Psychological Disorders Overview

Defining Psychological Disorders

• Three criteria:

  • Distress: Significant emotional or physical pain.
  • Disability: Impairment in daily functioning.
  • Deviance: Behaviors that differ from societal norms.

• DSM-5 definition does NOT include: Moral failing.

Psychopathology: Focus and Professionals

• Primary focus: Understanding the nature, causes, and treatment of mental disorders.

• Professionals involved:

  • Clinical Psychologists: Primary focus on assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
  • Psychiatrists: Medical doctors specializing in mental health, prescribe medication.
  • Counseling Psychologists: Focus on less severe disorders.
  • Social Workers: Focus on social and environmental factors contributing to mental illness.

• Clinical Psychologists: Primarily prepare through doctoral degrees (Ph.D. or Psy.D.)

Recent Developments in Psychopathology

• Key aspect: Integration of biological and psychosocial factors.

• '4 Ds of Abnormality':

  • Distress
  • Deviance
  • Dysfunction
  • Danger

Psychiatrists and their Role

• True statement: Only psychiatrists can prescribe medication.

Reinventing the Biological Tradition

• Two key factors:
  • Discovery of syphilis and its link to mental illness: This highlighted the connection between physical and mental conditions.
  • Rise of biological approaches: Advancements in neurology and brain research contributed to understanding the biological underpinnings of mental disorders.

General Paresis

• Symptoms: delusions, grandiosity, erratic behavior, cognitive decline.

• Discovery of recovery method: syphilis treatment, including penicillin, led to a decrease in general paresis.

• Prominent figure: John P. Grey, who advocated for the biological tradition and improved hospital conditions.

Germ Theory and Syphilis

• Louis Pasteur's germ theory: Helped understand syphilis as a bacterial infection.

• Outcome: Established a physical cause for mental illness, solidifying the biological tradition.

• General paresis designated a disease: 1913.

Insanity and its Causes

• John P. Grey: Argued that insanity was caused by brain pathology, and therefore incurable.

Psychoanalytic Theory

• Id: Primarily focused on basic drives and immediate gratification.

• Defense mechanism: Displacement: Redirecting feelings toward a less threatening object.

• Ego: Mediates between the id and the superego, deals with reality.

• Oral Stage: Focus on food and feeding.

• Oedipus Complex: The internal conflict a young boy experiences regarding his mother, wanting her for himself.

• Projection: Attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts or impulses onto another person.

• Freud's psychosexual stages: Failure to achieve gratification in a specific stage leads to fixation, a personality trait.

• Superego: Represents societal rules and moral conscience.

• Oedipus Complex Conflict: A young boy's desire for his mother and rivalry with his father.

• Electra Complex: Girls experience penis envy and strive to please their fathers, leading to a sense of inferiority.

Contributions to Psychology

• Anna Freud: Emphasized ego psychology and defense mechanisms.

• Heinz Kohut: Contributed to the understanding of self psychology, emphasizing the need for early childhood experiences of empathy and validation.

• Alfred Adler: Introduced the term "inferiority complex", feelings of inadequacy that can hinder personal development.

Therapy Approaches

• Free Association: Therapy technique where patients freely discuss thoughts and feelings to gain insight.

• Therapeutic Alliance: A strong and positive relationship between therapist and client, important for success in therapy.

• Carl Jung: Emphasized the importance of the unconscious, archetypes, and the collective unconscious.

• Joseph Wolpe: Developed systematic desensitization, a behavior therapy technique used for anxiety disorders.

• Operant Conditioning: A type of learning where behavior is influenced by its consequences.

• Positive Reinforcement: Strengthening a response by adding a pleasant stimulus.

• Shaping: Gradual reinforcement of behaviors that approximate the desired response.

• B.F. Skinner: Developed the principles of operant conditioning.

• Wolpe and colleagues in London: Established the Behavior Therapy Unit, pioneering the development of behavioral treatment approaches.

• Acceptance of psychological fads: Due to the lack of scientific evidence and a desire for quick fixes.

• Negative Reinforcement: Strengthening a response by removing an unpleasant stimulus.