Read Chapter 15.
Why are psychological disorders so inherently interesting to people? What are the main causes or sources of psychological dysfunction? How has your understanding of psychological disorders changed since reading this chapter?
From your reading, which topic(s) are most interesting to you?
What was the most surprising or memorable thing you learned about in this reading?
Provide a list of psychological terms that you used in your comment at the bottom of your post.
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http://www.thefix.com/content/cory-monteith-addiction-treatment-maintenance-therapy8023
http://www.ted.com/talks/
http://www.iflscience.com/brain/schizophrenia-revealed-be-8-genetically-distinct-disorders
Psychological disorders are so interesting to people because, I believe, humans have this constant need to just be better than others. And if we see someone with a psychological disorder, we as humans may think, even subconsciously, that there is ‘something wrong’ with the other person, the one afflicted with the mental illness. So by studying these illnesses and learning about them, we are simply doing what we want to on an instinctual level, which is examine what makes others different, and examine whether that difference makes one of the two people in question better than the other.
The main causes or sources of psychological dysfunction are believed to be disordered and upsetting thoughts, as well as illogical thinking processes. This is primarily believed to have begun during childhood for most people who have been diagnosed with a psychological disorder. They are especially susceptible to developing psychological disorders when they believe that their worth or goals aren’t as good as they could or should be. There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that biology and genetics, as well as early childhood experiences are a huge part of what causes or leads to psychological disorders.
My understanding of psychological disorders has been more enhanced than changed. I have several friends who are subject to the whims of their mental illnesses, and therefore I’ve known a little about mental illnesses for a long time now. I did not, however, really know how these disorders developed or how they were initiated. These facts were new to me, and I feel they will help me to better understand my friends in the future. I was also unaware or the different categorizations of these disorders. I suppose, rather ignorantly, that I never really thought about the different distinctions between disorders, simply knew the names and the basic symptoms.
The topic most interesting to me was the topic of schizophrenia, because I have heard the term thrown around a lot in my life, even known people who had it, but I never had the disorder defined to me. It was nice to find out what the disorder is; it will give me the opportunity to relate better to people with the disorder. I also really appreciated that I can now relate to people afflicted with the disorder a little better, and can perhaps tailor my conversations with them to be the least disruptive I can make them.
The most surprising thing I read was that there is a distinction between PTSD and more short term trauma experiences. This was surprising to me because I always assumed that if you were to encounter a trauma and then experience a stress disorder afterward, you had PTSD. Apparently, that is not the case, and, in fact, there is at least one other type discussed by the book, and it is more short term, while PTSD is a long term effect of trauma.
Psychological disorders
mental illness
instinctual
psychological dysfunction
illogical thinking processes
genetics
disorders
symptoms
schizophrenia
PTSD
trauma
stress disorder
I know that it was said that this is probably the chapter that most people were excited to talk about, but to be honest I really don’t understand why everyone is so fascinated with psychological disorders. I do understand the attraction to crazy stories about schizophrenia and other wild disorders like that, but other than that I do not see why that is what attracts people the most. I assume that it has to do something with our inherent interest in the bizarre and also our desire to figure things out that are not completely understood.
What I learned about the different causes and sources of psychological disorders in the course of this chapter is that there are many perspectives that give different ideas about this topic. For instance, the neuroscience approach views abnormal functioning as being caused by malfunctions in the brain while the psychodynamic approach views them as unconscious conflicts often rooted in childhood. Other perspectives view abnormal functioning as a product of conditioning or modeling, societal and other influences, or risk factors and lack of resiliency. Before reading this chapter I had never known that psychologists had different standpoints on why these disorders occur.
The model that I found the most interesting was the sociocultural model. I thought this model made a lot of sense because it looked at societal issues like social change, socioeconomic class, and race and the effect that they had on abnormal behavior. I definitely agree that these factors can have a huge impact and found it interesting that there was evidence to back it up. For instance, societies undergoing rapid urbanization have a rise in mental disorders and those with lower socioeconomic status also see an increased number of disorders. From what I learned in my sociology class as well as in the chapter on social psychology, it does not surprise me at all that society would have an influence on psychological health.
