PSYCH 300 FINALS

• Abnormal behavior


  Behavior that is considered unusual or rare in a society or culture
• Defining abnormal behavior


  • Deviance
  • Distress
  • Dysfunction
  • Danger
• None of the previous definitions is broad enough to cover all instances of abnormal behavior, and the distinction between normal and abnormal behavior often remains ambiguous even to trained professionals
• Behavior should be evaluated in terms of gradations that range from fully normal functioning to extremely abnormal behavior
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)


  Most widely used system to classify and define psychological disorders
• DSM-5


  • Provides comprehensive and relatively precise definitions for more than 200 disorders
  • Takes an atheoretical approach to identifying psychological disorders
  • Primarily descriptive and attempts to avoid suggesting an underlying cause for an individual's behavior and problems
• Determining who is psychologically disordered is not always a clear-cut or accurate process
• Labeling an individual as abnormal provides a dehumanizing, lifelong stigma
• The DSM-5 has had an important influence on the way in which mental health professionals view psychological disorders
• Anxiety disorders


  Occur when anxiety arises without external justification and begins to affect people's daily functioning
• Types of anxiety disorders

  • Phobic disorder
  • Panic disorder
  • Generalized anxiety disorder
• Phobic disorder


  Intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation
• Panic disorder


  Anxiety suddenly – and often without warning – rises, and an individual feels a sense of impending, unavoidable doom
• Generalized anxiety disorder


  Long-term, persistent anxiety and uncontrollable worry
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder

  Occur when people are plagued by unwanted thoughts, called obsessions, or feel that they must carry out behaviors, termed compulsions, that they feel driven to perform
• Obsession


  Persistent, unwanted thought or idea that keeps recurring
• Compulsions


  Irresistible urges to repeatedly carry out some behavior that seems strange and unreasonable even to them
• Somatic symptom disorders


  Occur when people experience psychological difficulties that take on a physical form for which there is no medical cause
• Types of somatic symptom disorders

  • Illness anxiety disorder
  • Conversion disorder
• Illness anxiety disorder


  Constant fear of illness and a preoccupation with their health
• Conversion disorder


  Involve an apparent physical disturbance, such as the inability to see or hear or to move an arm or leg, with the cause being purely psychological
• Dissociative disorders


  Characterized by the separation of different facets of a person's personality that are normally integrated and work together
• Dissociative identity disorder


  Displays characteristics of two or more distinct personalities, identities, or personality fragments
• concerned about symptoms that most of us would expect to be highly anxiety producing. For instance, a person in good health who wakes up blind may react in a bland, matter-of-fact way. Considering how most of us would feel if we woke up unable to see, this unemotional reaction hardly seems appropriate.
• Dissociation


  By dissociating key parts of who they are, people are able to keep disturbing memories or perceptions from reaching conscious awareness and thereby reduce their anxiety
• DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER


  • Displays characteristics of two or more distinct personalities, identities, or personality fragments
  • Individual personalities often have a unique set of likes and dislikes and their own reactions to situations
  • Some even carry several pairs of glasses because their vision changes with each personality
  • Each individual personality can be well adjusted when considered on its own
• DISSOCIATIVE AMNESIA


  • Significant, selective memory loss occurs
  • Simple amnesia: involves an actual loss of information from memory and typically results from a physiological cause
  • Dissociative amnesia: the "forgotten" material is still present in memory – it simply cannot be recalled
• DISSOCIATIVE FUGUE


  • Form of amnesia in which a person leaves home suddenly and assumes a new identity
  • People take sudden, impulsive trips and adopt a new identity
  • After a period of time – days, months, or sometimes even years – they suddenly realize that they are in a strange place and completely forget the time they have spent wandering
• The common thread among dissociative disorders is that they allow people to escape from some anxiety-producing situation. Either the person produces a new personality to deal with stress, or the individual forgets or leaves behind the situation that caused the stress as he or she journeys to some new—and perhaps less anxiety-ridden—environment.
• MOOD DISORDERS


  Disturbances in emotional experience that are strong enough to interfere with everyday living; mood may become life threatening or may cause the person to lose touch with reality
• MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER


  • Severe form of depression that interferes with concentration, decision making, and sociability
  • One of the more common forms of mood disorders
• Abnormal behavior


  Behavior that is considered unusual or rare in a society or culture
• When psychologists speak of major depressive disorder, they do not mean the sadness that accompanies one of life's disappointments. People who suffer from major depressive disorder experience similar feelings, but the severity tends to be considerably greater. The depth and duration of such behavior are the hallmarks of major depressive disorder.
• MANIA AND BIPOLAR DISORDER

  • Depression: leads to the depths of despair
  • Mania: leads to emotional heights
• Defining abnormal behavior


  • Deviance
  • Distress
  • Dysfunction
  • Danger
• Mania


  Extended state of intense, wild elation; people experiencing mania feel intense happiness, power, invulnerability, and energy
• None of the previous definitions is broad enough to cover all instances of abnormal behavior, and the distinction between normal and abnormal behavior often remains ambiguous even to trained professionals
• Some people sequentially experience periods of mania and depression. This alternation of mania and depression is called bipolar disorder. The swings between highs and lows may occur a few days apart or may alternate over a period of years.
• Behavior should be evaluated in terms of gradations that range from fully normal functioning to extremely abnormal behavior
• Ironically, some of society's most creative individuals may have suffered from bipolar disorder. The imagination, drive, excitement, and energy that they display during manic stages allow them to make unusually creative contributions. On the other hand, the high output associated with mania does not necessarily lead to higher quality.