How Can We Explain Abnormal Behavior?
- Biological theories suggest that behavior is a mental illness or a disease resulting from physical causes.
- Social factors such as age, race, gender, and culture influence abnormal behavior.
- Disorders result from a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors.
DSM Model for Classifying Abnormal Behavior
- The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a system that describes specific criteria for a diagnosis of a mental health disorder.
- Labeling could lead to negative effects because it may cause the person to behave in a way consistent with the disorder.
Anxiety Disorders
- Anxiety disorders include physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components.
- Generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive anxiety, worry, and difficulty in controlling such worries.
- Panic disorder is characterized by recurrent panic attacks or the persistent fear of having a panic attack.
- Phobic disorder is a persistent fear of a specific object or social situation.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder is when a person experiences repeating compulsions or obsessions that cannot be controlled.
- Post traumatic stress disorder develops after exposure to a terrifying event.
Dissociative and Somatoform Disorders
- Dissociative disorders are characterized by a loss of awareness of some part of the self
- Somatoform disorders are characterized by physical complaints or symptoms with no apparent physical cause.
Schizophrenic Disorders
- Schizophrenia is a chronic mental health disorder characterized by positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, etc.) and negative symptoms (blunted affect, alogia, etc.)
- Types include paranoid, disorganized, catonic, undifferentiated, and residual.
- Causes include genetics, dopamine and glutamate activity, and abnormal brain functioning.
Mood Disorders
- Mood disorders are characterized by a significant change in one's emotional state over an extended period.
- In unipolar depression, the person experiences extreme or chronic sadness or loss of pleasure.
- Bipolar disorder involves a shift in mood between two states: sadness and mania.
- Causes include:
- Biological factors
- Psychological factors
- Social factors
What Are Personality Disorders?
- Personalities disorders consist of longstanding patterns of malfunctioning typically evident in childhood or adolescence.
- People who disregard the rights of others without showing any remorse or guilt are diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
- Borderline personality disorder is characterized by instability in moods, interpersonal relationship, self-image, and behavior.
- Causes could be:
- Biological factors (genetics, neurotransmitters, abnormal brain functioning)
- Psychological factors (inconsistent parenting practices, gender, conflict-filled childhood)
Chapter 14: What Therapies are Used to Treat Psychological Problems?
What is the Nature of Psychotherapy?
What is the Nature of Psychotherapy?
- Psychotherapy is administered by clinical psychologists, licensed counselors, social workers, and therapists.
- Psychotherapists abide by ethical standards of confidentiality, competent treatment, informed consent, and appropriate interactions.
What are the Main Types of Psychotherapy?
- Traditional psychoanalysis has clients gain insight into the underlying source of their problems. Psychodynamic therapy also relies on the therapist's interpretations of the client's feelings and behaviors but places more emphasis on current problems and interpersonal relations.
- Humanistic therapy includes client-centered therapy connects with and understands the client's worldview. The therapist offers genuineness, empathy, and unconditional positive regard to encourage self-exploration and self-fulfillment.
- Behavior therapies:
- Classical conditioning therapies use techniques such as systematic desensitization, virtual reality technology, flooding, and aversion therapy.
- Operant conditioning therapies use techniques such as shaping, extinction, positive reinforcement, and token economies.
- Cognitive therapies:
- Rational-emotive therapy - the therapist confronts, questions, and challenges the validity of the client's irrational beliefs
- Cognitive therapy - the therapist identifies and tracks negative automatic thoughts and has the client test the accuracy of these cognitive distortions
What Happens in Group Therapy?
- The goal of group therapy is to improve the functioning and interactions among individuals, couples, families, or other groups.
- Less expensive than individual therapy and offers a safe mini-environment
Effective Psychotherapy: What Treatments Work?
- Generally, the different psychotherapy approaches produce relatively equivalent results in terms of client improvement.
- The ecletic therapy approach combines multiples ways of treatment
What are the Biomedical Therapies?
- Biomedical therapies are administered by psychiatrists and other medical professionals.
- The most common biomedical therapy is psychopharmacology, or the use of medications to treat mental health problems.
- Antianxiety medications are prescribed to reduce tension and anxiety.
- Antipsychotic medications are prescribed to relieve psychotic symptoms such as agitation, delusions, disordered thinking, and hallucinations.
- Antidepressants are prescribed for mood and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and substance dependence.
- Antimanic medications are used primarily to treat mania.
- Most controversial biomedical therapies include electroconvulsive therapy and psychosurgery. In ECT, a seizure is created in the brain to treat severe depression. Psychosurgery involves surgically altering the brain to alleviate severe symptoms of Parkinson's disease or obsessive compulsive disorder.
A Little Cartoon about Psychotherapy :)
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