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Medical model of abnormal behaviour
Views disorders as illnesses caused by biological factors; strengths: leads to diagnosis & treatment; limits: reductionist, ignores social/psych factors.
Criteria of abnormality
Deviation from norms, personal distress, maladaptiveness, dangerousness.
Inaccurate stereotypes of psychological disorders
People are violent, disorders are rare, people can’t recover.
DSM-5 controversies
Labeling, reliability vs validity, cultural bias, medicalization of normal behavior.
Normal vs abnormal anxiety (Holmes, 2001)
Determined by level, justification, and consequences of anxiety.
Etiology of anxiety disorders
Biology (genes, neurotransmitters), conditioning (fear learning), cognition (catastrophic thinking), stress (life events).
Dissociative disorders
Dissociative amnesia, dissociative identity disorder, depersonalization/derealization disorder.
Etiology of dissociative disorders
Severe stress or trauma disrupting memory and identity integration.
Major depressive disorder
Persistent sadness, loss of interest, cognitive and physical symptoms.
Bipolar disorder
Alternating episodes of depression and mania/hypomania.
Genetic & neurochemical factors in mood disorders
Heritability; serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine dysregulation.
Hormonal, cognitive & stress factors in mood disorders
Hormones (cortisol), pessimistic attributional style, chronic stress.
Symptoms of schizophrenia
Positive (delusions, hallucinations), negative (flat affect), cognitive deficits.
Schizophrenia subtype systems
DSM subtypes (paranoid, disorganized); symptom dimensions (positive/negative).
Limits of schizophrenia classifications
Low stability, overlap of symptoms, limited predictive value.
Biological etiology of schizophrenia
Genetic risk, dopamine excess, enlarged ventricles, reduced gray matter.
Neurodevelopmental hypothesis
Early brain abnormalities interact with later stress to trigger disorder.
Stress & family dynamics in schizophrenia
Stressful life events; high expressed emotion worsens prognosis.
Antisocial personality disorder
Pattern of disregard for others’ rights; linked to genetics, low arousal, environment.
Culture and pathology
Culture shapes symptom expression, diagnosis, and stigma.
Organizing themes (Weiten & McCann)
Biopsychosocial perspective, culture, development, empiricism.
Eating disorders
Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder.
Causes of eating disorders
Biological vulnerability, sociocultural pressure, cognitive distortion.
