Narcissistic Personality Disorder: having an unwarranted sense of self-importance & thinking you’re the center of the universe  Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: overly concerned with certain thoughts and performing certain behaviors (not as extreme as OCD anxiety)  Borderline Personality Disorder (the self-sabotage disorder): o Emotional instability o Person feels worthless, insecure, is impulsive, and has impaired social relationships Schizophrenic Disorders  About 1 in every 100 people are diagnosed with schizophrenia  Symptoms of schizophrenia o Disorganized thinking  Thinking is fragmented, bizarre, & distorted with false beliefs  Disorganized thinking comes from a breakdown in selective attention (they can’t filter out information)  Delusions  Delusions of persecution (someone’s out to get them)  Delusions of Grandeur (beliefs that are impossible, like being king of Mars) o Disturbed perceptions  Hallucinations: sensory experiences without sensory stimulation  Hearing voices is a common example o Inappropriate emotions and actions  Laugh at inappropriate times  May experience flat affect where they don’t feel any emotion  May engage in senseless, compulsive acts  Catatonia: when you can move their limbs in uncomfortable positions and they’ll just stay like that for hours (motionless waxy flexibility)  Positive vs. Negative Schizophrenic symptoms o Positive: presence of inappropriate symptoms o Negative: absence or diminishing of normal thoughts, feelings, or behaviors  Types of Schizophrenia (NOTE: the DSM-V today does not recognize different types of schizophrenia) o Disorganized Schizophrenia: disorganized speech or behavior, or flat or inappropriate emotion o Paranoid Schizophrenia: preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations o Catatonic Schizophrenia:  Flat effect  Waxy flexibility  Person repeats others’ speech and movements o Undifferentiated Schizophrenia: person exhibits behaviors which fit into 2 or more of the other types of schizophrenia Other Disorders  Paraphilias (pedophilia, zoophilia, & hybristophilia, or attraction to criminals)  Fetishism  Sadism or masochism (sadist = people suffer & masochist = you suffer)  Eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia, binge-eating disorder)  Substance abuse disorders  ADHD and ADD The Rosenhan Study  Rosenhan’s associates were faking symptoms of hearing voices  They were ALL institutionalized for schizophrenia  None were exposed as imposters  They all left diagnosed with schizophrenia in remission (the doctors were told that the people were fine, but they didn’t believe them)  This made psychologists question, “How do we actually know who has schizophrenia or not?” THERAPY  It used to be that if someone showed abnormal behavior, they were institutionalized  However, new drugs and better therapy made the U.S. go to a policy of deinstitutionalization Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Therapy  Psychoanalysis is used by getting manifest and latent content through hypnosis, free association, and dream interpretation  Unconscious    Transference: where the feelings, desires, and expectations of one person are redirected and applied to another person Other therapies will result in symptom substitution (the development of a symptom to replace one that has cleared up as a result of treatment; it’s said to occur if the unconscious impulses and conflicts responsible for the original symptom are not dealt with effectively) Resistance happens when your mind goes blank or you find yourself unable to remember important details Humanistic Therapy  Client-centered therapy by Carl Rogers  These are non-directive therapies and use active listening  Self-actualization, free-will, and unconditional positive regard  Gestalt Therapy by Fritz Perls encourages clients to get in touch with their whole self Behavioral Therapy  Counterconditioning o Classical conditioning o Aversive conditioning (making someone not like something that they liked) o Systematic desensitization (gradually introducing person to their fear) o Flooding (bombarding person with whatever they fear) o Virtual Reality exposure therapy (putting person in the environment they’re afraid of virtually and helping them overcome their fears)  Operant conditioning: token economy  Proponents say that maladaptive symptoms (like phobias or sexual disorders) are learned behaviors that can be replaced by constructive behaviors Cognitive Therapy  Changing the way that we view the world (changing our schemas)  Aaron Beck and Cognitive Therapy: challenges the negative, automatic thoughts  Albert Ellis and Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy: tries to adjust irrational thinking Somatic/Biological Therapy  Psychopharmacology o Antipsychotics (for schizophrenia): Thorazine, Haldol, Risperdal, Zyprexa o Anti-anxiety: Valium, barbiturates, Xanax, Ativan o Mood disorders (depression): selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) o Mood stabilizing (bipolar): lithium  Somatic therapies o Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT): giving brief shocks to stimulate the brain while person is under anesthesia (mainly for severe major depression or bipolar disorder) o Psychosurgery o Prefrontal lobotomy (cuts neural fibers that connect frontal lobe to emotion controlling centers, but this practice is not really used anymore) (made by Portuguese physician Egas Moniz) Extra Things from Textbook  Cognitive-behavior therapy aims to alter the way people think AND the way they act  Family therapy helps relieve tension between members and family stress  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): therapy in which patient rapidly moves eyes while recalling traumatic events to help relieve & prevent anxiety  Three elements shared by all forms of psychotherapy: o Hope for demoralized people o A new perspective o An empathetic, trusting, caring relationship  Long-term use of antipsychotic drugs may lead to tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movements of facial muscles, tongue, and limbs)  Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS): application of repeated magnetic energy pulses to the brain (either to stimulate or suppress brain activity) (doesn’t produce seizures, memory loss, or other side effects unlike ECT)