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Abnormal Psychology

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abnormal psychology the study of people who suffer from psychological disorders

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Abnormality

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abnormality maladaptive to individual, disturbing to others, unusual, irrational; does not make sense to the average person

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Insane

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insane term used by people to describe psychological disorders-->NOT a medical term, but a legal term...those legally insane cannot be held fully responsible for crimes committed

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DSM

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It's a book that psychologists use in order to determine whether or not someone has a psychological disorder.

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Multiaxial Approach

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multiaxial approach each person is rated on five distinct dimensions or axes, with each axis referring to a different domain of a person's functioning (clinical disorders, personality and developmental disorders, medical conditions, psychosocial conditions, and global assessment of functioning[GAF])

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Global assessment of functioning (GAF)

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scale used by mental health practitioners to quantify a client's psychological function. 1-100. less than 50=hospital admission

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eclectic psychologist

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accepts and uses ideas from a number of different perspectives

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Anxiety Disorders

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They are disorders that share a common symptom, anxiety. There are five main types of anxiety disorders. phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

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Specific Phobia

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A simple or specific phobia is an intense unwarranted fear of a situation or object such as claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) or arachnophobia (fear of spiders).

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Agoraphobia

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Agoraphobia is a fear of open, public spaces. People with severe agoraphobia may be afraid to venture out of their homes at all.

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Social Phobia

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A social phobia is a fear of a situation in which one could embarrass oneself in public, such as when eating in a restaurant or giving a lecture.

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Generalised anxiety disorder

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A person who suffers from generalized anxiety disorder, often referred to as GAD, experiences constant, low-level anxiety. Such a person constantly feels nervous and out of sorts.

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Panic Disorder

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People with panic disorder suffers from acute episodes of intense anxiety without any apparent provocation.

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

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Obsessive-compulsive disorder , known as OCD, is when persistent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) cause someone to feel the need (compulsion) to engage in a particular action. For instance, a common obsession concerns cleanliness.

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Post traumatic stress disorder

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Post-traumatic stress disorder usually involves flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely troubling event such as a war or natural disaster. Memories of the event cause anxiety.

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Somatoform Disorders

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Somatoform disorders occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom. In other words, such a person experiences a physical problem in the absence of any physical cause.

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Hypochondriasis

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A person suffering from hypochondriasis has frequent physical complaints for which medical doctors are unable to locate the cause.

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Conversion Disorder

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People who have conversion disorder will report the existence of a severe physical problem such as paralysis or blindness, and they will, in fact, be unable to move their arms or see. There is no biological reason.

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Dissociative Disorder

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Dissociative disorders involve a disruption in conscious processes.

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Psychogenic Amnesia

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Psychogenic amnesia is when a person cannot remember things and no physiological basis for the disruption in memory can be identified.

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Organic Amnesia

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loss of memory resulting from physical trauma or damage to the brain

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Fugue

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People who have fugue not only experience psychogenic amnesia but also find themselves in an unfamiliar environment.

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Dissociative Identity Disorder

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Dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder, is when a person has several personalities rather than one integrated personality

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Mood or affective disorders

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Someone with a mood or affective disorder experiences extreme or inappropriate emotions.

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Major Depressive Disorder

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Major depressive disorder, also known as unipolar depression, is the most common mood disorder and is often referred to as the common cold of all psychological disorders. People who are clinically depressed remain unhappy for more than two weeks in the absence of a clear reason. Other common symptoms of depression include loss of appetite, fatigue, change in sleeping patterns, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activities, and feelings of worthlessness.

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Seasonal Affective Disorder

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Some people experience depression but only during certain times of the year, usually winter, when there is less sunlight. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is the resulting diagnosis. SAD is often treated with light therapy.

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Dysthymic disorder

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The symptoms are similar to those of major depressive disorder, loss of appetite, fatigue, change in sleeping patterns, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activities, and feelings of worthlessness, but generally are less intense. A diagnosis of dysthymic disorder in an adult requires a period of depressed mood lasting at least two years.

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Bipolar Disorder

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People experience manic episodes in different ways but they usually involve feelings of high energy. While some sufferers will feel a heightened sense of confidence and power, others simply feel anxious and irritable.The symptoms are also loss of appetite, fatigue, change in sleeping patterns, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activities, and feelings of worthlessness. Even though some people feel an inflated sense of well-being during the manic period, they usually engage in excessively risky and poorly thought out behavior that ultimately has negative consequences for them. A small number of people appear to experience mania without depression.

