AbnormalPsych1

• Psychological disorder


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


  • Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning
• Abnormal behavior


  • Associated with distress
  • Impairs functioning
  • Atypical or not culturally expected
• Psychopathology


  The scientific study of psychological disorders
• Mental health professionals

  • Counseling psychologists
  • Clinical psychologists
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychiatric social workers
  • Psychiatric nurses
  • Marriage and family therapists
  • Mental health counselors
• Scientist-practitioners


  Mental health professionals who take a scientific approach to their clinical work
• Prevalence


  How many people in the population as a whole have the disorder
• Incidence


  How many new cases occur during a given period, such as a year
• Course of a disorder


  The pattern a disorder follows, e.g. chronic, episodic, time-limited
• Prognosis


  The anticipated course of a disorder
• Etiology


  The study of the origins of a disorder, including biological, psychological, and social dimensions
• Supernatural tradition


  • Agents outside the body and environment influence behavior, thinking, and emotions
  • Causes of abnormal behavior are seen in the mind or the body, giving rise to biological and psychological models
• Treatments in the supernatural tradition

  • Exorcism
  • Shaving cross pattern in hair
  • Securing sufferers near church to hear Mass
  • Rest, sleep, baths, ointments, potions
• Melancholy (depression) was sometimes seen as the source of bizarre behavior, rather than demons
• Sufferers were often seen as responsible for their disorder, which might be a punishment for evil deeds
• If exorcism failed, some authorities thought steps were necessary to make the body uninhabitable by evil spirits, leading to confinement, beatings, and torture
• Mass hysteria


  The phenomenon of emotion contagion, where an emotion seems to spread to those around
• Biological tradition


  • Disorders can be treated like any other disease
  • Brain is the seat of psychological functions
  • Importance of psychological and interpersonal factors recognized
• Humoral theory


  Normal brain functioning is related to four bodily fluids or humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Disease results from imbalance of these humors.
• Personality traits derived from humors


  • Sanguine
  • Melancholic
  • Phlegmatic
  • Choleric
• Treatments in the biological tradition

  • Bloodletting
  • Inducing vomiting
• Behavioral and cognitive symptoms of advanced syphilis were once mistaken for psychological disorders
• Germ theory of disease facilitated identification of the microorganism that caused syphilis
• Psychological tradition


  • Moral therapy - treating institutionalized patients normally in a setting that encourages normal social interaction
  • Hypnosis and catharsis - recalling and reliving emotional trauma to release tension
• Dorothea Dix's mental hygiene movement improved standards of care but also led to overcrowding in asylums
• No single influence operates in isolation - biological, psychological, and social dimensions all interact in psychopathology
• Animal magnetism


  Undetectable fluid found in all living organisms, which could become blocked
• Hypnosis


  A state in which extremely suggestible subjects sometimes appear to be in a trance
• Mesmer is widely regarded as the father of hypnosis
• Charcot


  • A distinguished neurologist who demonstrated that some techniques of mesmerism were effective with a number of psychological disorders, and he did much to legitimize the fledgling practice of hypnosis
• Catharsis


  The release of emotional material that has been made unconscious
• No influence operates in isolation. Each dimension—biological or psychological—is strongly influenced by the others and by development, and they weave together in various complex and intricate ways to create a psychological disorder
• Genetic disorders


  • Huntington's disease
  • Phenylketonuria (PKU)
• Linkage studies


  Scientists study individuals who have the same disorder and also share other features, to attempt to "link" known gene locations with the possible location of a gene contributing to the disorder
• Diathesis–stress model


  Individuals inherit tendencies to express certain traits or behaviors, which may then be activated under conditions of stress
• Diathesis


  A condition that makes someone susceptible to developing a disorder
• Genetic endowment


  May increase the probability that an individual will experience stressful life events
• Neither nature (genes) nor nurture (environmental events) alone, but rather a complex interaction of the two, influences the development of our behavior and personalities
• Components of the human nervous system

  • Central nervous system (brain and spinal cord)
  • Peripheral nervous system (somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system)
• Dendrites


  Receive messages in the form of chemical impulses from other nerve cells, which are converted into electrical impulses