Psychological Disorders

Psychology 1107
 Why study disorders?
 Disorders are pretty pervasive
 400 million people worldwide
 Schizophrenia and depression are culture free
 Help us understand normal folks
 Maybe disordered have too much or too little
of something
 They are sick, HELP THEM!
 What is a disorder
 To understand and study disorders we must first
define what disordered means
 Atypical
 Disturbing
 Maladaptive
 Unjustifiable
 Varies culturally
 Varies temporally
 Harm is the key really
Where do disorders come from?
 Evil!
 Remove blood, hair
teeth, that ought to
take care of it….
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decom
are needed to see this pictu
 Drill a hole in the
skull….
 Medical Perspective
 Pinel realized it wasn’t demons
 Stressors, inhumane treatment
 Syphilis
 Still a pretty popular idea
 Brain problems
 Schizophrenia and depression are treated
with drugs
 Bio Psycho Social Perspective
 Interaction of nature and nurture
 While schizophrenia and depression are
universal, others are not
 So say anxiety may lead to one disorder in
one place and one in another
 Pretty popular approach nowadays
 Classify
 Have to know the overall characteristics of
a disorder
 DSM
 Doesn’t please everyone
 Doesn’t talk about causes
 Neurotic vs. psychotic disorders
 DSM
 Many categories
 Properly used the DSM is valid and
reliable
 Critics say it is just labeling
 Rosenhan (1973)
 More and more people seem to
understand the idea of it being more like
sickness
 A warning…
 This system is for
trained professionals
 Please do not try this
at home…
 Anxiety disorders
 Generalized anxiety disorders, phobias,
OCD
 GAD is also known as ‘free floating
anxiety’
 Cam escalate into a panic attack
 Scary
 Avoid situations
 agoraphobia
 Phobias
 Anxiety is focused on some object or
situation
 Can be incapacitating
 Easily treated
 More on that in another lecture….
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
 Many of us can see a bit of OCD in
ourselves
 When it interferes with daily life, that is
when it becomes a problem
 So where do OCD and GAD come from?
 Learning
 Evolutionary explanations
 Dissociaciative disorders
 Amnesia
 Fugue
 Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD)
 Only in America….
 May not really even exist
 Mood disorders
 We all have bad days, but not like this
 Major depressive disorder involves
 Lethargy
 Loss of interest in everything
 Feelings of worthlessness
 Not just being sad
 Dysthimic disorder is a minor version
 Bipolar disorder
 From depression to mania
 Grandiose optimism
 Too much esteem
 No sex differences
 Some key depressing facts..
 Cognitive changes
 Depression is widespread
 Sex differences
 Usually short lived
 Stressful events before onset
 Rate increasing, age of onset decreasing
 Biology
 Clear genetic effects
 NE and 5Ht correlate with mood
 Most drugs that are effective operate on
these systems
 Social cognitive approach
 Self defeating moods and thoughts
 Thoughts feed moods
 Moods feed thoughts
 Aww what’s the use….
 Schizophrenia
 IS NOT MULTIPLE PERSONALITY
DISORDER
 It is disordered thinking
 It is distorted perceptions
 It is inappropriate emotins and actions
 Can be chronic or acute
 Types
 Positive and negative symptoms
 Paranoid
 Disorganized
 Catatonic
 undifferentiated
 Why?
 Not social
 Genetic
 Biological
 Dopamine is the key
 Personality disorders
 Debilitating personality, not just annoying
 Borderline
 Narcissistic
 Histrionic
 Antisocial
 Psychopath or sociopath
 Rates
 About 30 % of people have had a disorder,
about 20 % have one right now
 Remember this includes phobias, drug
problems
 Two times higher under the poverty line
 Something has to be done