Ch 18

• Factors that lead to mental disorders include heredity, personality weaknesses, low stress tolerance, childhood experiences, stressful situations, and inability to cope
• Stress is a common human experience characterized by physiological and psychological responses
• Hans Selye defined stress as a non-specific response of the body to any demand on it
• Categories of stressors:

  • Major Life Events and Changes
  • Daily Hassles
  • Chronic Role Strain
  • Traumas
• Common responses to stressors:

  • Behavioural Responses
  • Emotional Responses
  • Cognitive Responses
  • Interpersonal Responses
  • Biological Responses
  • Imagery
• Types of conflicts:

  • Approach-approach conflict
  • Avoidance-avoidance conflict
  • Approach-Avoidance conflict
• Frustration can result from blocking needs and motives by external forces or by the absence of a desired goal
• Types of mental disorders:

  • Disorders of Childhood
  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Mood Disorders
  • Psychosomatic and Somatoform Disorders
  • Dissociative Disorders
• Factors leading to mental disorders include heredity, personality weaknesses, low stress tolerance, childhood experiences, stressful situations, and inability to cope
• Dissociative Disorders:

  • Personality becomes dissociated or separated from the rest of the world
  • Categories include:
  • Dissociative amnesia: inability to recall important personal information after a stressful episode
  • Dissociative fugue: memory loss and assumption of a new identity
  • Depersonalization disorder: feeling changed or different in a strange way
  • Multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder: several distinct personalities emerge in the same individual at different times
• Stress is a common human experience characterized by physiological and psychological responses
• Hans Selye defined stress as a non-specific response of the body to any demand, categorizing it into eustress (moderate and desirable) and distress (bad, excessive, irrational)
• Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders:

  • Characterized by disturbances in thought, emotion, and behavior
  • Symptoms include incoherent thinking, faulty perception, disturbances in motor activity, and flat or inappropriate emotions
  • Withdraw from people and reality into a fantasy world of delusions and hallucinations
  • Types include catatonic schizophrenia
• Stressors are objects or events in the environment that induce stress, categorized as major life events, daily hassles, chronic role strain, and traumas
• Common responses to stressors include behavioural, emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, biological responses, and imagery
• Personality Disorders:

  • Rooted in early childhood with inflexible and maladaptive patterns of thinking and behaving
  • Classified into three clusters:
  • Odd or eccentric behavior
  • Anxiety and apprehension
  • Dramatic, emotional, or erratic behavior
  • Examples include paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, dependent, avoidant, obsessive, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders
• Conflicts and frustrations arise when individuals face obstacles in reaching goals, leading to approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance conflicts
• Frustration results from hindrances or obstacles blocking needs or goals, which can be physical or social in nature
• Problem-focused coping involves using intellectual resources to deal with stress, while emotion-focused coping involves displaying emotional behavior
• Defense-oriented coping strategies can lead to various mental disorders if frequently repeated
• Psychotherapeutic Process:

  • Psychotherapy designed to help individuals with mental disorders
  • Steps include:
  • Rapport formation
  • Preparation of case history
  • Determination of the problem
  • Therapeutic session with a focused treatment plan
  • Termination of therapeutic intervention
• Types of mental disorders include disorders of childhood, anxiety disorders, mood disorders (depression and bipolar disorder), psychosomatic and somatoform disorders, and dissociative disorders
• Coping with Stress:

  • Two mechanisms: Task-oriented coping and defense-oriented or emotion-focused coping
  • Task-oriented coping involves attack, withdrawal, and compromise
  • Defense-oriented coping focuses on making oneself feel comfortable without moving towards a solution
  • Adopting a healthy lifestyle with positive thoughts, feelings, and actions is crucial for effective stress coping
• Dissociative Disorders:

  • Personality becomes dissociated or separated from the rest of the world
  • Categories include:
  • Dissociative amnesia: inability to recall important personal information after a stressful episode
  • Dissociative fugue: memory loss and assumption of a new identity
  • Depersonalization disorder: feeling changed or different in a strange way
  • Multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder: emergence of several distinct personalities in the same individual at different times
• Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders:

  • Characterized by disturbances in thought, emotion, and behavior
  • Symptoms include incoherent thinking, faulty perception, disturbances in motor activity, and flat or inappropriate emotions
  • Withdraw from people and reality into a fantasy world of delusions and hallucinations
  • Types include catatonic schizophrenia
• Personality Disorders:

  • Rooted in early childhood with inflexible and maladaptive patterns of thinking and behaving
  • Classified into three clusters:
  • Odd or eccentric behavior
  • Anxiety and apprehension
  • Dramatic, emotional, or erratic behavior
  • Examples include paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, dependent, avoidant, obsessive, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders
• Psychotherapeutic Process:

  • Psychotherapy designed to help individuals with mental disorders
  • Conducted by clinical psychologists or psychotherapists
  • Steps include:
  • Rapport formation
  • Preparation of case history
  • Determination of the problem
  • Therapeutic session
  • Termination of therapeutic intervention
• Coping with Stress:

  • Two mechanisms: task-oriented coping and defense-oriented or emotion-focused coping
  • Task-oriented coping involves attack, withdrawal, and compromise
  • Defense-oriented coping focuses on making oneself feel comfortable without moving towards a solution
  • Adopting a healthy lifestyle with positive thoughts, feelings, and actions is crucial for effective stress coping