PSY 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Specific Phobia, Sleep Deprivation, Reaction Formation
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 16: Psychopathology
At the end of this Chapter you should be able to:
• Learn about Psychodynamic approach
• Learn different conceptions of Mental Disorder
• Difference between psychosis and neurosis
• Psychodynamic approach
• Defense Mechanisms
• Learn about Schizophrenia
• Learn about Mood Disorders
• Learn about Anxiety Disorders
• Learn about Dissociative Disorders
The psychodynamic approach: Probing the depths
• Examines motives underlying our behavior
• Motives can be conscious
• Motives may also be poorly understood
• May be completely hidden from our own view/comprehension
Models of mind
• Levels of processing:
• Conscious: currently being thought about
• Preconscious: easily available to us
• Unconscious: unavailable to our (willed) thought
• Structures of personality:
•Id: all other aspects of personality emerge from this basic, primitive, pleasure seeking
part of our personality
•Ego: deals with reality and its demands; copes with demands from Id and …
•Superego: society’s rules and parents’ rules, internalized and imposed on the ego
Conflict and defense
• Interplay of the three structures and the three levels of processing: the dynamics of this
theory
• Avoiding anxiety is prime directive
•Defense mechanisms are in place to protect the personality from anxiety that may feel
overwhelming
•Repression: Keeping distressing thoughts & feelings buried in the unconscious
•Ex: A child who witnessed a parent being shot has no recollection of the event.
•Denial: Refusing to recognize some anxiety arousing event/piece of information.
•Ex: although her husband keeps beating her, his wife doesn’t accept it.
•Rationalization: Creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behavior
•Ex: A student watches TV instead of studying, claiming "additional studying won’t
help anyway".
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•Displacement: Diverting emotional feelings from their original course to a safer
substitute target.
•Ex: After getting a speeding ticket you take your anger out on your passenger
rather than the state trooper.
•Reaction Formation: Behaving in a way that is exactly opposite of one’s true feelings
•Ex: A parent who unconsciously resents a child spoiling that child with lavish
gifts.
•Projection: Attributing one’s own thoughts, feelings or desires to someone else
•Ex: Deep down you hate your brother (but are unaware of this) - instead you feel
your brother hates you.
•Regression: Reverting to immature patterns of behavior.
•Ex: A six year old renews his thumb-sucking when a new sibling is born.
MENTAL ILLNESSES!
PSYCOPATHOLOGY
“Normal” versus “Abnormal”
• Concept of “abnormal” not sufficient or necessary to be mentally disordered
• It is not “normal” to be very joyous, but this mental state, while “not normal,” is not
mentally ill either
• On the other hand…
• It is “normal” to have cavities in teeth occasionally, but doesn’t mean that’s healthy /
preferred
• The term “normal” therefore is very problematic
• The modern conception of mental disorder
• What best explains the cause, or source, of mental disorders?
• Psychological sources
• Biological sources
• Learning sources
• … all contribute important explanatory power
Diathesis-Stress Models
• Two factor model
• An event + a diathesis
• Event occurs which is stressful
• Combines with a genetic, biological, or other structural/physical factor
• When both occur, depression, for example, may result
• Helps address why some identical events do not produce same outcome in different people
Classification - Neurosis vs Psychosis
• Neurosis - A term no longer used medically
• Diagnosis for a relatively mild mental or emotional disorder that may involve anxiety or
phobias but does not involve losing touch with reality.
• A neurotic disorder can be any mental imbalance that causes or results in distress. In
general, neurotic conditions do not impair or interfere with normal day to day functions,
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