Adjustment, Stress, Health and Psychological Disorders
The final domain links everyday adjustment with stress physiology and the classification of mental disorders. Questions usually ask you to identify a conflict type, a stage of the stress response, or a symptom cluster.
Adjustment
- Adjustment is the process of managing demands and maintaining balance; frustration arises when a goal is blocked.
- Conflicts: approach–approach (two desirable goals), avoidance–avoidance (two undesirable), approach–avoidance (one goal with both), double approach–avoidance (two goals each with pros and cons).
- Defence mechanisms protect the ego: rationalisation, projection, displacement, reaction formation, sublimation.
Stress and health
- Stressors: catastrophes, major life changes (Holmes–Rahe scale), daily hassles.
- Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome: alarm → resistance → exhaustion.
- Lazarus: primary appraisal (is this a threat?) and secondary appraisal (can I cope?).
- Coping: problem-focused, emotion-focused, social support; Type A behaviour, especially hostility, raises cardiac risk; exercise, yoga, meditation and relaxation help.
Psychological disorders
- Criteria: deviance, distress, dysfunction, danger; classification by DSM-5 and ICD.
- Anxiety: generalised anxiety, panic, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (given a separate chapter in DSM-5).
- Mood: major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder.
- Schizophrenia: positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations) and negative symptoms (flat affect, avolition).
- Causes are biopsychosocial; treatment combines pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy; stigma reduction and the Mental Healthcare Act 2017 matter.
Worked example
A student is offered a well-paid job in another city but must leave family behind. One goal carries both attractive and unattractive features, so this is approach–avoidance conflict; the person vacillates, and avoidance typically strengthens as the goal gets closer.
Traps
- In GAS, exhaustion is the third stage, not the first.
- Conflict types are defined by the goals involved, not by how the person feels.
- Mental disorder is not the same as intellectual disability.