ABP 01: Introduction

• Psychological Disorder


  Psychological dysfunction within an individual associated with distress or impairment in functioning and a response that is not typical or culturally expected
• Psychological Dysfunction


  Refers to a breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning
• Distress or Impairment


  Individual is extremely upset and cannot function properly
• Atypical or Not Culturally Expected


  Deviates from the average or the norm of the culture
• Psychopathology


  Scientific study of psychological disorders
• Clinical/Counseling Psychologist


  • Received Ph.D. and follow a course of graduate-level study lasting approx. 5 years
• Psy.D.


  • Focus on clinical training and de-emphasize or eliminates research training
• Ph.D.


  • Integrate clinical and research training
• Psychiatrists


  • First earn an M.D. in med school, then specialize in Psychiatry
• Psychiatric Social Workers


  • Earns master's in social work as they develop expertise in collecting information relevant to the social and family situation of the individual
• Scientist-Practitioners


  • They may keep up with the latest scientific developments in their field and utilize the knowledge in their practice
  • Evaluate their own assessments and treatment procedures to see whether they are effective
  • Conduct research that produces new information about disorders or their treatments, thus becoming immune to the fads that plague our field, often at the expense of patients and their families
• Presenting Problem or Present

  Traditional shorthand way of indicating why the person came to the clinic
• Clinical Description


  Represents the unique combination of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that make up a specific disorder
• Clinical


  Refers both to the types of problems or disorders that you would find in a clinic or hospital and to the activities connected with assessment and treatment
• Prevalence


  How many people in the population as a who have/had the disorder
• Incidence


  How many new cases occurring during a given period
• Course


  Individual pattern of symptoms
• Chronic


  Lasts a long time
• Episodic


  Likely to recover a few months only to suffer re-occurrence
• Time-Limited


  Disorder will improve without treatment in a relatively short period with little or no risk or recurrence
• Onset


  Beginning of the disorder
• Insidious


  Gradually over an extended period of time
• Prognosis


  Anticipated course of the disorder
• Etiology


  Study of origins, why the disorder begins
• Ego-Syntonic


  Behaviors are aligned with your personal values and self-image
• Ego-Dystonic


  Actions that are inconsistent with your ego
• Roman Catholic Church fought back against evil in the world that is believed must have been behind these disorders


  Last quarter of the 14th century
• Supernatural treatments


  1. Exorcisms

  2. Shaving the pattern of a cross in the hair of the victim's head

  3. Securing sufferers to a wall near the church
• Mental depression and anxiety were recognized as illness, although symptoms such as despair and lethargy were often identified by the church as a sin of acedia, or sloth</b>
• Common supernatural treatments


  1. Rest

  2. Sleep

  3. Health and happy environment (baths, ointments, and happy environment)
• Nicholas Oresme suggested that melancholy (depression) was the source of some bizarre behavior, rather than demons
• Possession is not always connected with sin but may be seen as an involuntary and the possessed individuals as blameless
• Treatments when exorcism failed

  1. Confinement

  2. Beatings

  3. Other forms of torture
• Mass Hysteria


  Whole groups of people were simultaneously compelled to run out in the streets, dance, shout, rave, and jump around in patterns as if they were a particularly wild party (Saint Vitus's Dance and Tarantism)
• Paracelsus rejected the notions of possession and suggested that the movement of moon and starts had profound effects on people's psychological functioning
• Johann Weyer was the founder of modern psychiatry; used compassion and pioneering approach in treating mental illness in Europe during the time of witchcraft
• Hippocrates


  • Father of Modern Medicine
  • Suggested that psych disorders should be treated like any other disease
  • Psych disorders might also be caused by brain pathology or head trauma and could be influenced by heredity
  • Brain is the seat of wisdom, consciousness, intelligence, and emotion
  • Coined the word Hysteria to describe a concept he learned about from the Egyptians (now Somatic Symptoms Disorders)
  • Wandering Uterus
• Humoral Theory of Disorders

  • Blood - heart; sanguine - cheerful and optimistic
  • Black Bile - liver; melancholic - depressed and sentimental
  • Yellow Bile - spleen; choleric - apathetic and chill
  • Phlegm - brain; phlegmatic - hot-tempered
• Humoral Theory treatments


  1. Bloodletting

  2. Induced vomiting
• Robert Burton recommended eating tobacco and half-boiled cabbage to induced vomiting