We have discussed or will discuss the fact that the concept of adolescence has not always existed and that people continue to have different perspectives of this period of life. To gain firsthand knowledge of the various perspectives, interview a person over the age of 35 about his/her adolescent years. After the interview, write a minimum of a three-page report examining the similarities and differences between the experiences of the adult you interviewed and your own experiences. Be sure to discuss the interviewed person’s views on his/her own adolescence and his/her views on what it is like to be an adolescent today. How do his/her views on your generation differ from your own views on your generation? How does your views on his/her generation differ from his/her views on his/her own generation? What might the differing views represent?
Some possible interview questions:
1. How important was conformity when you were an adolescent?
EVIEW SHEET FOR TEST #1 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY (HISTORICAL BACKGROUND, RESEARCH METHODS, AND DE
2. How did you and your peer group perceive adults during the adolescent years? How did adults perceive you?
3. What types of jobs did you and your friends have? Was adolescent employment very common?
4. What types of things did you and your friends do in your spare time?
5. What types of technology did you utilize during your teenage years?
6. To what types of music did you and your friends listen?
7. Did many of your friends go to college? Did they have to pay for their education?
8. In your opinion, what were the most challenging aspects of your adolescent years?
9. Was violence a problem in your peer group? If yes, what types of violence?
10. Was drug and alcohol abuse a problem in your peer group?
11. Was teen pregnancy a problem in your peer group?
12. Can you relate to what is popular today among teenagers? Why or why not?
13. What differences do you feel exist, if any, between your adolescence and today’s group of adolescents?
-This assignment is worth 40 points.
-YOU MUST TURN IN A ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF YOUR INTERVIEW.
It is due on Tuesday, July 14, 2009.
Unit #4
Abnormal Psychology
I. Overview/Introduction
• Abnormal Psychology: study of people who suffer from psychological disorders.
1.-Manifested in behavior and/or thoughts.
2.-Level of severity can vary substantially.
B) What is normal?
• Appropriate perception of reality.
• Ability to exercise voluntary control over behavior.
• Self-esteem and acceptance
• Ability to form and maintain affectionate relationships.
• Productivity
C) What is abnormal?
• Psychologists use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) formed by members of the American Psychological Association (APA).
• Contains the symptoms of everything considered to be a psychological disorder.
-Typical age of onset, predisposing factors, etc.
ii) Does not include any discussion of the etiology (causes) or treatments.
iii) The manual is periodically updated to adjust to changes in the field.
iv) 3 steps in deciding what to include in the DSM
a) Diagnosis must have “clinical relevance”: enough people must be suffering from the condition to warrant its inclusion.
b) A new diagnostic category must be covered by existing categories.
c) A new diagnostic category must be a legitimate “mental disorder”.
-Distress or disability of a considerable sort must be evident (subjective).
2. Clinicians/therapists are encouraged to evaluate each client according to five axes/dimensions.
• Axis I: Primary clinical problem (e.g., depression, substance abuse, schizophrenia, etc.)
• Axis II: personality disorders and mental retardation.
iii) Axis III: general medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, etc.).
iv) Axis IV: social and environmental problems (e.g., stressful family, crisis on the job).
v) Axis V: global assessment of functioning (GAF) (e.g., work, relationships, leisure time, etc.)
-Scored on a scale of 1-90 (1 is poor, 90 is best).
3. Problems with the DSM
• Danger of over-diagnosis (e.g., ADHD, Dissociative Identity Disorder).
• Power of diagnostic labels
-Problem of the self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Other people may see the person primarily in terms of the label (famous study by David Rosenhan in the 1970s).
-Labeling theory: primary and secondary effects.
iii) Potential confusion of serious mental disorders with normal life problems.
(e.g., “disorder of written expression”, “caffeine-induced sleep disorder”).
iv) Illusion of Objectivity
-Some see the DSM as a vain attempt to impose a veneer of science on an inherently subjective process.
-Problems with prevailing attitudes and prejudices (e.g., homosexuality was once considered a psychological disorder).
4. Benefits of the DSM
• Labels: allows treatment to occur quickly.
• Biases can be combated with awareness and better research.
• There is some evidence to support the universality of most disorders.
II. Anxiety Disorders
• Anxiety disorders
-For some people anxiety becomes detached from any actual danger or they continue when danger and uncertainty are past.
-Anxiety response is too frequent and too easily triggered: results in distress and dysfunction.
-Different from fear: fear is defined as appropriate emotional or physiological arousal to real danger/threat.
B) Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Constant uncontrollable, low-level anxiety that is NOT brought on by physical causes (e.g., disease, drugs).
• Symptoms: restlessness, difficulty concentrating, muscle tension.
-”Vigilance scanning”: heightened attention to everything around them.
