Delusional Disorders in Psychology

Delusional Disorders

• Delusional Disorders: characterized by one or more delusions for at least 1 month, with no other characteristics of schizophrenia
• Tend to:
  • Not have flat affect, anhedonia, or other negative symptoms
  • Be socially isolated due to being suspicious
• Subtypes:
  • Erotomanic
  • Grandiose
  • Jealous
  • Persecutory
  • Somatic
  • Mixed
  • Unspecified

Brief Psychotic Disorder

• Brief Psychotic Disorder: characterized by the presence of one of the following: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, or catatonic behavior for at least 1 day but less than 1 month
• Typical experience:
  • Emotional turmoil
  • Overwhelming confusion
• Can experience relapse:
  • If psychotic symptoms persist for at least 1 day in PD, an additional diagnosis of Brief Psychotic Disorder may be appropriate

Schizophreniform Disorder

• Schizophreniform Disorder: characterized by two or more of the following, present during a 1-month period: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, catatonic behavior, or negative symptoms
• Duration: at least 1 month but less than 6 months
• Development: similar to schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia: characterized by two or more of the following, present during a 1-month period: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, catatonic behavior, or negative symptoms
• Duration: at least 6 months
• Disturbance: in one or more major areas
• Prognosis: influenced by duration and severity of illness and gender

Schizoaffective Disorder

• Schizoaffective Disorder: characterized by major mood episodes + delusions or hallucinations for 2 or more weeks
• Characteristics:
  • Anosognosia (poor insight) common
  • Less severe than in schizophrenia

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Intellectual Developmental Disorder

• Intellectual Developmental Disorder: characterized by both intellectual and adaptive functioning deficits in conceptual, social, and practical domains
• Difficulties: with day-to-day activities to an extent that reflects both severity of their cognitive deficits and the type and amount of assistance they receive
• Components of Intellectual Functioning:
  1. Verbal Comprehension
  2. Working Memory
  3. Perceptual Reasoning
  4. Quantitative Reasoning
  5. Abstract Thought
  6. Cognitive Efficacy

DSM-IV Criteria Intellectual Disability Severity

• Mild: IQ 50-69, can live independently, intermittent support needed
• Moderate: IQ 36-64, moderate levels of support, limited support needed in daily situations
• Severe: IQ 20-35, requires daily assistance, extensive support needed

Language Disorder

• Language Disorder: difficulties in the acquisition and use of language
• Deficits: in comprehension and production (e.g., reduced vocabulary, limited sentence structure)

Speech Sound Disorder

• Speech Sound Disorder: difficulty in speech sound production
• Characteristics:
  • Children's progression in mastering speech sound production should result in intelligible speech by age 3
  • Continuous use of immature phonological processes after the age where these sounds can be produced

Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering)

• Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering): disturbances in normal fluency and time patterning of speech that are inappropriate for age
• Characteristics:
  • Can be more sudden and insidious

Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder

• Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder: difficulties in the social use of verbal and nonverbal communication
• Deficits: in using communication for social purposes in a manner appropriate for the situation
• Characteristics:
  • Difficulties in following the rules of conversation
  • Trouble understanding metaphors

Autism Spectrum Disorder

• Autism Spectrum Disorder: characterized by deficient communication, restrictive repetitive actions, and impaired social interaction
• Evident: in early childhood
• Characteristics:
  • Failure to develop social relationships, social reciprocity, nonverbal communication, initiating social events, and maintaining social relationships
  • Inability to engage in joint attention or maintain sameness

...### Types of Therapies

• Humanistic Therapies:
  • Client-Centered Therapy: focuses on accepting, empathizing, and conveying genuineness to clients
  • Support Group: helps people with similar problems meet together
  • Home-Based Self-Help Programs: provides self-help programs at home
  • Social Skills Training: teaches social skills to individuals
  • Family Therapy: helps families change in therapeutic ways, including Maudsley Model
  • Group Therapy: helps people with similar problems meet together with a therapist
  • Psychological Debriefing: helps victims talk about their feelings and reactions to traumatic experiences
  • Interpersonal Psychotherapy: focuses on improving interpersonal functioning and addressing current problems and relationships
  • Motivational Interviewing: helps individuals change their behaviors

Cognitive Therapies

• Dialectical Behavior Therapy: helps individuals with emotional regulation difficulties or self-destructive behaviors
• Beck's Cognitive Therapy: helps individuals identify and change maladaptive assumptions and ways of thinking
• Cognitive Processing Therapy: helps individuals with PTSD examine and change dysfunctional attitudes and styles of interpretation

Behavioral Therapies

• Exposure and Response (Ritual) Prevention: treats OCD by exposing clients to anxiety-arousing thoughts or situations and preventing compulsive acts
• Aversion Therapy: treats undesirable behaviors by presenting unpleasant stimuli
• Relapse-Prevention Training: helps individuals with alcohol use disorder track their drinking behavior, apply coping strategies, and plan for risky situations

Family and Group Therapies

• Positive Family Interaction Therapy: involves individual CBT with the client and additional family sessions
• Family Therapy: helps families change in therapeutic ways, including Maudsley Model

Medications

• Sedative-Hypnotic Drugs: produce feelings of relaxation and drowsiness, including benzodiazepines and barbiturates
• Antidepressant: improves mood of people with depression
• Antipsychotic: corrects grossly confused or distorted thinking and relieves anxiety by altering dopamine activity
• Vagus Nerve Stimulation: treats depression by sending regular electrical signals to the vagus nerve
• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: treats depression by sending a current into the brain
• Mood Stabilizers: stabilize moods of people with bipolar disorder, including lithium

Treatments for Specific Disorders

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder: treated with free association, dream interpretation, transference, resistance, client-centered therapy, CBT, benzodiazepines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and play therapy
• Specific Phobia: treated with exposure treatments, participant modeling, systematic desensitization, and flooding
• Agoraphobia and Separation Disorder: treated with exposure therapy, support groups, home-based self-help programs, benzodiazepines, and SSRIs
• Social Anxiety: treated with benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and CBT
• Panic Attacks: treated with exposure therapy, social skills training, D-Cycloserine, antidepressants, CBT, and anxiolytics
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: treated with free association, short-term psychodynamic therapy, neutralizing, exposure and response prevention, antidepressants, and positive family interaction therapy
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder: treated with antidepressants and exposure and response prevention
• PTSD and Acute Stress Disorder: treated with antidepressants, CBT, exposure therapy, group and family therapy, and psychological debriefing
• Dissociative Amnesia: treated with psychodynamic therapy, hypnotic therapy, and drug therapy
• Dissociative Identity Disorder: treated with psychodynamic, supportive, cognitive, and drug therapy

This quiz covers the characteristics and types of delusional disorders, including persistent beliefs contrary to reality, social isolation, and shared psychotic disorders. Learn about the different types of delusional disorders, such as erotomanic and grandiose.