Abnormal behavior review
Abnormal behavior - Behavior that is maladaptive and harmful
Behaviorist - Medical Model/Disease Model - Forerunner of the biological
approach… abnormality is a disease or illness precipitated by internal
physical causes.
Interactionist - Abnormal behavior is influence by biological factors
(brain processes), psychological factors (emotional turmoil), and by
social factors (inadequate relationships)
Woman are diagnosed more then males because
Woman more likely to behave in ways that others label as mental
disorders.
Woman are taught to express their emotions, while men are trained to
control them.
Woman have unequal social positions and greater discrimination, more
likely to experience trauma-inducing circumstances
Woman often placed in "double-blind" situations in society… Woman labeled
as mentally disordered for either over conforming or under conforming to
feminine gender role stereotypes.
Anxiety Disorders - Psychological disorders that include the following
main features : motor tension (jumpiness, trembling, inability to relax);
hyperactivity (dizziness; a racing heart, perspiration); and apprehensive
expectorations and thoughts.
5 types of anxiety disorder:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder - Persistent anxiety for at least a month;
the individual with a generalize anxiety disorder is unable to specify
the reasons for anxiety.
Panic Disorder - Reoccurring sudden onset of intense apprehension or
terror. Feeling of impending doom, may not feel anxious all of the time.
Anxiety attack strikes without warning and produces severe palpitations,
extreme shortness of breath, chest pains, trembling, sweating, dizziness,
and feeling of helplessness. Victims seize by fear that they will die, go
crazy or do something they cannot control.
Phobic Disorders (Phobias) - Individual has irrational, overwhelming,
persistent fear of a particular object or situation. Can pinpoint the
cause of nervous feelings.
Agoraphobia - Fear of entering unfamiliar situations, especially open or
public spaces. More common phobic disorder.
Psychoanalytical reasons why à phobias develop as a defense mechanism\
to ward off threatening or unacceptable impulses.
Learning theorist reason why à phobia are learned fears
Cross-cultural psychologist à
phobias are influenced by cultural factors
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - Individual has anxiety provoking
thoughts that will not go away (obsession) and/or urges to perform
repetitive, ritualistic behaviors to prevent or produce some future
situation (compulsions)
Repent & rehearse normal doubts & daily routines
Obsessive = thinks; compulsive = action
Most common = excessive checking, cleaning, counting
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - Exposure to any of several
traumatic events such as war; severely oppressive situations (holocaust),
severe abuse (rape); natural disasters (floods); and accidental disaster
(plane crashes). Anxiety symptoms that may immediately follow the trauma
or by months of years.
Symptoms
Flash backs
Constricted ability to feel emotions
Excessive arousal
Difficulties in memory and concentration
Feelings of apprehension
Impulsive outbursts of behavior
Stomatoform Disorders - Mental disorders in which psychological symptoms
take a physical or somatic, form even though no physical causes can be
found.
Hypochondriasis - Individual has a pervasive fear of illness and
disease.
a. Pill enthusiast
Often depressed/ comes with other disorders
Switch doctor to find diagnosis that matches their own
Conversion Disorder - Individual experiences specific, genuine physical
symptoms even though no physiological problems can be found.
Some loss of motor or sensory ability
Unable to speed, may faint, become deaf or blind
Dissociative Disorders - Sudden loss of memory or change in identify.
Under extreme stress of shock, the individual’s conscious awareness
becomes dissociated from previous memories and thoughts.
1. Psychogenic Amnesia - Memory loss caused by extensive psychotically
stress.
2. Fugue - Individual develops amnesia, but also unexpectedly travels
away from home and assumes a new identity.
3. Multiple Personality - Individuals have two or more distinct
personalities or selves.
Mood Disorders - Wide emotional swings, ranging from deep depression to
extreme euphoria and agitations.
1. Major Depression - Individual is deeply unhappy, demoralized, self-
derogatory, and bored, showing changes in appetite, and sleep patterns,
decreased energy, feelings of worthlessness, concentration problems, and
guilt feelings that might prompt thoughts of suicide.
Bipolar Disorder - Individual might be depressed, manic, or both.
Manic - Elation, exuberance, tireless stamina, humorous, scheming,
tendency for excess, relentless, irritable, almost constant motion.
Garbled incoherent, rapid speech. Do stuff not usually done.
B. Causes
Psychanalytic - Turing inward of aggressive instincts…. Combo of
insecure attachment to the mother, a lack of love and affection as child
, and the actual loss of a parent during childhood gives ride to a
negative cognitive set, or schema.