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Cognitive Triad

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Aaron Beck, a cognitive theorist, believes that depression results from unreasonably negative ideas that people have about themselves, their world, and their futures. Beck calls these three components the cognitive triad.

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Learned helplessness

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Learned helplessness is a behaviour in which an organism forced to endure aversive, painful or otherwise unpleasant stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable.

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Schizophrenic disorders

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schizophrenic disorders a class of disorders that is most severe and debilitating; disordered distorted thinking is often demonstrated through delusions/hallucinations

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Delusions of persecution

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the belief that people are out to get you.

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Delusions of grandeur

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the belief that you enjoy greater power and influence than you do

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Hallucinations

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Hallucinations are perceptions in the absence of any sensory stimulation.

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Disorganised schizophrenia

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Disorganized schizophrenics evidence some odd uses of language, they may make up their own words (neologisms) or string together series of nonsense words that rhyme (clang associations). They also usually have the inappropriate effect. For instance, they might laugh in response to hearing someone has died. Alternatively, they may consistently have essentially no emotional response at all (flat affect).

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Neologisms

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Words that are made up

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clang associations

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stringing together series of nonsense words that rhyme

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Flat affect

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no emotional response to a situation

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Paranoid Schizophrenia

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The key symptom in paranoid schizophrenia is delusions of persecution. A man suffering from delusions of persecution would believe that others are trying to hurt him or are out to get him.

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Catatonic Schizophrenia

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People who suffer fromcatatonic schizophrenia engage in odd movements. They may remain motionless in strange postures for hours at a time, move jerkily and quickly for no apparent reason, or alternate between the two.

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Waxy flexibility

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When people with catatonic schizophrenia allow their body to be moved into any alternative shape and will then hold that new pose.

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Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

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exhibiting disordered thinking but no other schizophrenic symptoms

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Positive Symptoms

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excess in behavior, thought, or mood (neologisms, hallucinations)

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Negative Symptoms

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deficits (flat affect, catatonia)

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Dopamine Hypothesis

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The basic idea behind the dopamine hypothesis is that high levels of dopamine seem to be associated with schizophrenia.

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Tardive Dyskinesia

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It occurs after the extensive use of antipsychotic drugs, that's used to treat schizophrenia. which causes muscle tremors and stiffness. Tardive Dysinesia is the muscle tremors and stiffness.

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Diathesis-stress model

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a model suggesting that a person may be predisposed for a mental disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress

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Double Blind

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double bind a situation in which an individual is given two different and inconsistent messages.

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Personality Disorders

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They are well-established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people's ability to function.

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Antisocial Personality Disorder

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People with antisocial personality disorder have little regard for other people's feelings, and view the world as a hostile place where people need to look out for themselves.

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Dependant Personality Disorder

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It's a disorder where people rely too much on the attention and help of others.

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Paranoid Personality Disorder

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People with paranoid personality disorder may believe they are being persecuted, but they will not experience the distortion of thought and delusions that paranoid schizophrenics do.

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Narcissistic Personality Disorder

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A disorder where people see themselves as the center of the universe.

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Histrionic Personality Disorder

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This disorder connotes overly dramatic behavior

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Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

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People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder may be overly concerned with certain thoughts, and performing certain behaviours.

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Paraphilia or psychosexual disorder

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Paraphilias or psychosexual disorders are marked by the sexual attraction to an object, person, or activity not usually seen as sexual.

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Pedophilia

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Having a sexual attraction towards children.

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Zoophilia

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Having a sexual attraction towards animals.

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Voyeur

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Feeling sexually aroused while watching others engaging in sexual behavior.

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Masochism

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Feeling aroused by having pain inflicted upon oneself

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Sadism

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Feeling aroused by inflicting pain on someone else.

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Anorexia nervosa

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Anorexia nervosa, which predominates in girls and young women, is essentially a form of self-starvation. It is an eating disorder.

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Bulimia

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Bulimia commonly involves a binge-purge cycle in which sufferers eat large quantities of food and then attempt to purge the food from their bodies by throwing up or using laxatives.

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Autism

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Autism deviates from typical social development.Children with autism tend to seek less social and emotional contact than other children do, they are also slow to develop language skills, and are less likely to seek for parental support when they are distressed.

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Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

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A child with ADHD may have difficulty paying attention or sitting still.

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