Chapter 1

• Abnormal psychology is the study of psychological disorders, which are patterns of abnormal behaviors that interfere with daily functioning.
• Psychological disorders seem to lack prevalence, but they have in some manner directly affected almost half of all of us, and over a quarter of us experience it ourselves.
• Psychological disorders credit abnormal behaviors to psychology, while the more general mental disorders credit it to underlying illnesses.
• Emotions are abnormal if they are not appropriate to the context or are experienced with extreme magnitude.
• Behavior is abnormal if it is unusual, deviant (breaks social norms), faulty perception/interpretation of reality, significant personal distress, maladaptive/self-harming, or dangerous.
• Abnormality must be analyzed within the social context; behavior that is normal in one situation or culture may not be in another.
• The demonological model involved trephination (drilling a hole into one’s skull) in order to release evil from the body.
• Hippocrates believed that abnormal behavior was caused by an imbalance of humors (phlegm, black bile, blood, yellow bile).
• In medieval times, abnormal people were believed to be possessed by evil spirits. During the Renaissance, people linked witches with abnormal behavior and killed women suspected of witchcraft.
• Asylums in the 15th and 16th century were similar to modern-day zoos, but with the mentally diseased rather than animals.
• The reform movement aimed to treat patients in moral, humane ways so they could recover. However, people started assuming that recovery was not possible and transformed mental hospitals into warehouses. After seeing the poor treatment, people once again attempted a reform.
• The biological perspective credits abnormality to flaws in the brain, using the medical model. Critics say the medical model also covers behavior that should not be classified as a mental illness.
• The psychological perspective focuses on the psychodynamic model, which states that clashes in one’s personality causes abnormal behavior.
• The sociocultural perspective says that the root of the problems is the problems of society (such as unemployment, poverty, injustice, and discrimination).
• The biopsychosocial model says biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors are all responsible for causing abnormal behavior.
• Inferences are guesses we make from observing behavior and referencing theories.
• The scientific method involves asking a question, forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and drawing conclusions.
• All research done must be ethical. They must also follow the principles of informed consent (voluntary participation) and confidentiality.
• In naturalistic observation, the experimenter watches the activity of the subjects. They must be unobtrusive because the presence of the observer may alter behavior.
• The correlational method involves the relatedness of two or more variables and is expressed by a correlation coefficient. Correlation does not imply cause and effect.
• A longitudinal study spans across an extended period of time of an individual’s life.
• The experimental method aims to find cause-and-effect relationships by manipulating independent variables and observing dependent variables among experimental groups and comparing them to control groups.
• Assignment to particular groups should be random so a bias or selection factor does not alter the results.
• Subjects and researchers should be kept blind so they do not exhibit expectancy bias.
• Internal validity accounts for changes in the dependent variables with respect to the internal variables. External validity accounts for how much the results can be generalized to other situations. Construct validity accounts for the impact of the theories behind the independent variables.
• Epidemiological studies focus on how frequently abnormal behavior is found in a given population. A subset of the population to be tested should be selected via random sampling.
• Kinship studies attempt to determine how important genetics are in determining behavior. This is done by analyzing ancestors, twins (for biological impact), and adopted children (for environmental impact).
• Case studies are intensive studies done on individuals by gathering lots of relevant information.

Chapter 2

• The nervous system is composed of neurons, which transmit signals throughout the body using neurotransmitters. Neurons are composed of dendrites, a nucleus, a cell body, an axon covered by a myelin sheath, and axon terminals.
• Psychological abnormalities are caused by chemical imbalances and neurotransmitter irregularities; psychiatric drugs attempt to rebalance the quantity of available neurotransmitters.
• The central nervous system is composed of the brain and spinal cord. The brain is made up of the medulla (life-support functions), pons (spatial recognition, attention, sleep, respiration), cerebellum (balance and motor behavior), reticular activating system (sleep, attention, and arousal regulation), thalamus (sensory information), hypothalamus (body temperature, fluid concentration, reproduction, emotion), limbic system (emotions, memory, needs), basal ganglia (posture and coordination), cerebrum (thinking and problem solving), and cerebral cortex (thinking and planning).
