Invitation to Psychology

Chapter

11

p

sychological Disorders

COn

C

ept Map

416 Chapter 11 Psychological Disorders

Diagnosing Mental Disorders

Mental disorder generally describes any condition that causes suffering, is self-destructive,

seriously impairs a person’s ability to function, or endangers the community.

Dilemmas of Diagnosis

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is

designed to provide criteria and categories for diagnosing mental

disorders. Problems with the DSM include:

• The danger of overdiagnosis.


• The influence of diagnostic labels on perceptions and explanations
  of a person’s behavior.


• The confusion of serious mental disorders with everyday problems.


• The illusion of objectivity and universality.
  Advantages of the DSM include:


• Ongoing efforts to improve reliability in diagnosis.


• Identification of universal disorders, as well as cultural syndromes,
  cultural idioms of distress, and cultural explanations of symptoms.

Measuring Disorders

• Projective tests, such as the Rorschach inkblot test,
  have low reliability and validity.


• Objective tests (inventories), such as the Minnesota
  Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), have higher
  reliability and validity.

Anxiety Disorders

• Generalized anxiety disorder involves continuous
  chronic anxiety.


• Panic disorder involves sudden, intense attacks of
  profound fear.


• Phobias are unrealistic fears of specific situations,
  activities, or things, or, in the case of agoraphobia,
  being away from a safe place.

Trauma-Related and Obsessive-

Compulsive Disorders

• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves reliving a trauma in
  recurrent, intrusive thoughts; a sense of detachment; and increased
  physiological arousal.


• Most people who undergo a traumatic experience eventually recover.
  Those who have prolonged symptoms may have preexisting biological
  or cognitive vulnerabilities and, in the case of war veterans, have
  inflicted severe harm on civilians or prisoners.


• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involves recurrent,
  unwished-for thoughts or images (obsessions) and repetitive, ritualized
  behaviors (compulsions).


• People with hoarding disorder are unable to get rid of anything,
  including food wrappers and junk.

Depressive and Bipolar Disorders

Vulnerability-stress models look at interactions between

individual vulnerabilities and external sources of stress. Four

factors contribute to major depression:

1. Genetic factors, interacting with life experiences.


2. Experiences with violence, childhood abuse, and parental
   neglect.


3. Loss of important relationships.


4. Cognitive habits, ruminating about problems, and feeling
   hopeless.

• Major depression involves prolonged grief, hopelessness,
  and loss of energy, appetite, and interest in activities.


• Bipolar disorder involves episodes of both depression and
  mania and shares symptoms with other major disorders.

Genetic

predisposition

History of

insecure

attachment

Negative ways

of thinking

Hopelessness

Brooding

rumination

Loss of loved one

Loss of job

Failure

Trauma

Violence

Individual

vulnerability

Stressful,

triggering events

SEVERE

DEPRESSION

VULNERABILITY-STRESS

MODEL OF DEPRESSION