Cognitive - Self-defeating ways, and negative expectations about the
future à reflect schemas that shape the depressed individual’s
experiences. Habitual negative thoughts magnify and expand a depressed
person’s negative experiences.
Biogenetic - Genetic inheritance and chemical changes in the brain.
Depressed lacks neropinephrine, manic have more…
Sociocultural - Society emphasis on self, independence and
individualism, coupled with an erosion of connectedness to others, family
and religion... widespread hopelessness.
Schizophrenic Disorders - Characterized by distorted thoughts and
perceptions, odd communication, inappropriate emotion, abnormal motor
behavior, and social withdrawal. Individual’s mind is split from reality,
and personality loses its unity.
1. Words:
a. Delusions - False beliefs… may think he is JC Napoleon….
Hallucinations - Hear, see, feel, smell and tast things now… often hear
voices...
World Salad - loose, incoherent, word associations, language does not
follow any rules
2. Disorganized schizophrenia - Individual has delusions and
hallucinations.. little or no recognizable meaning. Withdraws from human
contact. Silly, childlike gestures and behavior
Catatonic Schizophrenia - Bizarre motor behavior Immobile stupor.
Paranoid schizophrenia - Delusions of reference, grandeur, and
persecution…. Misinterpretation of actual events… delusions of reference
(singled out for attn.) Misinterpret change events… Delusions of
grandeur…(IM pope) delusions of persecution (target of conspiracy)
Undifferentiated schizophrenia - Disorgnaized behavior, hallucinations,
delusions, and incoherence.
Causes
Genetics - high change of getting if it identical twin has it…
Neurobiological - imbalances in brain chemistry… defects in brain
metabolism, malfunction dopamine system, distorted cerebral blood flow…
Enviro. Factor - Diathesis-stress view - combo of enviro & biogenetic
disposition
Personality Disorders - Personality traits become inflexible and thus
maladaptive.
1. Schizotypal Personality Disorder - Odd/eccentric cluster… appear to
be in contact with reality, but many aspects of their behavior are
distasteful… leads others to retreat or withdraw from them…
Obessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder - Anxious/fearful cluster of
personality disorders… anxious adjustment is primary feature…
Borderline Personality Disorder - dramatic/emotional/erratic cluster of
personality disorders.
4. Antisocial Personality Disorder - Dramatic/emotional/erratic cluster
of personality disorders…. Most problematic disorder for society… often
resort to crime, violence, and delinquency…
Substance-use Disorders?
Druggies?
Psychotherapy - process used by mental health professionals to help
individuals recognize, define, and overcome their psychological and
interpersonal difficulties and improve their adjustment.
1. Talking, interpreting, listening, regarding, and modeling….
insight therapy - both psychodynamic and humanistic therapies..
encourage insight and awareness of oneself.
Psychodynamic theories - emp. Unconscious thought
1. Psychoanalysis
Free associations
Cartharsis - release of emotional tension
dream analysis
manifest content - conscious part of dream
latent content - unconscious part of dream
Transference - client re-living imp. Relationships
Resistance - unconscious defense strategies
Humanistic Therapies - encouraged to understand themselves, and grow
personally… emp. Conscious thought , present (vs. past), growth &
fulfillment.
person- centered therapy - warm supportive atm… improve clients self
concept and encourage the client to gain insight about problems…
Gestalt therapy = questions and challenges clients to help them become
more aware of their feelings and face their problems…
Behaviorist - principles of learning to reduce or eliminate maladaptive
behavior
1. systematic desensitivation
2. Aversive conditioning - repeating pairing of undesirable behavior
with aversive stimuli to decreases the behavior’s rewards so the
individual will stop doing it…
3. Flooding
4. Behavior Modification
Cognitive - Emp. That the indiv’s cogitation or thoughts are the main
source of abnormal behavior. Attempt to change the indiv’s feeling and
behaviors by changing cognitions.
1. Rational-emotive therapy - Indivs. Become psychology disordered
because of their beliefs, especially those that are irrational and self-
defeating. ABCDE. Activation Experience, Believe, Consequences,
Disputation, Effects.
2. Beck’s Cognitive Therapy - Depression. 4 phases 1.) identify self
labels 2.) notice when they are thinking distorted or irrational thoughts
3.) substitute appropriate thoughts. 4.) given feedback and motivation
comments from the therapist to stimulate their use of these techniques.