Abnormal Psychology

xxx Preface

Summarizing and Consolidating

We include two more key features to help students learn the material: end-of-section

reviews and end-of-chapter summaries (called Summing Up).

End-of-Section Reviews

At the end of each major section, two types of pedagogical elements help students

review the material they have read:

• Key Concepts and Facts Summary. This feature uses bulleted lists to summarize
  the fundamental concepts and facts discussed in the section.


• Making a Diagnosis. This feature is designed to help students consolidate the
  information about diagnostic criteria by applying the criteria to symptoms as they
  are expressed in real people. For each disorder, we ask students to diagnose the

Table 7.5 • Panic Disorder Facts at a Glance

Prevalence

• Up to 3% of people worldwide will experience panic disorder at some point in their lives
  (Rouillon, 1997; Somers et al., 2006). However, 30% of people will experience at least one
  panic attack in their lives. Up to 60% of people seen by cardiologists have panic disorder.
  Comorbidity


• About 80% of people with panic disorder will have an additional Axis I disorder (Ozkan &
  Altindag, 2005). The two Axis I disorders mostly commonly associated with panic disorder are
  depression (up to 65% of cases) and substance abuse (up to 30% of cases) (Biederman et al.,
  2005; Keller & Hanks, 1994; Magee et al., 1996).


• Approximately 15–30% of those with panic disorder also have social phobia or GAD, and
  2–20% have some other type of anxiety disorder (Goisman et al., 1995).


• Over a third of those with panic disorder also have a personality disorder—an Axis II disorder
  (Ozkan & Altindag, 2005).
  Onset


• Panic disorder is most likely to arise during two phases of life: the teenage years or the mid-30s.
  Course


• The frequency of panic attacks varies from person to person:
  ° Some people get panic attacks once a week for months,
  ° Others have attacks every day for a week.


• The frequency of panic attacks can vary over time:
  ° After having regular panic attacks, a person can experience weeks or even years with less fre-
  quent attacks or no attacks at all,
  ° Other patients come to have limited-symptom attacks—experiencing fewer than the mini-
  mum of four symptoms necessary for a diagnosis of panic attack (see Table 7.3),
  ° Some people have no change over time in the frequency of their attacks.
  Gender Differences


• Women are two to three times more likely than men to be diagnosed with panic disorder.
  Cultural Differences


• Symptoms of panic disorder are generally similar across cultures, although people in some
  cultures may experience or explain the symptoms differently, such as “wind overload” among
  the Khmer (Hinton et al., 2002, 2003).
  Source: Unless otherwise noted, information in the table is from American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

Key Concepts and Facts About Understanding Schizophrenia

• A variety of neurological factors are associated with
  schizophrenia:
  
  
  • Abnormalities in brain structure and function have been
    found in the frontal and temporal lobes, the thalamus, and
    the hippocampus. Moreover, certain brain areas do not
    appear to interact with each other properly. People with
    schizophrenia are more likely to have enlarged ventricles
    than are other people. The brain abnormalities give rise to
    biological markers in some individuals.
  
  
  • These brain abnormalities appear to be a result of, at least
    in some cases, maternal malnourishment or illness during
    pregnancy or to fetal oxygen deprivation.
    S hi h i i i d ih b lii i d i
  
  
  
  

alone, though, cannot explain why a given individual

develops the disorder.

• Psychological factors that are associated with schizophrenia
  and shape the symptoms of the disorder include:
  
  
  • cognitive deficits in attention, memory, and executive
    functioning;
  
  
  • dysfunctional beliefs and attributions; and
  
  
  • diffi culty recognizing and conveying emotions.
  
  
  
  


• Various social factors are also associated with schizophrenia:
  
  
  • an impaired theory of mind, which makes it diffi cult to under-
    stand other people’s behavior, which in turn means that that
    other people’s behavior routinely appears to be unpredictable;