One thing that really shocked me in this chapter was the little caption underneath Virginia Woolf’s picture. It said that she suffered from major episodes of depression and mania at four different points of her life. At 59, Virginia Woolf killed herself by drowning because she feared that she was becoming mentally ill again. This really hit me hard because it definitely shows how difficult it is to go through a psychological disorder. To have something be so awful that you’d rather be dead instead of experiencing it again just saddens me.
A final thing that I connected to real life in this chapter is conversion disorder. In this phenomena, a psychosocial conflict or need is converted into physical symptoms that can even affect motor or sensory functioning. Although I’ve never heard of this in real life and it is very rare, this was shown on my favorite TV show, Bones. On Bones, one of the character’s arms is paralyzed because of the extreme stress that another character puts on him. It is astounding to me that this can happen in real life and it really demonstrates the intricacy of the brain and how stress can affect the body and psychological health.
Vocabulary: schizophrenia, psychological disorder, neuroscience approach, abnormal functioning, psychodynamic approach, conditioning, modeling, risk factors, resiliency, sociocultural model, depression, mania, conversion disorder
After reading this chapter and reflecting a little, I think that people are fascinated with psychological disorders in part because most people that have these disorders act differently and as humans we are curious creatures. We like to know what is going on and how things work. These psychological disorders are a puzzle waiting to be solved. As humans we like to know the answers and causes to things. Along with this, the main causes or sources of psychological dysfunctions found by many scientists include chemicals, stress, adverse events, and environment. By chemicals, I mean the different chemicals in our brains such as norepinephrine, serotonin, or cortisol. These chemicals in just the wrong doses can lead to some of the abnormal behaviors and other symptoms of the psychological disorders talked about in this chapter. Also mentioned was the idea of adverse events and environment. Adverse events could include traumatic events such as a death in the family or a shooting. These events trigger a large change in a person’s life that may be for the better or for the worse. The environment that I mentioned was more from the perspective of how a person grows up. Some of the different things that we are exposed to at a young age can lead to psychological disorders in the future such as a death in the family or childhood abuse.
My understanding of psychological disorders has changed a lot since reading this chapter. Not only do I know more about the causes of several of the psychological disorders, I feel more informed on the many different kinds of disorders and how people with these disorders go about life. For instance, I did not realize that bipolar disorders could be so extreme or that OCD can be so debilitating. This really gave me insight into how some people live their lives on a regular basis. Along with this, I know a fair amount of people that have OCD so it was really interesting to me to really dig deeper into how some of my friends cope and learn more about why they behave the way they do.
The topic that interested me the most from this reading besides the section on OCD was that of the social anxiety disorder section. I found this section very informative. At the beginning of this semester one of my friends was diagnosed with a form of social anxiety. Some of the points that this section talked about could see relating to my friend in her everyday life. This section was very informative and also showed me that this diagnosis is more common than I originally thought.
Along with this the most surprising thing that I learned while reading this chapter was the difference between Acute Stress Disorder and PTSD. I did not realize that there was a level before PTSD. It also really shocked me that 80% of people diagnosed with Acute Stress Disorder eventually ended up being diagnosed with PTSD. Overall, I learned more about this disorder and how it negatively affects the patient and their surroundings.
Vocabulary: psychological disorders, OCD, social anxiety disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, PTSD
In my opinion, psychological disorders are so inherently interesting to people because we all have a desire to know how and why things go wrong. We want to understand what makes a person develop one of these disorders, what they experience with it, and how they cope (or don't cope) with it. We look for an explanation as to why certain people with these disorders behave in the way that they do. On a personal level, I think to some extent we like to learn more about these disorders so that we can "self-diagnose". Most people are curious as to whether or not they fall into one of these categories or have the potential risk factors that could develop later on. Often we hear people say, "this is making my anxiety insane", "don't mess with that, I have OCD", and things of the same nature. Have they really truly been clinically diagnosed? They certainly may have, but in many cases they have not. These phrases have become increasingly common and are simply in result of self-diagnoses.
Psychological dysfunction can be caused by or in result of a variety of factors. Psychologists have a few basic categories that they use when looking at these disorders. They explain the development of psychological dysfunction through the neuroscience model, psychodynamic model, cognitive-behavioral model, humanistic-existential model, sociocultural model and the developmental psychopathology model. These models play a role in psychological dysfunction together. Many times there is more than one model that can explain the cause of such disorders.
For example, let's look at anxiety disorders which are collectively the most common mental disorders in the United States. The different types of anxiety disorders are explained by the neuroscience model, cognitive-behavioral model, and the sociocultural model. The neuroscience model is able to explain how someone is affected by generalized anxiety disorder. Under the model, researchers believe that the neurotransmitter GABA is responsible for the alteration of the negative feedback system which results in GAD. In social anxiety disorder, cognitive-behavioral theorists believe that those affected with it have dysfunctional cognitive notions which then result in an abnormal behavior such as avoidance. OCD is believed, by neuroscientists, to be in result from low serotonin levels. This was discovered when individuals were given antidepressants and saw a decrease in their obsessive-compulsive behaviors.
I found the topic of OCD to be particularly interesting. I thought about the fact that the textbook discussed the idea of comorbidity, when people qualify for two or more diagnoses. In my head I decided to look at OCD and depression, both caused by low serotonin levels. Antidepressants are supposed to lessen the depressive thoughts and obsessive compulsive behaviors, but they have also shown to cause weight gain. I wondered if weight gain could then cause a further increase in depressive thoughts which in turn, could result in more obsessive compulsive tendencies to try and cope with it all. So, is it an endless cycle? Does it ever really get better for these type of people? Obviously this is just one example and it may not happen in this manner. The medications may be strong enough to mask those thoughts and behaviors. This example is just one way in which I am able to think about the possible struggles that psychological disorders can cause.
Vocabulary Terms: psychological disorders, clinically diagnosed, neuroscience model, psychodynamic model, cognitive-behavioral model, humanistic-existential model, sociocultural model, developmental psychopathology model, anxiety disorders, comorbidity
I think that people are so interested in psychological disorders because they hit so close to home. I’m sure most people have someone they at least know, if not someone who is in their inner circle, who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder. I personally have quite a few friends, classmates, and neighbors who suffer from depression or anxiety. The book says that about 30% of adults and 19% of children have some sort of psychological disturbance each year, and most people will go through a rough time from which a psychological disturbance may result at some point in their lives. Psychological disorders are actually somewhat common, and now people are actually discussing them, as opposed to how they were handled in the past centuries.
Psychologists have several competing theories of causation of psychological dysfunction, or models of abnormality. One group, called neuroscientists, trace causation to the brain. They believe that psychological abnormality is a function of some sort of malfunction in the brain. Another theory, the psychodynamic approach, takes a person’s childhood into account and considers how the way they were raised and their childhood experiences may have caused a psychological abnormality. This is the theory Freud would have agreed with. Some psychologists direct their thinking towards malfunctions in cognition and inappropriate behaviors. These are the cognitive-behavioral theorists. Humanists and existentialists would blame a wrong view of oneself and would assert that this causes psychological abnormalities. Other psychologists would point their fingers at the pressures of society and social norms and expectations. Developmental psychologists focus on the way a person developed and a lack of resilience shown in the developmental process. In short, psychologists can’t pinpoint exactly what causes psychological disorders, but it is so complicated it can’t be explained by just one variable.
I wasn’t aware of how many different classifications and diagnoses of psychological disorders existed. Usually, the terms “psychological disorders” would make me think of schizophrenia and bipolar. I didn’t realize that anxiety and depression were included in this category, since so many people seem to have one of those two. It is also possible to have more than one diagnosis, which is called comorbidity. I also had always thought of anxiety as the opposite of depression, but I learned that mania, which is when you feel excited and have a lot of energy for a long time, is in fact the opposite. Anxiety disorders are even in their own category and they aren’t considered a mood disorder like depression and mania. I learned that anxiety is having high, debilitating levels of fear and worry, but there are many different categories. Basically, psychological disorders are much more complicated and diverse than I thought before reading this chapter.
I was really interested to learn about schizophrenia. I didn’t know really anything about it, and I had always been a little afraid and unsure. I learned that it is basically when one loses contact with reality, which is called psychosis.
I was surprised to learn that phobias are considered a psychological disorder, and that they fall under the umbrella of anxiety disorders. I always hear people saying they have a phobia, and I’ve been known to say I have a “phobia” of spiders. I didn’t know that people were actually affected so much by fears of things like animals and the sun, and I will definitely adjust my vocabulary about this and other disorders after reading this chapter.
Terms: abnormality, schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety, depression, diagnosis, comorbidity, mania, psychosis, phobia
I would like to believe that people are so interested in psychological disorders because they want to be able to help, but in reality I think that is only a small part of what people want to do. A lot of people in society think that when they see someone with a mental disorder, they subconsciously step away from them, thinking that something bad will happen if they are too close to them. I like to read up on psychological disorders to help understand them better, especially when so many people around me are affected by these disorders. I want to be able to understand better how to help instead of standing there awkwardly when a cousin of mine goes from his middle happy range self to bipolar manic or depressive. For someone on the outside it can look crazy and scary, but to anyone who has grown up with him it is pretty normal. Another reason people like learning about psychological disorders is because almost everyone love to “self-diagnose” themselves and the people around them, whether it has to do with if they have a cold, cancer, or a mental disorder, instead of letting themselves be clinically be diagnosed.
The main causes or sources of psychological dysfunction are believed to be disordered and upsetting thoughts, as well as illogical thinking processes. This is believed to have begun during childhood for most people who were diagnosed with a psychological disorder. There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that biology and genetics, and early childhood experiences are a huge part of what causes or leads to psychological disorders.
This chapter helped to enhance my understanding of the psychological disorders. As I have stated before I have several friends and family members that are subject to mental disorders and the effect on people's lives. I did not know about all of the different categorizations of the disorders.
I seem to finding the topic of OCD to be interesting whereever I read about it. I found that when the textbook talked about comorbidity, when people can be diagnosed with two or more diagnoses, it made me think of Triggered by Fletcher Wortmann. I could draw so many connections between the textbook and what I had read in the book for my book report.
A memorable thing for me was the fact that there was a distinction between PTSD and more short term trauma experiences. I appreciated it because I do not appreciate when someone has a panic attack in public and someone just automatically assumes that they are a PTSD victim, it is not within someone's right to assume anything about anyone’s life and nor should they push their way into their private life asking questions because they want to know. What I did not realize was that so many people were diagnosed with Acute Stress Disorder could eventually be diagnosed with PTSD. Learning more about the disorder and how it negatively affects the patient and their surroundings was interesting to me.
Vocabulary: psychological disorders, mental disorders, bipolar disorder, clinically diagnose, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, short term trauma, acute stress disorder
I think the reasons for the interest in psychological disorders within our society is mostly due to the fascination with finding out why these people act in these ways that the general curious population does not act in. Generally though my experience, people are fascinated by what is different and odd about others and what makes people tick. Why would this man do such a thing? I wonder what it’s like in his head? Am I in anyway like this person who did these horrible things? I think we also like to separate ourselves from them and make sure we don’t have what that person has.
When it comes to the causes of psychological disorders, of course each philosophical stance of psychology has a different theory as to where these disorders come from and what causes them. The neuroscience approach describes these disorders as originating from structural damage, biochemical defect, and malfunction of the person's brain from a biological standpoint. They also look at genes as helping in the cause of disorder especially in schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, mood disorder, and mental retardation. The psychodynamic approach in true Freudian fashion believes that these stem from unconscious forces of the mind conflicting with one another or the unconscious trying to resolve problems that can usually be found in childhood. The Cognitive-Behavioral approach states that the causes come from the a combination of bad learned behaviors, conditioning, unnecessary modeling, and dysfunctional cognitive processing. The Humanist approach states that people may gain harsh conditions of worth to the point where they can’t reach full self-actualization and at that point they will deny thoughts and create a warped reality around themselves which can stem out into these disorders. The Existentialist view states that we have a choice from birth whether to confront our existence or run from it and this caving into social and psychological pressure can end up causing anxiety and depressive symptoms collapsing into disorder. The Sociocultural approach states that social and cultural stress that is added into a person's life can be a floodgate to these disorders. Finally, The Developmental Psychopathology Model states that through a person’s genes and early experiences in life, they can contract disorders. Of course many of these theories cannot be compatible with every disorder however when we mix all of these theories together we start to come up with a better understanding as to the number of biological and psychological events that occur that could give way to psychological disorder. My understanding of how OCD and schizophrenia take place have been greatly changed by both this chapter and my book report reading of the memoir “Triggered.”
