PSY 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
2 Jul 2018
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Week 8 Class 2
Psychological Disorders
● People are fascinated by the exceptional the unusual, and the abnormal. This fascination
may be caused by two reasons:
1. During various moments we feel, think and act like an abnormal individual
2. psychological disorders may bring unexplained physical symptoms, irrational fears,
and suicidal thoughts
● To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal (William James 1842-
1910)
1. There are 450 million people suffering...
2. ...
Defining Psychological Disorders
● Mental health workers view psychological disorders as persistently harmful thoughts,
feelings, and actions
● when behavior is deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional psychiatrists and psychologists label
it as disordered
Deviant, Distressful, and Dysfunctional
1. Deviant behavior (going naked) in one culture may be considered normal, while in others it
may lead to arrest
2. Deviant behavior must accompany...
Understanding Psychological Disorders
● Ancient treatments of psychological disorders include trephination, exorcism, being caged
like animals, being beaten, burned, castrated, mutilated, or transfused with animals blood
The Medical Model
● Philippe Pinel (1745-1826) from France, insisted that madness was not due to demonic
possession, but an ailment of the mind
● When physicians discovered that syphilis led to mental disorders, they started using medical
models to review the physical causes of these disorders
1. Etiology: Cause and development of disorder
2. Diagnosis: Identifying (symptoms) and distinguishing one disease from another
3. Treatment: Treating a disorder in a psychiatric hospital
4. Prognosis: Forecast about the disorder
Classifying Psychological Disorders
● The American Psychiatric Association rendered a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders to describe psychological disorders
● The most recent edition, DSM-V (2013), describes 400 psychological disorders compared to
60 in the 1950s
Mental Disorders Are Classified into Categories
● there are clear advantages to categorizing disorders such as being able to investigate
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Document Summary
People are fascinated by the exceptional the unusual, and the abnormal. This fascination may be caused by two reasons: during various moments we feel, think and act like an abnormal individual, psychological disorders may bring unexplained physical symptoms, irrational fears, and suicidal thoughts. To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal (william james 1842- 1910: there are 450 million people suffering Mental health workers view psychological disorders as persistently harmful thoughts, feelings, and actions. When behavior is deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional psychiatrists and psychologists label it as disordered. Deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional: deviant behavior (going naked) in one culture may be considered normal, while in others it may lead to arrest, deviant behavior must accompany Ancient treatments of psychological disorders include trephination, exorcism, being caged like animals, being beaten, burned, castrated, mutilated, or transfused with animals blood.
