Psychological Disorders: Definitions, Perspectives, and Major Classes

Psychological Disorders

Introduction

Psychological disorders, also known as mental disorders, are patterns of behavioral or psychological symptoms that impact multiple areas of life. These disorders create distress for the person experiencing these symptoms. Understanding psychological disorders involves examining definitions, historical perspectives, diagnostic criteria, and major classes of disorders.

Defining Abnormal Behavior

What is Abnormal?

Abnormal behavior is a social construct and is typically judged using the "3 D's":

• Distressing: Causes distress to the individual or others.

• Dysfunctional: Interferes with the person's ability to function in daily life or is dysfunctional for society.

• Deviant: Violates social norms or expectations.

Judgments of abnormality often require considering all three criteria.

Historical Perspectives on Abnormal Behavior

Historical Conceptions

• Major psychological disorders have existed in all cultures and across all time periods.

• Examples from history include references in Homer's Odyssey, Hippocrates's theory of four humors, and Freud's psychosexual stages.

Three Dominant Traditions

• Supernatural: Disorders attributed to supernatural forces (e.g., possession by spirits).

• Biological: Disorders seen as diseases affecting the brain (e.g., Hippocrates, 5th Century B.C.).

• Psychological: Disorders explained by psychological processes.

Demonological View

• Abnormal behavior was believed to result from supernatural forces or spirit possession.

• Treatment: Trephination (drilling a hole in the skull) was used to release evil spirits.

Early Biological Views

• Mental illnesses were considered diseases like physical illnesses that affect the brain.

• Breakthrough: Discovery that general paresis was caused by syphilis linked mental disorders to physical causes.

• Current understanding includes both physiological and psychological factors.

Major Psychological Perspectives

• Psychoanalytic: Inappropriate use of defense mechanisms leads to neuroses; withdrawal from reality leads to psychoses.

• Behavioural: Disorders are learned responses to the environment.

• Cognitive: Disorders arise from maladaptive thought processes.

• Humanistic: Disorders result from frustrations in achieving self-actualization and negative self-concept.

Vulnerability-Stress Model

Overview

The vulnerability-stress model explains psychological disorders as the result of the interaction between individual vulnerabilities and stressful life events.

• Incorporates: Biological, environmental, and psychological levels.

• Vulnerability: Predisposition to disorders due to biological basis, personality, or environmental factors.

• Predisposition: Disorder develops only when a person with a vulnerability is exposed to a stressor.

• Stressor: An event that requires the person to cope.

Major Classes of Psychological Disorders

Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are characterized by excessive fear or anxiety that is out of proportion to the situation and interferes with daily life.

• Examples: Phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Biological Factors

• Genetics: Monozygotic (MZ) twins are more similar than dizygotic (DZ) twins in anxiety disorders.

• GABA: Low levels may cause highly reactive nervous systems.

Gender Differences

• Females exhibit more anxiety disorders than males, with differences emerging as early as age seven.

Possible Explanations

• Sex-linked biological disposition.

• Less power and personal control for women.

Psychological Factors

• Psychodynamic: Neurotic anxiety arises when unacceptable impulses threaten to overwhelm the ego's defenses.

• Cognitive: Maladaptive thoughts and beliefs; catastrophic appraisals of situations.

Learning Explanations

• Classical Conditioning: Associating an object or situation with pain or trauma.

• Modeling: Learning by observing others.

Sociocultural Factors

• Cultural definitions of what is important influence the expression of anxiety disorders.

• Some disorders are culturally bound (e.g., fear of offending someone, fear of being fat).

Mood (Affective) Disorders

Mood disorders involve disturbances in emotional state, ranging from severe depression to extreme mania.

Depression

• Not simply sadness or "the blues"; clinical depression involves symptoms that are frequent, intense, and out of proportion to the situation.

• Major Depression: Inability to function effectively.

• Dysthymia: Chronic disruption of mood.

Symptoms of Depression

Domain	Symptoms
Emotional	Negative mood state
Cognitive	Difficulty concentrating, feelings of inferiority and failure, pessimism
Motivational	Loss of interest and drive
Somatic	Appetite loss, compulsive eating, sleep disturbances

Prevalence and Gender Differences

• 1 in 20 North Americans is severely depressed.

• 1 in 5 will have a depressive episode of clinical proportions during their lifetime.

• Women are twice as likely to suffer from unipolar depression; no gender difference for bipolar disorder.

Biological Explanations

• Depression: Genetic factors, biochemical differences, underactivity of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin.

• Bipolar Disorder: Stronger genetic component than unipolar depression; 50% have a relative with the disorder.

Cognitive Processes

• Depressive Cognitive Triad: Negative thoughts about the world, oneself, and the future.

• Inability to suppress negative thoughts; tendency to recall more failures than successes.

• Depressive Attributional Pattern: Success attributed to external factors; negative outcomes attributed to personal factors.

• Learned Helplessness: Expectation that bad events will occur and inability to cope with them.

Learning and Environmental Factors

• Learning: Loss of reinforcement leads to depression and loss of social support.

• Environmental: Poor parenting, many stressful experiences, failure to develop coping skills or positive self-concept.

Sociocultural Factors

• Prevalence of depressive disorders is lower in Hong Kong and Taiwan than in the West.

• Feelings of guilt and inadequacy are highest in North America and Western Europe.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe psychological disorder characterized by disturbances in thought, perception, emotion, and behavior. The term means "split-mind," but it does not refer to multiple personalities.

Severe Disturbances

• Thinking: Delusions (false beliefs)

• Speech: Disorganized, use of strange words

• Perception: Hallucinations (false perceptions)

• Emotion: Blunted or inappropriate affect

• Behavior: Disorganized or abnormal behavior

Categories of Schizophrenia

Type I	Type II
Predominance of positive symptoms	Predominance of negative symptoms
Pathological extremes	Absence of normal reactions
Delusions, hallucinations, disordered speech & thought	Lack of emotion, expression, motivation

Prevalence and Symptoms

• Affects about 1% of the population; equal numbers of males and females.

• 10% are permanently impaired, 65% have intermittent periods of functioning, and 25% recover.

• Negative symptoms: Long history of poor functioning, poor recovery.

• Positive symptoms: History of good functioning, better prognosis.

Biological Factors

• Genetics: Higher concordance rate among twins.

• Brain: Neurodegenerative hypothesis (atrophy and destruction of neural tissue).

• Thalamus: Abnormal MRI activity; routes sensory information.

Biochemical Factors

• Dopamine Hypothesis: Overactivity of the dopamine system is linked to schizophrenia.

• Dopamine regulates emotion, motivation, and cognitive functioning.

• Antipsychotic drugs reduce dopamine activity to treat symptoms.

Additional info: For more detailed understanding, students are encouraged to consult the DSM-5 for diagnostic criteria and to review case studies for real-world applications of these concepts.