Abnormal Psychology: Major Depression and Specific Phobia

Depression is a medical illness that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Depression can cause physical symptoms, too.
Also called major depression, major depressive disorder and clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave. Depression can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. You may have trouble doing normal day-to-day activities, and depression may make you feel as if life isn't worth living. Depression is a chronic illness that usually requires long-term treatment, like diabetes or high blood pressure. But don't get discouraged. Most people with depression feel better with medication, psychological counseling or other treatment.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed; DSM-IV) is the book used by qualified mental health professionals to make a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). The following is a summary of the required symptom makeup to be used as a guide. However, it is important to know that only a qualified professional who also relies on clinical judgment can make an accurate diagnosis.

A. At least 6 months of "excessive anxiety and worry" about a variety of events and situations. Generally, "excessive" can be interpreted as more than would be expected for a particular situation or event. