Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Obsessions: Persistent, recurring, involuntary thoughts, images, or impulses that invade consciousness
- Common Themes: Worry about contamination, Doubt as to whether a certain action was performed
- Compulsion: A persistent, irresistible, irrational urge to perform an act or ritual repeatedly; Usually involve cleanliness, counting, checking, touching objects, hoarding or excessive ordering, rituals are often used to avoud “danger”
What causes Anxiety disorders: Psychodynamic explanations
Repressed urges threaten to surface
What causes anxiety disorders: Cognitive behavioural learning explanations
– classical conditioning then operant conditioning
– modeling
What causes anxiety disorders: Cognitive explanations
Illogical/Irrational thought patterns
– Magnifications
– All or nothing thinking
– Overgeneralization
– Minimization
What causes anxiety disorders: Biological explanations
Genetics
– MZ twins are more similar than DZ twins, even when adopted
Neurochemical contributions
– Neurotransmitters (e.g., GABA/Serotonin)
Clinical disorder
High enough level, goes on for a long enough period of tie that is impacts a person’s everyday life
Mood (Affective) disorders
– Moods or emotions that are extreme and unwarranted
– The extreme depression to extreme elation
– Two Broad categories: Depressive & Bipolar
Depression
Not ‘a case of the blues’ or ‘having a bas day’
Clinical depression (And Grief)
when frequency, intensity, duration of symptoms is out of proportion to situation
(Grief = different type of depression, depressed because of your grief)
Depression causes and impact on daily living: Emotional symptoms
Sadness
Hopelessness
Anxiety
Misery
Inability to enjoy
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: cognitive symptoms
Negative cognitions of self, world and future
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: Motivational symptoms
Lack of interest
Lack of drive
Difficulty starting anything
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: Somatic symptoms
Loss of appetite
Lack of energy
Sleep difficulties
Weight loss/gain
Major depressive disorder
– Overwhelming sadness, despair, and hopelessness
– loss of availability to experience pleasure
– in extreme causes depression can:
—– Cause a person to have suicidal intentions
—– Cause delusions or hallucinations (symptoms of psychotic depression)
What causes depression: Biological factors
Genetic Factors
– High accordance rate for identical twins
– lower rate for fraternal twins
– genetic predisposition to mood disorder
Neurotransmitters
– Under activity: Norepinephrine & Seretonin
What causes depression: Psychological factors
Disposition/Vulnerability
– Perfectionism ( can contribute to)
– Cognitive process
Depressive Cognitive triad: Negative thoughts concerning
– The world
– oneself
– the future
- Cannot suppress negative thoughts
Recall more failures vs. success
Cognitive process: Depressive Attributional Pattern
– Success = failure outside of self
– Negative outcomes = personal factors
– plays role in learned helplessness (Just stop trying because they fail so many times, when they think they just cant escape it)
What causes depression: Learning and environmental factors
Loss of reinforcement
Loss of social support
Deeper depression
Bipolar
Depression
– Extreme lows (major depression)
– Eeyore
Euphoria
– Extreme highs (“mania”, “manic episodes”)
– Temporarily loose touch with reality; optimism is delusional
– Tigger
An individual experiences to radically different moods
– mood swings
– can have relatively normal periods between
No external cause for ups and downs
Duration within a mood varies
Is genetic factor
Neurotransmitter
Genetic presupposition
Schizophrenia
Once called ‘dementia praecox’
– latin for “out of ones mind before ones time”
Division of mind/brain
– split mind (not split personality)
– seems to be caused by overproduction of dopamine in an area and underproduction in another
Schizophrenia: Psychosis
Reality is challenged
Live in a different world
Ex. Twilight zone
Schizophrenia: Symptoms
Delusions (false beliefs)
– Paranoid/ persecution - others hurt them
– Reference - others talking to them
– Influence being controlled by others
– Grandeur – special mission of purpose
Speech disturbance
– make up words
– string by sounds
– (come into house, louse mouse and cheese please sneeze)
Disorders of thought
– sudden interruption
– hard to link thoughts together logically
Hallucinations
– Both auditory and visual
– Auditory more common
Emotional disturbances
– Affect is incongruence and inappropriate
— Ex. laughing at a funeral
— Sometimes flat (no emotion when there should be one)
Schizophrenia: Behaviours
Bizzarre/ Odd
Unorganized
Catatonic
– Hold positions for a long period of time (never comfortable)
– Non communicative
Can act violently
– Not dangerous
may react with violence if they are afraid
– May look like violence but is safety for them
Schizophrenia: Positive and Negative signs
Positive - express symptoms
– Have these added to the repertoire not found in typical population
– (Delusions, hallucinations, thought and speed irregularities, in appropriate affect)
Negative - missing things found in typical population
– lack of speech, flat effect, withdrawal
Schizophrenia: Etiology
Biochemical, anatomical, hereditary, and psychosocial factors
Main biochemical explanation is dopamine hypothesis
– Too much in basal ganglia and too little in frontal cortex
