1. Discuss the issues that arise in determining whether a person suffers a mental disorder. What are the criteria for judging whether a person has a mental disorder? What measures can provide evidence of disorder? Can disorders be faked?
Not all patients with mental disorders suffer from the same disorder. Emil Kraepelin was the first psychologist to attempt to categorize mental disorders in his book DSM. The IV version disorders cannot be diagnosed without the patient meeting a certain criteria of symptoms. It uses a multiaxial system that evaluates the five axes: clinical disorders, mental retardation and personality disorders, medical conditions, psychosocial problems, and global functioning. Patients may be given a mental status exam, undergo a clinical interview, or take the MMPI. Disorders can be faked which is why validity scales are used in tests to assess how truthful a patient is about their answers.
2. Discuss the possible causes of mental disorders. What is the diathesis-stress model? List the possible biological, psychological , and cultural causes?
Causes of mental disorders can be biological or environmental. The diathesis-stress model is a diagnostic model that proposes that a disorder may develop when an underlying vulnerability is coupled with a precipitating event. Basically it assesses the factors that would make someone more liable to develop a mental disorder and what might trigger it. Biological causes include prenatal problems such as malnutrition, exposure to toxins, and maternal illness. Psychological causes include traumatic events, belittlement, and unconscious factors. Cultural causes focus on lifestyles, expectations, and opportunities.
3. What is anxiety? What are anxiety disorders? List at least three such disorders and discuss one of them, including evidence about its possible causes.
Anxiety is the stress or uneasiness of the mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune. Anxiety disorders are those where individuals feel anxious in the absence of true danger. Chronic anxiety causes sweating, dry mouth, rapid pulse, shallow breathing, increased blood pressure, and increases muscle tension. It can lead to nervous habits, headaches, intestinal problems, and illness. Examples of anxiety disorders include phobic disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Phobias are fear of a particular object or situation, such as hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia: fear of long words. Phobias can be specific or social. Specific phobias affect about 1 in 8 people and involve particular objects and situations such as heights, spiders, snakes, enclosed spaces,etc. Social phobias, also known as social anxiety disorder, is a fear of being negatively evaluated by others and includes public speaking, meeting new people, eating in front of people, etc.
4. Discuss and distinguish major depression and bipolar disorder. What evidence indicates genetic causes for these disorders? What evidence indicates cognitive cause for depression?
Major depression is a long-lasting episode of depression, characterized by appetite and weight changes, loss of focus and feeling, etc. Bipolar disorder is when a person experiences extreme fluctuations in mood. People with bipolar disorder have periods of major depression and mania, and is equally common amongst men and women but usually emerges in late adolescence and early adulthood. Mood disorders involve a deficiency of one or more monoamines (neurotransmitter that regulate emotion, arousal, and motivation) in the brain. Cognitive causes involved in mood disorders, as proposed by Arron Beck are shown in his Cognitive triad. The cognitive triad states that depressed people view themselves, situations, and the future negatively. The learned helplessness model focuses on how depressed people feel unable to control events around them.
5. What are negative and positive symptoms in schizophrenia? List and discuss several examples of symptoms in each category.
Positive symptoms in schizophrenia are those in excess (not in the sense of being good). Such symptoms include delusions, false personal beliefs based on incorrect inferences about reality, and hallucinations, false sensory perceptions that are experienced without an external source. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are deficits in functioning. These deficits are caused by isolation and withdrawl and include antisocial behavior, apathy, and slowed reaction.
6. What is autism? Discuss the evidence that we are currently experiencing an epidemic in autism.
Autism is characterized by deficits in social interaction, by impaired communication, and by restricted interests. People with autism suffer social retardation, but may not be intellectually impaired. Those with autism have trouble understanding and predicting the behavior of other people. Signs of autism are apparent at a young age and are characterized by children seemingly unaware of others and typically have odd speech patterns. Biological factors that affect autism is the lack of oxytocin and prenatal and neonatal conditions that affect brain functioning. There was a 556% increase of children diagnosed with autism from 1991 to 1997, likely due to the greater awareness of symptoms by parents and physicians.
30/30. Good job!
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