-Increases distractibility and decreases concentration.
3. Not necessarily a response to specific trauma (low GABA has been implicated).
4. Prevalence: 5% of people will experience GAD at some point in life.
C) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Extreme emotional reaction to a negative event.
• Symptoms: dissociation, recurrent nightmares, and flashbacks.
• Stress hormones may be toxic to the brain, especially the hippocampus.
• Co-morbidity is common: mood disorders and substance abuse.
D) Panic Disorders
• Characterized by suddenly severe anxiety attacks: overreaction of the sympathetic nervous system.
-Usually unexpected, but may become associated with specific events.
2. 1-3% of adults will experience a panic attack.
3. Symptoms: trembling, shaking, dizziness, chest pain, sweating.
-Frequency of attacks tends to increase as the disease progressively worsens.
E) Phobias: intense and irrational fear of some object or situation.
1.-Three major types of phobias
• Agoraphobia
-Intense fear of public places or open spaces.
ii) Specific Phobias
-Anxiety elicited by a specific object or situation.
-Usually confined to one thing or situation.
iii) Social Phobia
-Persistent and irrational fear of social situations or performance situations.
-Vast majority fear more than one type of situation.
2.-Could be caused by chance associations (classical conditioning theory).
F) Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Obsession: persistent and irrational thoughts or wishes.
2. Compulsion: uncontrollable and repetitive act (e.g., hand washing, counting, and checking).
3. Most cases worsen over time and are accompanied by bouts of depression.
-Person realizes thoughts and actions are irrational but cannot keep themselves from focusing on them.
-Diagnostic criteria: marked distress and time consuming (at least 1 hour a day).
4. May be caused by deficiencies in serotonin.
-Also, an area of the frontal lobe appears to function differently in OCD sufferers.
-Has similarities with tic disorders (like Tourette’s Syndrome).
III. Somatoform Disorders
• Disorders in which there is an apparent physical disorder for which there is no organic basis.
• Freud: identified conversion disorders.
-A person converts psychological distress into imaginary physical ailments. (e.g., “glove anesthesia”).
C) Hypochondriasis: a person interprets small and insignificant symptoms as signs of serious illness.
D) Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD): a person becomes unordinarily preoccupied by a body part(s).
-”Adonis Complex”: extreme bodybuilding.
-Extremely marginal case: apotemnophilia (desire to cut one’s own healthy limbs off).
-See article “A New Way to Be Mad” by Carl Elliot.
E) Somatoform Disorders should not be confused with psychophysiological disorders.
-Disorders in which a genuine physical disorder has its origins in stress responses (e.g., ulcers, headaches, heart disease, and hypertension).
IV. Dissociative Disorders
• Conditions in which consciousness is split or altered in some fashion.
• Symptoms are intense, last a long time, and appear to be out of the individual’s control.
C) Psychogenic Amnesia
• Inability to remember important personal information, usually of a traumatic and stressful nature.
• It is not caused by physical or organic damage (known as organic amnesia).
• With the passage of time, memory usually returns.
D) Fugue: a person forgets his/her identity entirely and wanders far from home.
E) Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• Also known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).
-When one is mentally healthy, he/she has a unitary sense of “self” as a single basic personality.
2. Symptoms: the existence in a single individual of two or more distinct identities or personalities that alternate in controlling behavior.
-Person usually has “odd” memory lapses.
-Types of “alters” or personalities
-Child alters: typically scared, frightened, angry.
-Persecutors: self-destructive; usually remain well-hidden.
-Helpers: want to live and become integrated with the other alters.
-”Host” personality usually expresses experiences of “blackouts”.
-Being recognized by others they don’t know.
-Discovery of objects that aren’t “theirs”.
-Other personalities elicited under hypnosis.
-Very complex presentation of symptoms: commonly misdiagnosed.
3. DID controversy
• One side: thinks DID is a genuine illness, which is frequently a response to severe trauma in childhood.
• Other side: feels that DID is the “fad” illness of the modern era (# of people diagnosed with DID has increased very substantially in the past five decades).
4. Research indicates that there are different physiological responses for different personalities.
-Problem: “role playing” procedures with “healthy” individuals produces similar results.
5. There may be an element of pressure and the power of suggestion by clinicians/therapists.
6. Sociocognitive Perspective: DID is simply an extreme form of presenting different aspects of our personality.
7. Controversy: Kenneth Bianchi (“The Hillside Strangler”) in LA County during the late-1970s attempted to fake DID.
V. Mood Disorders
• A person with a mood disorder experiences extreme or inappropriate emotions.
• Major Depression (Unipolar Disorder)
1. Emotional Symptoms: sadness, loss of pleasure.
2. Cognitive Symptoms
i) Negative views of the self, hopelessness, poor concentration, and memory.
ii)-Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Triad : negative views on self, world, and future.
-Involves attributional styles (one’s own explanation for one’s mood)
-Abramson’s Theory of attribution
-Internal vs. External
-Global vs. Specific
-Stable vs. Unstable
iii) Martin Seligman: learned helplessness theory.
-When one’s prior experiences have caused that person to view himself/herself as unable to control aspects of the future that are controllable.
-Belief may lead to passivity and depression.
3. Physical symptoms: changes in appetite and sleep, fatigue, increase in perception of aches and pains.
4. Symptoms mentioned most endure for more than two weeks to be considered clinical depression.
5. Prevalence: 5%
-Women are twice as likely to suffer from depression.
-Why? Societal pressure? Greater hormone fluctuations? Greater tendency to ruminate/dwell on problems?
6. Diathesis-Stress Model (can be applied to most major disorders)
• Diathesis: genetic predisposition.
-Depression tends to “run” in families.
-Abnormally low levels of NTs: serotonin and norepinephrine.
ii) Stress: environmental pressures.
-Gender and racial discrimination; problems in relationships or at work/school.
C) Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression)
• Characterized by extreme mood swings (highs and lows).
2.-Symptoms may vary: in milder forms of mania the person is infectiously merry, very talkative, charming, and self-confident.
-In more extreme cases: person may be “spinning out of control” in mania phases and basically “paralyzed” when depressed.
-During extreme manic phases, the person may barely sleep at all.
-Grandiosity: feel incredibly powerful, meaningful.
-Impulsivity during manic phases can be a significant problem.
-Three different stages of mania
• Euphoria: confident, self-assured, creative, charismatic.
• Irritability: charisma is mostly gone; outbursts of temper; life becomes unmanageable.
• Panic (70% of cases): delusional, hallucinations; Desperate need for hospitalization.
3. Prevalence: approximately 1%.
-No gender differences have been documented.
-Higher prevalence has been noted amongst artistic and musically gifted people.
-Strong genetic component (72% concordance rate amongst monozygotic/identical twins).
VI. Schizophrenic Disorders
• Fairly recent term: coined in 1911 by Eugen Bleuler. (literally means “split mind” -split from reality).
1.-Before Bleuler it was called dementia praecox (described by Emil Kraepelin).
2. Bleuler’s Four A’s
• Associations
-Associations among thoughts are disturbed.
-Rambling, incoherent, lack associative connectivity.
ii) Affect
-Emotional responses are flattened or inappropriate.
iii) Ambivalence
-Hold conflicting feelings toward others and themselves.
iv) Autism
-Turning toward an inner world.
-Detachment from reality.
B) To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a person must exhibit a deterioration of daily activities (e.g., work, social relations, and self-care).
-He/she must exhibit at least two of the following
-Hallucinations, delusions, incoherent speech, grossly disorganized behavior, certain thought disorders, or a loss of normal emotional responses and social behaviors.
C) Positive Symptoms
-Behaviors that are notable because of their presence (e.g, delusions, hallucinations, and thought disorders).
-Inappropriate affect: odd or rude display of emotion.
-Hallucinations are usually auditory.
-Common Delusions (strong beliefs that are contrary to reality)
i) Control
ii) Grandeur
iii) Persecution
iv) Reference
v) Thought insertion
vi) Thought withdrawal
vii) Thought broadcasting
viii) Erotomanic
D) Negative Symptoms
-Behaviors that are noticeable because of their absence.
-e.g., “flat affect”: lack of emotional expression , a deficit of speech.
- “blunted affect”: a lack of ability to feel pleasure, and a general inability to take care of oneself.
E) Four types of Schizophrenia
• Undifferentiated
-Deterioration of daily functioning plus some combination of hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, etc.
-Also known as “trash-can” category: meet main criteria, but don’t neatly fit into any other category.
2. Catatonic: engage in odd movements.
i)-May remain in strange postures for hours, move jerkily for no apparent reason, or alternate between these.
ii)-”Wavy flexibility”: may allow their body to be moved into any alternative shape and will then hold that new pose.
iii) Mutism
iv) Echolalia: repeating phrases of others.
v) Echopraxia: repeating movements of others.
3. Disorganized
• Incoherent speech
-Neologisms: may make up own words.
-Clang associations: may string together nonsense words that rhyme.
ii) Inappropriate affect or flat affect.
iii) Poor self-care
iv) Strange facial expressions (grimacing) and mannerisms.
4. Paranoid
-Strong or elaborate hallucinations (auditory) and delusions (especially delusions of persecution and grandeur).
F) Theoretical etiology/causes
• Genetics
i)-Adoption studies.
ii)-Monozygotic (identical) twins: 50%.
iii)-Some research suggests an abnormality on the fifth chromosome.
2. Brain damage
• Hippocampus and several areas of the cerebral cortex are a few % smaller.
• Cerebral ventricles (fluid-filled cavities in the brain) are larger than normal in schizophrenic patients.
iii) Smaller than average neurons and fewer than normal synapses.
iv) Dopamine hypothesis: too much may produce hallucinations and delusions.
3. Prenatal abnormalities: famine, influenza.
VII. Personality Disorders
• Generally less serious than other disorders.
• DSM-IV: an enduring pattern of inner experience that is deviant, pervasive, and inflexible.
VII. Personality Disorders
C) Unlike people with anxiety or mood disorders, people with personality disorders often do not feel upset or anxious and may not be motivated to change.
D) Common Personality Disorders
• Schizoid: lack of ability or desire to form social relationships (emotional coldness).
-Introverted, bland, constricted affect. Lack sense of humor.
-Aloof, removed, quiet, distant, secluded.
-”Best friend” is what most would call an acquaintance.
-Non-competitive, lonely jobs that others find intolerable.
-Mature sexuality is postponed indefinitely.
-Unable to express anger.
-Ability to invest huge amounts of time in nonhuman interests.
2. Borderline
-Appear just across the “border” from psychosis.
-Unstable affect (emotional expression) and unstable behavior (poor self-image, haphazard relationships).
-Impulsivity, anger problems, identity disturbances, intolerance of being alone, physically self-damaging acts (suicidal, self-mutilation, physical fights).
-Chronic feelings of profound emptiness.
3. Narcissistic
-Seeing oneself “as the center of the universe”.
-Frequent grandiosity and obliviousness to others’ needs; exploitative behavior and arrogance.
-Strong sense of entitlement.
-Require constant attention and admiration.
-Can’t tolerate imperfections in self or others.
-Have tremendous difficulty dealing with criticism.
-Lack empathy.
4. Antisocial: “Psychopaths”/”Sociopaths”
i)-Symptoms: impulsive, deceitful, high intelligence, callous behavior, and lack of respect for social norms.
ii)-Theoretical causes
-Abnormalities in the CNS, brain abnormalities (temporal and frontal lobes)-see Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Damaged”.
-Social factors (e.g., neglectful parents).
ASSIGNMENT DUE WED 7/8
On Being Sane in Insane Places
By David L. Rosenhan
1. Why could it be said that sanity and insanity are relative concepts?
2. Who were the subjects in Rosenhan’s study?
3. What were the various settings of Rosenhan’s study?
4. What procedures were followed in Rosenhan’s study?
5. How did the pseudopatients behave after being admitted to psychiatric wards?
6. What label did the pseudopatients receive upon being discharged?
7. According to Rosenhan, why did the sanity of the pseudopatients go undetected?
8. What other research has been conducted that indicates misdiagnosis frequently occurs in psychiatric hospitals?
9. What role does labeling play in psychiatric assessment?
10. How did the staff of the psychiatric hospitals interpret the note taking of the pseudopatients?
11. In what ways are behaviors frequently misattributed in psychiatric hospitals?
12. Why could it be argued that there is an enormous overlap in the behaviors of the sane and insane?
13. According to Rosenhan, what are the long-term consequences of labeling and depersonalization?
--READ CHP. 3 (ON BEING SANE IN INSANE PLACES) IN SLATER’S BOOK (OPENING SKINNER’S BOX).
--PROVIDE A SUMMARY (3-4 PARAGRAPHS) DEALING WITH THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
A) What was the design of Rosenthal and Jacobson’s famous study? What were the results of their study?
B) What did Rosenhan discover when he met up with his confederates after the whole experiment had been conducted?
C) How did the psychiatric community respond to Rosenhan’s study?
D) How does Slater (the author) describe her experiences as a patient in a psychiatric hospital in the 1970s?
E) What was the design of Rosenhan’s famous follow-up “experiment”? What were the results of the follow-up “experiment”?
F) What were the results of Slater’s recent follow-up experiments that were modeled after Rosenhan’s original experiment? What was Robert Spitzer’s reaction to Slater’s follow-up experiments?
--PROVIDE A ONE PARAGRAPH OPINION THAT DEALS WITH FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
A) What are your views on Rosenhan’s experiments? Do you think the experiments were particularly insightful? Why? Why not?
B) What are your views on Slater’s follow-up experiments? Do you think her experiments were particularly insightful? Why? Why not?
Education Gateways makes no warranty for SchoolNotes.com.
Information on this site is generated by the users. The views
expressed are not necessarily those of Education Gateways or its members, and
Education Gateways is not responsible for user's conduct on SchoolNotes.com.
