Psychological Disorders and Mental Health
Disorder questions test criteria for abnormality, symptom patterns, causal factors and therapy matching.
Concepts
Abnormality is judged by deviance, distress, dysfunction and danger, always in cultural context. Classification systems are DSM-5 and ICD. Causes are biological (genes, neurotransmitters), psychological (learning, cognition, conflict) and social (stress, family, poverty).
Common disorders
Anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety, specific phobia, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Mood disorders include major depression and bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia has positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech) and negative symptoms (flat affect, social withdrawal, avolition). Personality disorders involve enduring inflexible patterns.
Coping and therapy
Coping may be problem-focused (changing the stressor) or emotion-focused (regulating feelings); social support helps. Psychoanalytic therapy explores unconscious conflict. Behaviour therapy uses systematic desensitisation and token economies. Cognitive therapy and CBT change distorted thoughts; RET challenges irrational beliefs. Humanistic therapy is client-centred. Biomedical treatment uses medication.
Worked example
A person with a dog phobia learns relaxation, then is exposed gradually to a photo, a toy dog, a distant dog and finally a live dog while staying relaxed. Reasoning: systematic desensitisation is counterconditioning, because relaxation is paired with the feared stimulus, so anxiety is gradually replaced.
Traps
- Sadness alone is not depression; diagnosis requires duration and impairment.
- Schizophrenia is not split personality.
- Medication often relieves symptoms but does not cure underlying causes.