• The peripheral nervous system consists of the somatic nervous system (sense organs) and autonomic nervous system (involuntary processes). The ANS can be further divided into the sympathetic nervous system (higher states of arousal) and parasympathetic nervous system (reduced states of arousal).
• The cerebral cortex is made up of two cerebral hemispheres, with each hemisphere further composed of four lobes. The occipital lobe processes visual stimuli, he temporal lobe processes auditory stimuli, the parietal lobe processes touch-related stimuli, and the frontal lobe controls our muscles.
• Most scientists have moved on from the nature vs. nurture debate to study how both of them interact with each other.
• Psychoanalytic theory states that psychological problems are caused by unconscious motives and conflicts from childhood (such as primitive sexual and aggressive instincts), and abnormal behaviors are symptoms of these motives/conflicts.
• Freud models the brain as having a conscious (present awareness), preconscious (memories upon which we can recall), and unconscious (mystery).
• The id follows the pleasure principle and wants gratification of basic drives and instinctual impulses. The ego follows the reality principle and makes sure actions are possible, practical, and moral. The superego is a balance between the id and ego.
• Defense mechanisms help shield the self from anxious stimuli. Some defense mechanisms are repression (unawareness), regression (return to earlier stage of development), displacement (attacking something more vulnerable), denial (refusal to acknowledge), reaction formation (acting opposite of true feelings), rationalization (self-justification), projection (projecting own impulses on others), and sublimation (releasing impulses in socially acceptable manners).
• Freud believed people went through stages of psychosexual development. The stages are oral (sucking), anal (eliminating body waste), phallic (exploring genitals and identifying with same-gender parent), latency (shift to school and play), and genital (sexual gratification and marriage).
• Experiencing conflict in any of the stages of psychosexual development (too little or too much gratification) will cause a fixation.
• Other psychodynamic scientists have their own theories based on other things like archetypes (unconscious concepts), inferiority complex, anxiety, ego psychology, and object-relations theory (symbolism).
• According to psychodynamics, abnormal behavior is caused by imbalances in the psychic structures. Psychosis is a form of abnormal behavior where an individual cannot interpret reality and has impaired functioning.
• Although we no longer think of psychodynamic models as completely true, we can still find truths in some aspects of the models. It is believed that Freud focused too much on sexual relationships and not enough on social relationships.
• Behaviorism defines psychology in terms of observable behavior. It says our behavior is caused by genetics and the environment.
• Classical conditioning is the pairing of a natural response with an unnatural stimulus. The unconditioned stimulus prompts an unconditioned response (unlearned response). The conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus that becomes paired with an unconditioned response.
• Operant conditioning is the changing of behavior based on rewards and punishment. Positive reinforcement is giving something good. Negative reinforcement is taking away something bad. Positive punishment is adding something undesirable. Negative punishment is taking away something desirable.
• Social-cognitive theory states that behavior is learned by modeling, or observing and imitating others’ behaviors.
• Critics of behaviorism say that behaviorism oversimplifies the complexity of human behavior and makes it become mechanistic.
• Humanistic models are based on self-actualization, or the desire for an individual to become as best as (s)he can possibly be.
• According to the humanistic mode, abnormal behavior occurs when parents give conditional positive regard (acceptance based on the behavior rather than unconditional love for the child). We become anxious when others do not accept our feelings/ideas and act abnormally, which prevents us from achieving self-actualization.
• Humanistic models are good because they aim to achieve inner and personal goodness, but cannot be measured or observed.
• Cognitive models state that our interpretation of our environment determines our mood. A disruption in the process of perceiving, storing, retrieving, interpreting, or outputting of moods/emotions causes abnormal behavior.
• Albert Ellis believes that our behavior is changed by what we believe to be the consequences of a particular activating event. Rational-emotive behavior therapy helps us balance how much we expect and demand of ourselves.
• Aaron Beck states that depression comes from selective abstraction (exclusive focus), overgeneralization (apply one experience to all experiences), magnification (blow out of proportion), and absolutist thinking (thinking in extremes rather than in a spectrum).
• The sociocultural perspective proposes that abnormal behavior is caused by the society and culture, rather than the individual, and abnormal behavior is simply behavior that does not meet social norms.
• There are differences in mental health among different ethnicities, and the differences are becoming increasingly important as diversity continues to increase. Hispanics, blacks, and Native Americans tend to experience more mental disorders than whites and Asians.
• The social causation model states that individuals with lower socioeconomic statuses are exposed to more social stressors, which causes more psychological disorders. The downward drift hypothesis states that problematic behaviors cause individuals to go down in socioeconomic status.
• The biopsychosocial perspective is a more contemporary view of abnormal behavior that takes all biological, psychological, and sociocultural domains into account.
• The diathesis-stress model states that we have vulnerabilities and predispositions to mental illnesses, and some external stimulus (the stressor) causes it to develop.
• The complexity of the biopsychosocial model makes it strong, but also makes it weak in that it cannot pinpoint a specific cause of behavior and credits it to the interaction of many different things.

Chapter 3

• The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is used to classify abnormal behaviors and disorders (which must include either emotional distress, impaired functioning, or dangerous acts).
• The DSM is split into five axes. Axis I contains clinical disorders (anxiety, mood, psychotic), Axis II contains personality disorders and mental retardation, Axis III contains general medical conditions (for example, hypothyroidism or hypertension), Axis IV contains psychosocial and environmental problems (such as exposure to traumatizing events or economic problems), and Axis V contains a global assessment of functioning (level of functionality based on a numeric scale).
• Culture-bound syndromes are syndromes that are only existent in particular cultures.
• A diagnostic system is considered useful if it is has reliability (consistency) and validity (accuracy).
• The DSM is good because it is written as a list of symptoms that a clinician can use to match up to a client. The DSM has been criticized because it is not fully sensitive to cultural differences, it oversimplifies behavior into symptoms, it contains guidelines that may leave someone with a mental illness undiagnosed, and it labels people as insane.
• Something is reliable of it shows consistent results when retested and when different people interpret the measurements.
• Content validity is how much a subject shows traits that are expected of the diagnosis. Criterion validity is how much an independent variable expected to affect the dependent variable actually affects the dependent variable. Construct validity is how closely a result correlates with the theory behind why it should happen.
• Clinical interviews are conversations between clinicians and clients. They cover identifying data, descriptions of the problems, psychosocial history, medical history, and medical problems.
• Unstructured interviews are carried out by the clinician according to his/her own style (good for spontaneity and conversational style). Semistructured interviews are partially scripted beforehand and partially made up during the interview. Structured interviews are fully scripted beforehand and specific questions are asked in the order in which they are listed (good for reliability and consistency).
• Computerized interviews are done by computers. Clients may open up more to computers because there are no other people watching them, but computers are unable to empathize with sensitive topics.
• Intelligence tests are used to measure intellectual impairment and possibly diagnose mental retardation. Intelligence quotients are determined by comparing test results to the average score (100) and evaluating it as higher or lower than average.
• Objective tests ask the subject to fill out personality inventories and questionnaires with a limited number of possible responses.
• The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory contains 500 questions about interests, habits, relationships, complaints, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that help identify unusual behavior. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory is specifically aimed at identifying personality disorders.
• Objective tests are effective if the individual taking the test is able to understand the questions and chooses to answer all of them honestly. It helps keep consistency among researchers.
• Projective tests are designed for the client to project their feelings created by ambiguous stimuli. Examples of projective tests include the Rorschach Test (inkblot test) and the Thematic Apperception Test (telling a story about what is happening in a picture).
• The validity of projective tests is disputed because the results depend on how the examiner interpret them. In addition, some images may have too strong of a stimulus for a response to be genuinely the client’s.
• Neurophychological assessments determine if psychological problems are caused by brain damage. Examples include the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (copying a series of shapes) and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (measures abstract thinking ability, concentration, attention, and feeling ability).
• Behavioral assessment describes specific problematic behavior shown by clients. This can be done through behavioral interviews, direct observation, and self-monitoring.
• Reactivity describes how people change their behavior if they know they are being observed.
• Analogue measures emulate a setting where a client would experience anxiety or fear. It acts as a safe practice for the real-life equivalent.
• Cognitive assessments assess cognitions, thoughts, and beliefs. It is best done with a diary or journal and can help identify negative thoughts which may lead to unwanted behavior.
• Physiological assessment measures physiological responses like heart rate and blood pressure. This can be done with brain-imaging and recording techniques such as electroencephalographs, computerized axial tomographies, (functional) magnetic resonance imaging, and brain electrical activity mapping.
• Cultural and ethnic differences may alter results found through particular methods of assessment and may show higher levels of abnormal behavior when there actually is no difference. In addition, the meaning of idioms may be lost in translation and could be interpreted as higher levels of psychopathy.

Chapter 4

• People who commit suicide generally aren’t fully confident with their decisions and allow others to realize what they are doing.
• Psychologists and counseling psychologists must obtain a license and are classified as professionals; the generic terms “therapist” and “psychotherapist” can be used by anyone.
• Psychotherapy: a client and therapist interact on a personal level to change the client’s abnormal behavior. The interaction is based on psychological theories and principles that help personal growth.
• If a client is expected to get better, they may show placebo effects or expectancy effects.
• Having an overall personal, warming, friendly, encouraging interaction with the client is called nonspecific treatment factors.
• Psychoanalysis is a type of psychodynamic therapy that provides insight and potential solutions to the unconscious conflicts causing abnormal behavior.
• Free association tells clients to freely speak about whatever may be on their mind; this is difficult because clients will usually resist telling their secrets.
• One could analyze dreams in manifest content (actual material) and latent content (symbolization) to find out what the mind is thinking.
• Transference relationships occur between the client and psychologist; the feelings of the corresponding relationship are transferred onto the psychologist. Countertransference is the way psychologists respond.
• Modern psychodynamics still attempts to uncover unconscious thoughts but is more conversational.
• Behavior therapy involves changing abnormal behavior through systematic desensitization (increasing level of exposure), gradual exposure (approaching the stimulus in real life), and modeling (observing and emulating others).
• Person-centered therapy is a type of humanistic therapy that focuses on an individual, giving them unconditional positive regard and empathy in a genuine and congruent manner.
• Cognitive therapy helps clients correct faulty thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes. In rational emotive behavior therapy, therapists dispute the clients’ thoughts and help them find better, more rational beliefs.
• Cognitive therapy includes changing cognitive distortions (magnifying problems out of proportion), behavior homework assignments (doing something productive with free time), and reality testing (checking to see if something is really true).
• Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a combination of cognitive and behavioral techniques. It has good results in many different cases, but doesn’t work about 30-40% of the time.
• Eclectic therapy combines all different kinds of therapy and is generally used by experienced psychologists. Technical eclectics use all methods in hopes to find one that works. Integrative eclectics use strategy when applying different types of therapy.
• Group, family, and couple therapy involve other people. It may be a therapy of the relationship between/among the members, or they may be there for support.
• Psychotherapy tends to have some noticeable effect, primarily at the beginning of the term. It works best when the client and therapist have a personal connection.
• There is no single type of therapy that works best for everything; it all depends on the disorder.
• In order to save time and money, short, to-the-point treatments are preferred, even though that may result in incomplete treatment.
• Therapists must be considerate to varying cultural factors, and must recognize that treatments for one cultural group may not work for all cultural groups.
• African Americans have a history of discrimination, so they are more protective of themselves and more sensitive to negative stereotypes.
• Asians are brought up to be less revealing about their feelings and may be mistaken as shy or uncooperative, even though they are acting normally for their culture.
• Hispanics have strong, father-lead, closely-tied family structures that may conflict with American views of independence. Bilingual staff helps Hispanics feel more comfortable.
• For Native Americans, a client-focused therapy that integrates tribal customs is important.
• Antianxiety drugs reduce activity in the central nervous system to relax and reduce tension in patients. Side effects include lack of alertness, addiction/tolerance, and rebound anxiety (returns in a worsened state when medications are stopped).
• Antipsychotic drugs treat psychotic disorders (like schizophrenia) by controlling chemicals in the brain (ex. reducing dopamine). Side effects include muscular rigidity and tremors.
• Tricyclics, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors are types of antidepressants.
• Lithium controls mood swings in patients with bipolar disorder.
• Electroconvulsive therapy was used to try and treat schizophrenia; it is now used to treat only severe cases of depression. It is effective but unknown how it works.
• Psychosurgery involves directly altering the brain. It started as prefrontal lobotomies but now is much more sophisticated and is only used as a last resort.
• Drugs have been found to be effective but are prone to abuse.
• Deinstitutionalization is the shift of responsibility and care of the mentally disabled from hospital facilities to community-based facilities.
• The community mental health centers help mental health patients after they are discharged back into the community.
• Universal preventive interventions focus on the whole population while selective preventive interventions focus on individuals/groups. Primary prevention stops something before it happens; secondary prevention stops it at an early stage.
• Racial/ethnic minorities have access to and use less mental aid, primarily due to cost, discomfort/mistrust, and communication/language.
• Racial/ethnic stereotyping may cause misdiagnoses or overdiagnoses of particular disorders. One factor is that minorities overrepresent those of lower socioeconomic status, who are prone to more mental illnesses.
• Deinstitutionalization has overall failed to reintegrate patients into the community, leaving many homeless and dehumanized.

Chapter 5

• Health psychologists study the role of psychological factors in physical illness.
• Stress is a demand that is caused by a stressor. A stressor can be psychological pressures or daily hassles.
• Adjustment disorders are impairments that are experienced as a result of a stress-inducing event.
• The endocrine system is responsible for releasing hormones and reacting to stress. The hypothalamus stimulates the release of an adrenocorticotrophic hormone, which then releases cortical steroids (like cortisol and cortisone) that help resist and fight stress. The adrenal medulla releases adrenaline and norepinephrine, which causes an increase in heart rate and glucose release rate.
• The immune system fights off disease. Repeated exposure to stress, natural disasters, violence, or other trauma can weaken the immune system and increase susceptibility to illness.
• Social support and expressively writing about emotions tends to mitigate stress’ effect on the immune system.
• Individuals who experience traumatic events may experience posttraumatic stress disorder or other prolonged stressful reactions. For example, those who received more exposure to the 9/11 terrorist attacks felt greater depression.
• The general adaptation syndrome describes the body’s response to stress in three stages. The alarm reaction prepares the body for the stressor (sometimes known as the fight-or flight reaction). The resistance stage is when the body adapts to and fights against the stressor. The exhaustion stage is when parasympathetic activity increases. We may enter the exhaustion stage before the stressor is gone, which may cause adaptation diseases.
• Life events, both positive (marriage) and negative (death), causes stress and forces us to adjust. Those who experience many life events are more prone to health problems.
• Acculturative stress is stress experienced by an immigrant caused by changing cultures. The melting pot theory states that people are better off adjusting to the host culture. The bicultural theory states that people are better off identifying with both their traditional culture and their host culture.
• Acculturation tends to have negative effects on immigrants because retaining traditional cultures tends to have a buffering effect. People who are extremely low in acculturation are also worse off because they tend to be members of lower socioeconomic statuses.
• Emotion-focused coping is used to immediately lessen the emotional impact of the stressor; it does not make the stressor go away. Problem-focused coping is used to analyze the problem at the source and find ways to change either the stressor or one’s behavior to make the stressor less harmful.
• Emotion-focused coping can be dangerous because it involves denial of the existence of the stressor or wishful thinking of what would have happened had the stressor not have existed. Neither of these coping methods addresses potential solutions to the stressor.
• Individuals who are heavily oriented towards emotion-focused coping may experience more trauma if they are overinformed in a manner in which a problem-focused coping individual might be informed.
• Having high self-efficacy expectancies (expecting ourselves to perform well and being confident) may help individuals cope with stress.
• People with high psychological hardiness have high levels of commitment, desire for challenge, and control over their lives. These people tend to take problem-solving approaches toward stress and take in stressors under a positive light.
• Optimism is linked with fewer physical and psychological health problems. It is included in positive psychology, which states that people are better off if they focus on the positive aspects of life.
• African Americans are more susceptible to health problems due to poor living conditions and discrimination, but because of a close family relationship, self-confidence, and ethnic identity, they tend to be more resistant to stress.
• Psychosomatic disorders are disorders connected to psychological factors.
• Headaches can either be caused by stress or show up as symptoms for other disorders. Tension headaches are caused by muscular contractions in the head; migraines are caused by altered blood flow to the brain. They can be triggered by stress or other environmental stimuli. They can be treated by taking pain relievers or by using biofeedback training (signaling and controlling bodily functions).
• Cardiovascular disease is caused by problems in the cardiovascular system. Examples include coronary heart disease (insufficient blood flow to the heart), arteriosclerosis (hardening of arteries), arteriosclerosis (fat build-up in artery walls), and heart attack (heart tissue dies).
• Frequently experiencing anger, anxiousness, and depression can make an individual susceptible to heart disease. Those who have Type A behaviors (hostile, driving, ambitious, impatient, competitive) have a higher risk of heart disease.
• Social environmental stress increases chances of getting heart disease.
• Whites and blacks are more likely to get heart disease than any other ethnicity.
• Asthma occurs when the bronchi are constricted and inflamed, preventing breathing. Rates of asthma are on the rise. Possible causes include exposure to allergens or pollutants as well as psychological factors like stress and anxiety.
• One in two men and one in three women have a chance of getting cancer at some point in their lives, but the cancer death rate is falling. Cancer is caused by the growth and spreading of mutated cells. It can be caused by a genetic predisposition, exposure to carcinogenic chemicals and pollutants, and unhealthy behavioral patterns.
• Psychological treatment can help patients cope with cancer, but it has not been proven to extend their life.
• Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV attacks the human immune system and prevents it from recovering from disease. It may cause psychological discomfort for victims as they attempt to adjust to living with HIV. The best way to avoid HIV is to avoid engaging in risky behavior. HIV can be treated, but there is no cure.

Chapter 6

• Anxiety is a state of increased psychological tension. Having unexpected, extreme anxiety is called an anxiety disorder. It has physical, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms.
• Anxiety disorders were originally thought of as a diseased nervous system. Then, Freud thought it was caused by anxious thoughts leaking into the conscious from the unconscious.
• Panic disorder is the repeated occurrence of panic attacks with strong physical symptoms. They are characterized by feelings of terror, losing control, and dying.
• Panic attacks can be associated with populated places like malls. Avoiding crowded places to avoid panic attacks is agoraphobia.
• People generally attribute the symptoms of panic attacks to more severe underlying causes, which induces anxiety.
• Genetic factors may create a predisposition to panic attacks. Other biological factors include extreme (and exaggerated) heightened alertness to bodily sensations and/or excessive neurotransmitter activity.
• Cognitive factors include high anxiety sensitivity and misinterpretation of internal sensations that cause anxiety.
• The most common treatments for anxiety are antidepressant drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Drugs generally help control symptoms while CBT helps treat the disorder.
• Phobias are irrational fears of ordinary objects that affect normal functioning or cause significant distress. Different types of phobias are acquired at different ages. A specific phobia is a fear of a specific object.
• Social phobia is the fear of social situations so extreme that people avoid social settings as much as possible. It impairs daily functioning. People may attempt to tranquilize themselves with chemicals (such as alcohol) before social situations.
• Psychodynamics state phobias are a result of projection of their own impulses onto the object.
• The learning perspective’s two-factor model states phobias are learned through classical and operant conditioning.
• Biological perspectives credit phobias to increased amygdala activity, and prepared conditioning (evolutionary fears).
• Cognitive factors include oversensitivity to threats, overprediction of danger, self-defeating thoughts, and irrational or misinterpreted beliefs.
• Learning-based treatment approaches include systematic desensitization (gradual exposure and fear-reduction), gradual exposure (progressive confrontation of fearful stimulus), and flooding (exposure to extremely high amounts of fearful stimulus).
• Virtual reality therapy uses computers to emulate real-life situations that induce fear. The simulation must be sufficiently realistic and fear-inducing.
• Cognitive therapy involves cognitive restructuring, which is the process of replacing irrationality with rationality.
• Antidepressant drugs have been shown to help treat social phobias.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorders are characterized by obsessions (intrusive thoughts) that leads to a compulsion (repetitive behavior) to satisfy the obsession.
• Most compulsions are either cleaning rituals (washing hands) or checking rituals (turning off appliances).
• Psychodynamics say OCD is caused by desires of getting dirty leaked from the unconscious to the conscious, and compulsions keep the urges at bay.
• Genetics may cause excessive glutamate function, overarousal of the worry circuit, and a predisposition to tic disorders.
• Psychological and cognitive models state that obsessions are formed as a result of misinterpretation or exaggeration. Learning perspectives state obsessions are learned through operant conditioning with compulsions relieving anxiety.
• OCD could be caused by overreaction to danger or memory impairment (forgetting that someone already turned the appliances off).
• OCD is treated well with exposure with response prevention (ERP), where triggering situations are created and those with OCD must tolerate the anxiety and not engage in compulsive behavior. This causes extinction of the compulsion. SSRI-type antidepressant drugs also benefit the treatment process.
• Generalized anxiety disorder causes anxiousness even when there is no apparent trigger. Sufferers worry about every day and trivial things.
• Psychodynamics say GAD is caused by someone experiencing impulses leaking into the conscious but not knowing their source. The learned perspective says GAD is just a generalization of anxiety over everything. Cognitive perspectives say danger is wrongly associated with everything.
• Antidepressant drugs help treat the symptoms of GAD. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can treat GAD through relaxation, induced calmness, rationalization of thoughts, and decatastrophization.
• Acute stress disorder (ASD) happens within the first month after a traumatic event and involves intrusions, flashbacks, and nightmares.
• Posttraumatic stress disorder is ASD that persists for longer than one month and can continue on for years or decades after the event.
• Over 66% of people experience traumatic events but only 8% develop PTSD and 2% have it now. Women are more prone to PTSD, but this may be because they are victimized more frequently.
• The trauma most commonly linked with PTSD is motor vehicle accidents. More violent, direct, and personal traumas are more likely to cause PTSD.
• PTSD is characterized by avoidant behavior, flashbacks of the trauma, impaired functioning, heightened arousal, and emotional numbness.
• PTSD is believed to be caused by learned behavior and the association of neutral stimuli like lights and sounds to a traumatic event.
• PTSD is best treated with cognitive behavioral therapy by repeated exposure to the cues of anxiety from a safe environment. Antidepressant drugs may also help relieve anxiety.
• Blacks and Latinos tend to have lower rates of anxiety disorders than whites. Whites are more susceptible to panic disorders than any other race. However, the presence of these disorders appears to be culturally universal.

Chapter 7

• Dissociative disorders are characterized by disruptions in one’s sense of self (identity, memory, consciousness).
• Dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) is characterized by two or more personalities residing in one body.
• The main personality may or may not be aware of the existence of the other personalities. Personalities may be in conflict, and usually possess very different and distinct traits from one another. A common theme of difference is sexual ambivalence.
• Recent diagnoses of DID have skyrocketed. It appears to only be found in North America.
• Some psychologists have challenged the existence of DID, claiming that it is a mental creation caused by the suggestibility of some clinicians and the application of what someone knows about DID to his or her own life.
• Dissociative amnesia is characterized by loss of memories associated with personal information or traumatic events. It can be reversed.
• Localized amnesia: specific time period forgotten. Selective amnesia: only disturbing parts of events are forgotten. Generalized amnesia: whole life forgotten, but habits/skills retained. Continuous amnesia: forget everything from a specific point in time. Systematized amnesia: specific category of information forgotten.
• Claiming to have a disorder like amnesia to avoid responsibility is called malingering.
• Dissociative fugue is when an individual suddenly travels and starts a completely new life, forgetting their former personality and identity. The person seems otherwise normal, and could turn out successful in the new life.
• Sometimes the former identity returns after a short period of time. People generally do not remember anything from the fugue state. Because of this, fugue can be highly susceptible to malingering.
• Depersonalization is the feeling of separation from one’s body. However, they are still able to keep contact with reality.
• Derealization is the feeling of unreality about the outside world, caused by a faulty sense of perception.
• Many adults experience episodes of depersonalization. If episodes are frequent, persistent, and recurrent, they could be diagnosed with depersonalization disorder.
• Depersonalization is more common in cultures that emphasize individuality. Other cultures have similar, paralleling experiences like amok (running amuck) that are considered disorders.
• Psychodynamic theory describes dissociative disorders as cases of repression so severe that the impulses split off.
• Social-cognitive theory states we learn disassociation to distance ourselves from disturbances. Some theorists state disassociation is learned from observation of others.
• Brain scans show structural differences of areas responsible for memory and emotion between those who experience disassociation and those who don’t.
• Diathesis-stress model states some children have a predisposition to disassociation that is activated more easily by physical/sexual abuse.
• Some dissociative disorders are fleeting and go away on their own. Others can only be treated by relieving the anxiety and negative symptoms caused by disassociation.
• Dissociative identity disorder can be treated with reintegration, where all the personalities are present in their own parts and are linked together to fulfill their part in the whole.
• Somatoform disorders are the presence of physical symptoms without a physical cause.
• In factitious disorders, people fake symptoms without an apparent motive (different than malingering, which has external incentives).
• Münchausen syndrome is characterized by self-induced symptoms and is the most common form of factitious disorder. Münchausen syndrome by proxy is when someone intentionally injures another individual so they can nurse them back to health.
• Conversion disorders are characterized by loss of physical functioning without any apparent medical cause. It is generally triggered by a stressor.
• it is named such because it is believed to be a conversion of sexual and aggressive energies into physical symptoms (formerly known as hysteria).
• Hypochondriasis is characterized by fearing that symptoms are being caused by underlying serious problems (like cancer or heart disease).
• Hypochondriacs are generally oversensitive to changing physical sensations. Anxiety leads to even more symptoms.
• Body dysmorphic disorder is when an individual feels (s)he has significant bodily defects and takes drastic, invasive measures to correct them. They feel extreme emotional distress.
• Pain disorders are characterized by persistent psychological pain.
• Somatization disorder (formerly Briquet’s) is characterized by repeated complaints of somatic nature that cannot be described by physical causes. It tends to start before the age of 30 and could continue for life.
• Some culture-bound disorders include koro syndrome (fear that genitals are retracting into the body) and dhat syndrome (fear of loss of semen).
• Ancient theories say hysteria was caused by a wandering uterus that caused internal chaos. Biological explanations include poor circuitry in the brain. Learning theory says people learn to use symptoms to avoid disorders. Cognitive theories say people are thinking in a self-handicapping manner.
• Psychoanalysis tries to find the unconscious, underlying cause of the conversions and work through them. Cognitive-behavioral therapy tries to remove secondary symptoms. Antidepressants can treat some somatoform disorders.

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16