PSYC 1200 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: American Psychiatric Association, Research Domain Criteria, Mental Disorder
1 May 2018
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Chapter 15: Psychological Disorder
Defining Mental Disorders: What is Abnormal?
- Mental Disorder: A persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behaviour, thoughts, or
emotions that causes significant distress or impairment.
Conceptualizing Mental Disorders
- Medical Model: Abnormal psychological experiences are conceptualized as illness that,
like physical illnesses, have biological and environment cause, defined symptoms and
possible cures.
- The first step in helping someone with psychological disorder is to determine the nature
of the problem through diagnosis.
- I diagosis, liiias seek to deterie the ature of a perso’s etal disorder y
assessing signs (objectively observed indictors of a disorder) and symptoms (subjectively
reported behaviours, thoughts, and emotions) that suggest an underlying illness.
- Important to note the differences among three related general medical and
classification terms
- A disorder refers to a common set of signs and symptoms
- A disease is a known pathological process affecting the body; and
- A diagnosis is a determination as to whether a disorder or disease is present
Classifying Mental Disorders
- There are currently two established systems for classifying mental disorders:
- The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) produced by the world health
organization and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder produced by
the American Psychiatric Association (APA)
- A classification system that describes the features used to diagnose each recognized
mental disorder and indicates how the distinguished from other, similar problems.
- Comorbidity: the co-occurrence of two or more disorders in a single individual
- Pg:588
Causation
- To understand what factors might cause mental disorders, most psychologists take an
integrated Biopsychosocial perspective: Explains mental disorders as the result of
interactions among biological, psychological, and social factors
- The observation that most disorders have both internal (biological and psychological)
and external (environmental) causes has given rise to a theory known as the Diathesis-
stress model: Suggests that a person may be predisposed for a psychological disorder
that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.
A New Approach to Understanding Mental Disorders:RDoC
- Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC)- A new initiative that aims to guide the
classification and understanding of mental disorder by revealing the basic processes that
give rise to them.
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- Researchers study the causes of abnormal functioning by focusing on biological factors
from genes to cell to brain circuits; psychological domains, such as learning, attention,
memory, and various social processes and behavior.
Anxiety Disorders: When Fears Take Over
Anxiety Disorder- The class of mental disorder in which anxiety is the predominate feature
Phobic Disorder
- Phobic disorders: Disorders characterized by marked, persistent, and excessive fear and
avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations
- Specific Phobia: A disorder that involves an irrational fear of a particular object or
situatio that arkedly iterferes ith a idiidual’s ability to function
- Specific Phobia fall into five categories 1) Animals 2)Natural environments 3)
Situations 4) Blood, injections and injury 5) Choking, vomiting, in children, loud noises
or costumed characters . 12% will develop this phobic
- Social phobia: A disorder that involves an irrational fear of being publicly humiliated or
embarrassed
- Preparedness Theory: The idea that people are instinctively predisposed toward certain
fears. (Martin E. P. Seligman
Panic Disorder
- Panic Disorder: A disorder characterized by the sudden occurrence of multiple
psychological and physiological symptoms that contribute to a feeling of stark terror.
Wesley, 20-year example
- Heart palpitations, Shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, depersonalization (feeling
detahed fro oe’s ody.
- Agoraphobia: A specific phobia involving a fear of public places (unable to leave home)
+ Stats PG.596
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD): A disorder characterized by chronic excessive
worry accompanied by three or more of the following symptoms: restlessness, fatigue,
concentration, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension and sleep
disturbance. Example Gina- clinical psychology.
- People target- Unpredictable traumatic experiences in childhood, discrimination, sexual
or physical abuse against women
Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder: Trapped in a Loop
- Obsessive- compulsive disorder (OCD): A disorder in which repetitive, intrusive
thoughts (obsessions) and ritualistic behaviours (compulsions) designed to fend off
those thoughts iterfere sigifiatly ith a idiidual’s futioig. Example – Karan
the mother (anxiety plays a role in this) STATS- PG599
- Identical twins show a higher concordance than do fraternal twins.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Mental disorder: a persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behaviour, thoughts, or emotions that causes significant distress or impairment. Medical model: abnormal psychological experiences are conceptualized as illness that, like physical illnesses, have biological and environment cause, defined symptoms and possible cures. The first step in helping someone with psychological disorder is to determine the nature of the problem through diagnosis. I(cid:374) diag(cid:374)osis, (cid:272)li(cid:374)i(cid:272)ia(cid:374)s seek to deter(cid:373)i(cid:374)e the (cid:374)ature of a perso(cid:374)"s (cid:373)e(cid:374)tal disorder (cid:271)y assessing signs (objectively observed indictors of a disorder) and symptoms (subjectively reported behaviours, thoughts, and emotions) that suggest an underlying illness. Important to note the differences among three related general medical and classification terms. A disorder refers to a common set of signs and symptoms. A disease is a known pathological process affecting the body; and. A diagnosis is a determination as to whether a disorder or disease is present. There are currently two established systems for classifying mental disorders:
