Psychological Disorders and Their Treatment


1. What is “normal” and what is “abnormal”?
 

2. Criteria for classifying behavior as abnormal – need to have many of the following:

a.  UNUSUAL
b.  MALADAPTIVE
c.  SUFFERING to the person
d.  IRRATIONAL
e.  UNPREDICTABLE – loss of control over one’s behavior
f.  VIOLATES SOCIAL NORMS
g. CREATES DISCOMFORT IN OTHERS

3. Some history of the concept of “mental disorder”.

a. Pre-historic times – demonic possession

b. Hippocrates (460 - 377 BC) – physiological causes for madness

c. Aretaeus – mental disorder as an extreme on a continuum

d. Galen (130 – 200 AD) – psychological causes of mental illness

e. The Middle ages – spirit possession and the Holy Inquisition

f. The Renaissance – decline in witch hunting

g. 1800’s – the emergence of the medical model

h. Anton Mesmer (1734 – 1815) – Animal Magnetism


4. The diathesis-stress model
 

5. DSM-IV  -- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth Edition)
 

6. Some disorders

a.  Anxiety

b. Dissociative

c.  Mood

d. Schizophrenia