Unit 13: Abnormal Psychology

1. Unit 13: Abnormal Psychology AP Psychology Ms. Desgrosellier 2010 – 2011

2. Key Ideas • Defining abnormal behavior • Causes of abnormal behavior • Anxiety disorders • Somatoform disorders • Dissociative disorders • Mood disorders • Schizophrenia • Personality disorders • Mental health practitioners • History of therapy • Insight therapies – psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, humanistic • Behavioral approaches • Cognitive-behavioral approaches • Biological treatments • Modes of therapy • Community and preventive approaches

3. Defining Abnormal Behavior • Abnormal behavior is: • Statistically rare • Violates cultural norms • Personally interferes with day-to-day living • Legally may cause a person to be unable to know right from wrong (insanity).

4. Defining Abnormal Behavior • Currently diagnosed using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV-TR). • Manual used by mental health professionals for classifying psychological disorders. • Published by the American Psychological Association (APA). • New edition DSM V is expected to be published in 2012.

5. Causes of Abnormal Behavior • Unresolved internal conflict in the unconscious mind. • Psychoanalytic • Maladaptive behaviors learned from inappropriate rewards and punishments. • Behavioral

6. Causes of Abnormal Behavior • Conditions of worth imposed by society, which cause lowered self-concept. • Humanistic • Irrational and faulty thinking. • Cognitive

7. Causes of Abnormal Behavior • Neurochemicalor hormonal imbalances; abnormal brain structures or genetics. • Biological

8. Types of Disorders

9. Anxiety • Examples of disorders: • panic disorder • generalized anxiety disorder • phobias • obsessive-compulsive disorder • post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

10. Anxiety • Symptoms: • Panic attack: • pain & tightness of muscles in chest or neck • feeling light-headed or faint • profuse sweating • clammy hands

11. Somatoform • Examples of disorders: • somatization disorder • conversion disorder • hypochondriasis

12. Somatoform • Symptoms: • Deal with the body and have no realistic physical cause

13. Dissociative • Examples of disorders: • dissociative amnesia • dissociative fugue • dissociative identity disorder (formally multiple personality disorder)

14. Dissociative • Symptoms: • sudden loss of memory (amnesia) • change in identity • Freudian explanation: repression for hurtful situations too painful for the individual to deal with.

15. Mood • Examples of disorders: • Unipolar (depressive) disorder • bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder

16. Mood • Symptoms: • Primary disturbance in affect or mood that colors the individual’s entire emotional state. • depression symptoms (sadness, lack of energy/motivation, etc.) • manic symptoms (feeling indestructible, high energy, etc.)

17. Schizophrenia • Examples of disorders: • Four major types: • disorganized • catatonic • paranoid • undifferentiated

18. Schizophrenia • Symptoms: • Psychosis: lack of touch with reality evidenced by abnormal thinking, emotion, movement, socialization, and/or perception.

19. Schizophrenia • Symptoms: • Delusions: erroneous beliefs that are maintained even when compelling evidence to the contrary is presented. • Hallucinations: false sensory perceptions, e.g. seeing, hearing, or otherwise perceiving something that is not present.

20. Schizophrenia • Schizophrenic artist Louis Wain

21. Personality • Examples of disorders: • Three clusters: • Odd/Eccentric: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal • Problematic: histrionic, narcissistic, boderline, antisocial • Chronic fearfulness/avoidant: avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive

22. Personality • Symptoms: • Persistent patterns of maladaptive and inflexible traits in personality

23. Developmental • Examples of disorders: • Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) • infantile autism • anorexia nervosa • bulimia nervosa

24. Developmental • Symptoms: • Disturbances in learning, language, and motor or social skills showing up in infancy, childhood, or adolescence.

25. Mental Health Practitioners • Psychiatrists: medical doctors (M.D.) who can prescribe medication and perform surgery. • Clinical psychologists: have a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or Psy.D.); use different therapeutic approaches depending on training and diagnosis. • Generally CANNOT prescribe medication.

26. Mental Health Practitioners • Counseling psychologists: have a Ph.D., Ed.D., or M.A. in counseling; tend to deal with less severe mental health problems. • Psychoanalysts: may or may not be psychiatrists, but follow the teaching of Freud and practice psychoanalysis or other psychodynamic therapies.

27. Mental Health Practitioners • Clinical or psychiatric social workers: have masters degree in social work (M.S.W.).

28. Therapies • Approach • Cause – see first table • Goal of treatment • Key terms

29. Psychoanalytic • Goal: • Help patients gain insight into their unconscious conflicts. • Does not offer a cure.

30. Psychoanalytic • Key Terms: • Psychoanalysis • Free Association: Just allowing patients to talk about random things, then the psychoanalyst interprets.

31. Psychoanalytic • Key Terms: • Dream interpretation • Transference: putting feelings and emotions on the therapist. • Catharsis: acting out aggression and anger to release it.

32. Behavioral • Goal: • Unlearn maladaptive behavior and replace it with more adaptive behavior.

33. Behavioral • Key Terms: • Systematic Desensitization: client is trained to relax to increasingly fearful stimuli. • Flooding: exposing client to phobias for extended periods of time without escape. • Modeling

34. Behavioral • Key Terms: • Implosive: Flooding, but with imagination, not real stimuli. • Aversive: Classical conditioning technique, creating an association between unwanted behavior and negative stimuli (e.g. nausea)

35. Humanistic • Goal: • To reduce the discrepancy between the ideal and real self.

36. Humanistic • Key Terms: • Client-centered therapy: the client rather than the therapist directs the treatment process. • Existential Therapy: focus on helping clients find purpose and meaning in their lives, and emphasize individual freedom and responsibility. • Unconditional positive regard

37. Cognitive • Goal: • Cognitive restructuring by: • changing the thoughts and replacing irrational with more rational perceptions • Changing negative thinking to more positive ideas.

38. Cognitive • Key Terms: • Rational emotive therapy: based on confronting irrational thoughts. • Change in irrational thinking will lead to a change in irrational behavior. • Cognitive triad: Looks at what people think about their Self, their World, and their Future.

39. Biological • Goal: • Psychoactive drugs attempt to restore balance: • antianxiety • antidepressant • antipsychotic • Electroconvulsive shock therapy (ONLY effective for severe depression)  • Psychosurgery (e.g. cutting the corpus callosum to relieve seizures).

40. Biological • Key Terms: • Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS): using magnets to stimulate parts of the brain. • ECT: shock therapy

41. Biological • Key Terms: • Psychosurgery: lesioning or removing parts of the brain. • Corpus Callosum • Transection: cutting sensory nerves • Prefrontal Lobotomy: formally a treatment for psychopaths, separates the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain.