Nov 21, 2025

PSY 101      Class 37: Psychological Disorders I: General Issues • Anxiety Disorders & PTSD (Outline)

Psychological Disorders
(Abnormal or Clinical Psychology)

Abnormal Behavior: Are they Diseases?

Demonic Possession   Abnormal behavior    devil's work

"Medical Model" DSM-5 (2013) Abnormal behavior    disease Problems with the Medical Model Labeling & Social Stigma

Deficient Problem Solving Thomas Szasz, MD (+2012) Abnormal behavior   socially unacceptable behavior

"Evolutionary Psychiatry" "Darwinian Medicine" "Madness-as-Strategy" Symptoms of mental disorders are actually strategic or built-in ways the mind copes with powerful challenges in the environment. Not widely accepted

Abnormal Behavior: What Does "Abnormal" Mean?

Psychology uses the term "abnormal" in at least three different ways:

1. Deviance

2. Maladaptive

3. Personal Distress

Psycho-diagnosis: Classifying Disorders

 

• 1952 First DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) by the American Psychiatric Association (not by the American Psychological Association)
  

• Latest: DSM-5-TR, that is, the 5th Edition (Text Revision) published in 2022

• The earlier (2013) DSM-5 has been subject to much criticism

"Mental Disorder involves a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning..."

√ Mental disorders affect our lives negatively
 
√ Cultural responses to stress and loss like crying or grieving are NOT mental disorders

√ The fact that a specific culture doesn't like or approve of a person's political, religious, or sexual behavior does NOT make that behavior evidence of a mental disorder. 

Anxiety Disorders

   Central Issue in All Anxiety Disorders    Fear - Apprehension - Anxiety

   4 Types

1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder

2. Specific Phobia

Common Phobias:

Animals = Zoophobia
Closed spaces = Claustrophobia
Crossing bridges = Gephyrophobia
Death or dying = Thantaophobia
Heights = Acrophobia
Snakes = Ophidiophobia
Spiders = Arachnophobia
Storms = Brontophobia

Coulrophobia = Fear of clowns

Number 13 = Triskaidecaphobia (tris = 3; kai = "and";  deca = 10)

B-I-I = Blood, Injection, Injury

3. (a) Panic Disorder & (b) Agoraphobia

• (a) Sudden & overwhelming feelings of anxiety & fear
• (b) Fear of going out into public places

4. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

• Persistent, uncontrollable intrusions of unwanted thoughts (= obsessions) or urges to engage in useless rituals (= compulsions)

    Etiology (= Causes)

1. Biological: genetic vulnerability & disruption of neural circuits involving GABA

2. Conditioning & Learning: Fears come from experiences in life

• Martin Seligman's Preparedness Theory

3. Cognitive Factors

• thinking style:
  
  
  • Misinterpreting nonthreatening situations as threatening
  • Overemphasizing threat
  • Selectively recalling threat information

4. Stress

• PTSD seen as distinct disorder in the early 1970s (Vietnam War). Older terms: shell shock, combat fatigue, war neurosis

• Lifetime prevalence in US adult population = about 6% (8% in women and 4% in men)

• Children and adolescents also develop PTSD: 3-15% of girls & 16% of boys exposed to trauma

• Diagnosis requires:

• Exposure to an event involving danger of or actual death, serious injury, or sexual violence

• Symptoms: (a) Reliving the event, (b) Avoidance reactions, (c) Negative thoughts or feelings, (d) arousal and reactivity

• Duration & Impact: Symptoms have been present for at least 30 days & have caused a significant distress or impairment in social, work, or other important areas of daily life.
  
  
• If less than 30 days = "Acute Stress Disorder"

This page was originally posted on 11/17/03