Final Exam Study Guide for Psychology

The excessive collection of items, with the inability to discard them.

Hoarding is considered a psychological disorder in the DSM-5 as "hoarding disorder".

- Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction, Danger

- Deviance: different from most people. Standards for deviant behavior vary by context, culture( ex: poligamy), and even over time.

• Homosexuality was deemed a psychological disorder up until 1973.
• Hoarding is not the norm so deviance is met.

- Distress: The deviant behavior leads the person to experience distress (an uncomfortable feeling, or specifically feelings of anxiety and/or depression)

• The people in the hoarding video appear to be ditressed. One guy said he felt buried alive.

- Dysfunction: The deviant and distressful behavior  leads to problems at work and one's ability to enjoy leisure time.

• It seems that at least the leisure of the individuals in the video is somewhat disrupted so the dysfunction is met.

- Danger: is the deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional behavior harmful to other peopl or the individual.

• In the hoarding video, they are not sanitary and can lead to diseases and harm them.

- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM) is the current authoritative scheme for classifying psychological disorders. It categorizes particular disorers by symptoms, prevalence, course of disorder, insurance purposes (for economic reasons)

- This is the bible of psychologists

A face-to-face encounter between patient and clinician. The purpose is to collect information about the person to put a label on them. 

• Problems
• Lifestyle (drink?, smoke?)
• Relationships (parents, romantic, friends)
• Personal history (relatives who suffer from psychological disorders?)

- Unstructured (go with the flow, why are you here?) vs. Structured (strict set of questions they ask)

- Yes: as indicated by Riskind. Generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder.

- No: as indicated by Black. Not much agreement about some psychological disorders. For example: distinguishing one anxiety disorder from another.

• Agoraphobia (fear of going out in public) vs. Social Phobia (fear of socializing with others.

- Thomas Szasz: Academic Psychiatrist

• Mental illness is a myth (the institution of psychology/psychiatry aims to socially control people who are different)
• Mental illness is not real (there are no objective methods for detecting the presence or absence of metal illness)
• Szasz influenced the church of scientology and their anti-psychiatry belief.

David Rosenhan: American Psychologist

The Rosenhan Experiment:

- Most psychologists believe that psychological disorders are real and that the labels are helpful (people with schizophrenia have smaller brains).

-Most clinical psychologists and psychiatrists adhere to the medical model conception of mental disorders (psychological disorders are diseases that have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in many cases cured).

- Medical Students Disease: A phenomenon where students think they have the diseases they are studying.

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes:

• Major Depressive Disorders
• Bipolar Disorders