Mental Disorders Chapter 16 - PowerPoint Presentation

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Mental

Disorders

Chapter 16

Problems in Identifying Mental Disorders

MENTAL DISORDER: a disturbance in a person’s emotions, thought processes, or behavior

that results in:

serious

and relatively prolonged distress and/or impairment in the ability to functionNot simply a normal response to some event in the person’s environmentNot explainable as an effect of poverty, prejudice or other social force that prevents the person from behaving adaptively

Categorizing and Diagnosing Mental Disorders

VALIDITY: the degree to which the disorders identified are clinically meaningful; that is, the degree to which the diagnostic labels predict real-world behaviors and treatment outcomes

Labeling an individual can be harmful

Blinds you to other qualities the person may have

Can reduce their self-esteemCan interfere with the individual’s ability to cope with their environment

RELIABILITY: the degree to which different diagnosticians, all trained in the use of the diagnostic system, reach the same conclusions when they independently diagnose the same individuals

The Brain Is Involved in All Mental Disorders

All thoughts, emotions and behaviors are products of the brain.

The role of the brain is most obvious in chronic mental disorders—that is, they stay with you for life once they appear

Autism

Down SyndromeAlzheimer’s DiseaseAmyloid plaques

A Framework for Thinking About Multiple Causes of Mental Disorders

Anxiety Disorders

Class

of

disorders

in which fear or anxiety is the prominent system. Generalized anxiety disorderObsessive-compulsive disorder - anxiety disorder characterized by two phenomena:

Obsessions

: disturbing thoughts that intrude repeatedly on a person’s

consciousness

Compulsions

: a repetitive action that helps to alleviate the obsession

Panic

disorder -

Mental disorder characterized by the repeated occurrence of panic attacks at unpredictable times and with no clear relationship to environmental events.Panic attack: intense feeling of terror, which usually lasts several minutes, and is accompanied by signs of high physiological arousalPhobias - mental disorder characterized by a strong, irrational fear of some particular category of object or eventPost-traumatic stress disorders - a mental disorder that is directly and explicitly tied to a particular traumatic incident or set of incidents that the affected person has experienced

Depressive Disorders

Cognitive & Biological Factors

Hopelessness theory:

The person assumes that the negative event will have catastrophic consequences

The person assumes that the negative event reflects something negative about himself or herself

The person attributes the cause of the negative event to something that is stable and global

Suffering stressful experiences predispose one to develop a depressive episode

Genes partly predisposes one to develop depression

Depression may be partly due to

dysregulation

of serotonin or norepinephrine in the brain, and increased release of cortisol

Bipolar Disorders

The Manic Condition

Mania is characterized by euphoria, elevated self-esteem, increased talkativeness, decreased need for sleep and increased

energy

Bipolar disorders have been linked with creativity

Schizophrenia

NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS: a lack of or reduction in expected behaviors, thoughts, feelings and drives

Lack of speech

Flattened affect

Loss of basic drives such as hungerAnhedonia

DELUSIONS: a false belief held in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary

Persecution

Being controlled

Grandeur

HALLUCINATIONS: false sensory perceptions

Auditory: hearing voices

POSITIVE SYMPTOMS:

SCHIZOPHRENIA: a serious class of mental disorder that is characterized by disrupted perceptual and other thought

processes,

often including hallucinations and delusions

Disorganized thought and speech, Echolalia, Neologisms

Genes & Environmental Contributions to Schizophrenia

Increased

genetic relatedness increases probability of presenting the

disorder (1.1% population rate)

Identical twin : 48%Fraternal twin: 17%Non-twin sibling: 9%Both parents: 46%One parent: 13%Grandparent: 5%

The prenatal environment (malnutrition, birth problems, head injury)

Stressful life events can precipitate schizophrenia and exacerbate its symptoms

Children of parents who communicate in a disorganized, disjointed or highly emotional manner were more likely to develop schizophrenia