One thing I found interesting while reading was reading about schizophrenia mostly because I did not know a lot about this disorder before reading and I always thought it had somewhat of a likeness to dissociative personality disorder somehow, but it’s mostly just about falling into psychosis through hallucinations, disturbing thoughts and emotions, less perception, and abnormal motor skills. It is very serious and it’s hard to think about what they would be experiencing.
Terms: OCD, schizophrenia, dissociative personality disorder, Developmental Psychopathology Model, sociocultural approach, existentialist, humanist, cognitive-behavioral approach, psychodynamic approach, Alzheimer's, mood disorder, mental retardation, psychological disorders
I believe psychological disorders are so inherently interesting to people because human beings have an inherent interest in things that are out of the ordinary or bizarre. When everything is the same or normal, we become easily bored, but when something strange or abnormal occurs, our interest gets piqued and we want to learn more. I believe it is reasons like this that attractions such as Ripley's Believe It or Not or shows such as Criminal Minds are so fascinating to the public. Unusual circumstances and abnormalities are by far more interesting and popular than the daily menial tasks we all perform.
According to the chapter, there are several causes or sources of psychological dysfunction. There are several models of abnormality that each have their individual way of explaining how psychological dysfunctions occur. Often, many aspects of several different models work together to become the root cause of a psychological disorder. The neuroscience model focuses on the brain processes and how these affect psychological functioning. For example, a person with depression often experiences insufficient activity of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin. The psychodynamic model has its roots in Freud’s theories and explains abnormalities by the unconscious attempts to resolve conflicts. The cognitive-behavioral model ties together two different areas of thinking, behavioral and cognitive and focuses on how they work together. The behavior side suggest that abnormalities occur from learning, such as operant conditioning. The cognitive perspective blames, obviously, cognitive processes in abnormalities, such as maladaptive beliefs and illogical thinking processes. The humanistic-existential model takes the approach that human beings must have an accurate awareness of themselves and abnormalities arise when this self-awareness is inaccurate and negative. The sociocultural model suggests that psychological dysfunctions are dependent upon the society that one is a part of. Finally, the developmental psychopathology model focuses on both the influence of genetics and early childhood experiences in the development of psychological dysfunctions.
My understanding of psychological dysfunctions and disorders has greatly increased since reading this chapter. I had heard of every disorder mentioned in this chapter previously, but did not understand why they developed. In other words, I understood and recognized various symptoms of psychological disorders but had no clear idea on how they came to be. This chapter really clarified that understanding by exploring the causes of multiple disorders based on the models mentioned above.
The most interesting topic to me in this chapter was the section of dissociative identity disorder because this is what I did my book report over. After reading my selected book, Sybil, and writing the report, I learned a great deal about this disorder and how it affects people. I obviously referenced this section of the book in preparation for writing my report, but I still find it fascinating to read about.
The most surprising thing I read in this chapter wasn’t a section in itself but a comment made in each one; a sentence that explained how prevalent each disorder was among women compared to men. Almost all disorders are twice as more likely to occur to women than to men. This really shocked me. It also concerned me too. Females already get criticized for being too emotional or less capable than men. These numbers certainly didn’t do anything to prove those notions otherwise. However, I realized that this was an improper conclusion to jump to. Women are simply more likely to develop certain psychological disorders. This doesn’t assume or explain anything about women themselves.
Terms: Psychological disorders, developmental psychopathology, depression, dissociative disorder
I think people are intrigued by psychological disorders because they want to know what’s wrong with them. Even if there isn’t really anything wrong with them, people love to say that they’re Obsessive Compulsive or bipolar. I think it allows them to cope with little things that they don’t like about themselves by claiming it isn’t their fault. And, while knowing that they dot actually have the disorder, they again feel better about the little things they do. The sort of “at least I’m not that bad” mind set.
There are many different beliefs about the causes of psychological disorders. The Neuroscience school of thought believes that disorders are caused by issues occurring in the processes of the brain, the Psychodynamic school of thought believes that disorders are engrained in you from childhood, and the other schools all offer helpful but flawed understandings of the origins of psychological disorders. It is important to consider all of them in order to best understand what disorders are really caused by.
