Chapter Seven
psychological Disorder
and Treatment techniques
Nature of Psychological Disorders
• A psychological disorder is an ongoing dysfunctional pattern of thought, emotion,
and behavior that causes significant distress and that is considered deviant in that
person’s culture or society.
• Three main criteria
• Abnormality (Social and statistical deviation)
• Maladaptiveness
• Personal Distress
7.1. What are Abnormal Behaviors?
1. Social deviation and statistical deviation
A. Social deviation
Abnormal behavior is a behavior that deviates from the behavior of the “typical” person (the
norm)
Deviating from the societal norm
Behaving in culturally unacceptable ways
Violating the norms, standards, rules, and regulations of the society
But we should consider the context in which abnormal behavior occurs before deciding the
behavior as abnormal
Deviation from the norm: behavior
that deviates from the culture and
norm of the society
In Ethiopia, wearing skirts
(among men) is abnormal
but it is normal in Scotland
Criteria of Abnormality
B) Statistical deviance: behavior that deviates from the average
b) Maladaptiveness: when a behavior creates a social, personal and occupational
problem or seriously disrupt the day-to-day activities
• They are dysfunctional behaviors including:
• physically harmful behaviors,
• behaviors that prevent the person from taking care of themselves,
• those that prevent communication with others, and
• those that interfere with social bonding and relationships
c) Personal Distress: unpleasant and upsetting to a person
7.2. Approaches on Psychological
Disorders
• The Biological (Medical) Model
• Psychological Perspectives
• Psychoanalytic perspective
• Learning perspective
• Cognitive perpective
• Biopsychosocial Model
1. The Biological Perspective
• Attribute mental disorders to organic, physical or physiological factors
• Genetics
• Neurotransmitters
• Neuroanatomy
• EX: A serotonin level that is too high or too low can cause both
depression and anxiety
2. Psychoanalytic Perspective
• Sigmund Freud believed that the human mind consists of three
interacting forces: the id (a pool of biological urges), the ego (which
mediates between the id and reality), and the superego (which
represent society‘s moral standards)
3. Learning Perspective
Most mental and emotional disorders, in contrast to the
psychoanalytic perspective, arise from inadequate or inappropriate
learning
People acquire abnormal behaviors through the various kinds of
learning
3. Cognitive Perspective
• Self-defeating thoughts lead to the development of negative emotions
and self-destructive behaviors
• People's ways thinking about events in their life determines their
emotional and behavioral patterns
7.3. Types of Psychological Disorders
• Mood Disorders
• Anxiety Disorders
• Personality Disorders
1. Anxiety Disorders
Characterized by persistent fear, worry, and apprehension
Fear is an emotional response to threats
However, anxiety is often an anticipation that threat may arise in the
future
Anxiety is normal reaction to stress and it is beneficial to some extent
Anxiety disorder involves
a) Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Excessive worry about everything
May develop following traumatic events
Free floating anxiety, it has no specific cause
The Greek god Pan is a spirit known for scaring
people, popping out of the bushes.
b) Panic Disorder
• Marked by brief intense episode of panic attack that strike out of the
blue
• Panic attack is unexpected extreme fear
• It is accompanied by sweating, racing heartbeat, light headedness,
dizziness, feeling of impending death or going crazy, trembling,
shortness of breath, chest pain
• People with panic attack avoid settings where they have experienced
panic attacks in the past
c) Simple Phobia
• Phobia refers to irrational fear is specific objects, events or situations
•
d) Agoraphobia
• Literally means fear of the marketplace
• Fear of being in where escape is difficult
• Public transport, mall,
e) Social Phobia
• Fear of public settings
• Fear of embarrassment and humiliation related to public appearance
f) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Emotional disturbance after experiencing or witnessing severly
stressful events
• Flashbacks are indicators of PTSD
g) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD)
• Marked by repeated obsession (though) and compulsion (action)
• Obsession is persistent unwanted idea or thought
• compulsions (behaviors which act to reduce the obsession)
2. Mood Disorders
• Disorders that affect mood
• Mood may range from extremely low mood (depression) to extremely
high mood (mania)
• Mood disorders are characterized by a serious change in mood from
depressed to elevated feelings causing disruption to life activities
• Major Depression
• Dysthymia
• Bipolar Disorder
a) Major Depression
• Also known as depression or clinical depression) is characterized by:
• depressed mood
• diminished interest in activities previously enjoyed
• weight disturbance
• sleep disturbance
• loss of energy
• difficulty concentrating
• hopelessness and
• thoughts of suicide.
b) Dysthymia
• Often considered a lesser, but more persistent form of depression
• Opposed to Major Depression is steadier rather than periods of
normal feelings and extreme lows
c) Bipolar Disorder
• Characterized by periods of extreme highs (called mania) and extreme
lows as in major depression
• Bipolar I: extreme or hypermanic episodes
• Bipolar II: moderate or hypomanic episodes
d) Cyclothymia
• Like Dysthymia and major depression, Cyclothymia is considered a
lesser form of Bipolar Disorder
3. Personality disorders
Includes mental disorders in which characterized by enduring
unhealthy pattern of thinking, emotion, and behavior
This pattern must be longstanding and inflexible
Types of personality disorders
Type of personality Characteristics
disorder
Cluster A
(Odd/eccentric)
1 Paranoid • Being suspicious of others and seeing them as mean or spiteful, deceptive or harmful
2 Schizoid • Detachment from close social relationships and expressing little emotion
• Lonely and seems to not care about praise or criticism from others
3 Schizotypal Lack of close relationships, distorted thought, and eccentric behavior
Cluster B
(Dramatic/erratic)
4 Antisocial • Disregarding and violating others rights
• Violating social norms (e.g. repeated lie, deception, or impulsiveness
5 Borderline • Unstable relationship, poor self-image, impulsivity, affective instability,
hypersensitivity to rejection
6 Histrionic • Excessive emotionality and attention seeking
7 Narcissistic • Grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy
Type of personality Characteristics
disorder
Cluster C
(Anxious/fearful)
1 Avoidant Extreme shyness, social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy and extreme sensitivity
to criticism
They like relationships only when they are liked
2 Dependent Reliance on others, submissiveness, feeling of inadequacy
Inability to make own decisions
3 Obsessive Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, control, and details
compulsive Rigidity, inflexibility with the moral standards
Treatments
• Psychotherapy consists of the following:
1. A positive, healthy relationship between a client or patient and a
trained psychotherapist
2. Recognizable mental health issues, whether diagnosable or not
3. Agreement on the basic goals of treatment
4. Working together as a team to achieve these goals
Approaches
• Empathy: understand his or her client's feelings, thoughts, and
behaviors
• Being non-judgmental:
• Perspectives: therapists approach clients from slightly different
angles, although the ultimate goal remains the same
• To help the client reduce negative symptoms, gain insight into why
these symptoms occurred and work through those issues, and reduce
the emergence of the symptoms in the future
Cognitive treatment
• Changing irrational thoughts
• Work better with most types of depression
Behavioral
• Behavior modification
• Work better with phobias
Humanistic
• Empathy
• Unconditional positive regard