PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Impulsivity, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Etiology

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Rana Pishva

Document Summary

Week 4: the nature and causes of psychological disorders. Clinically significant: symptoms are sufficiently significant, marked, or substantial in intensity or duration that the patient would benefit from professional treatment. Describes how an interaction between genes and environment can result in a mental disorder. Symptoms qualify as a mental disorder if they: cause a clinically significant impairment in an individual"s ability to function, are not a predictable reaction to an external event, are not the result of an individual"s voluntary choice. An irrational fear of situations or stimuli that are not actually dangerous; involves fear or nervousness that is excessive, irrational, and maladaptive. Post-traumatic stress disorder: develops after someone experiences an extremely traumatic event, main features: intense fear in response to traumatic event, re-experiences of the event, avoidance of reminders of the event, physiological symptoms (eg. sleeping) Generalized anxiety disorder: excessive and uncontrollable worrying about everyday events.