Personally I never had a very good understanding of what psychological disorders were. I always jumped to the worst case scenario, screaming mental patient in a scary move. I didn’t know any real causes and I didn’t know the variation of psychological disorders. I now have a better understanding of the causes of psychological disorders well as the symptoms of different disorders such as schizophrenia and disorders involving severe anxiety.
Reading about schizophrenia really terrifies me. I know that schizophrenia can be brought out at random times and that it is a disorder that can really shake your whole world. I’ve heard about people growing up normal lives and then suddenly displaying symptoms of schizophrenia in early adulthood. The disorder terrifies me and reading about the symptoms and causes definitely stuck out to me as interesting and memorable.
Psychological disorder
Obsessive compulsive
Bipolar
Cope
Neuroscience
Psychodynamic
Origins
Schizophrenia
Anxiety
Symptoms
I found this entire chapter pretty interesting, especially because it hits really close to home. Someone very close to me was recently diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which was actually listed on page 572. I am glad to have a little more background information on this disorder, as well as what it does and some of the possible reasons that BPD and so many other disorders affect people. In addition to BPD, this person also suffers from anxiety and depression, and while these are disorders in and of themselves, they are merely side effects of BPD that this person has to deal with. This person seems to consistently be a part of the cognitive triad – they feel like a failure due to negative thoughts about themselves, they have negative thoughts about the future, and they have negative thoughts about their experiences. This person also has to contend with automatic thoughts, which I’ve also heard called intrusive thoughts, that tell the person that they are worthless and that nobody really cares about them or loves them.
I think people are so interested in psychological disorders because they’re relatively unknown to the public. Some, like depression and anxiety, have been brought into the public awareness recently, and others, like PTSD, OCD, bipolar disorder, anorexia and bulimia, appear in pop culture. Because people are becoming increasingly more aware of these disorders, there are also more questions arising because sometimes information on these is not as readily available as, say, information on physical disabilities and disorders (think WebMD).
I found the part about social anxiety really interesting. For as long as I can remember, I have been an outgoing, social person, but I’ve always had an irrational anxiety about talking on the phone. Even the other day, I found out I would have to update the marketing analysis report for my job, which involves calling around to different locations and asking them for information, I had to work really hard to not panic. I also, very rarely, experience mild panic attacks. I always thought that was the main indicator of a mild social anxiety, but the list of social beliefs and expectations in that section was very true for me, and occurred more often than I’d like to admit. I like to think that my anxiety is pretty mild in that I can talk myself out of those mental states when I’m aware of them, but I was surprised to realize that most of the time those beliefs were a sort of default mode for me.
Terms: cognitive triad, social anxiety, OCD, PTSD, panic attack
We are so interested in psychological disorders because we want to know how and why people’s minds can be different. We want to understand what life is like for someone who doesn’t experience life “normally” and hopefully be able to treat these disorders in order to make their lives easier. Personally, I have been curious about psychological disorders because I can only experience life as me with my mind, and I’m curious how someone with a psychological disorder (or just other people) live their lives and what goes on in their minds on a daily basis.
The main causes of psychological dysfunction are neuroscience, cognitive-behavior, human-existential, sociocultural, and developmental psychopathology models. The neuroscience model deals with a physical deformity, or problem with the brain itself. In the cognitive-behavior model says that disorders are derived from learned behaviors. These learned behaviors can be caused primarily by classic and operant conditioning, and modeling. The human-existential model is caused by negative views of yourself. Social change, class, and culture contribute to the sociocultural model. The developmental model explains how problems can grow and develop from childhood on. There is one more model of thinking is the psychodynamic model that has lost credibility recently because of the lack of evidence to support it.
My understanding of psychological disorders have changed because now I know where the discords come from. Before I read this chapter, I thought that disorders only came from the neuroscience model. I didn’t know that there were so many different models that can contribute to the psychological integrity of a person.
I was most interested in the discussion of the mood disorders. Some of the disorders that this section talked about were dealt with in earlier chapters, but this section actually discussed them in depth. I specifically enjoyed reading about the theories trying to explain depression.
Depression
Developmental psychopathology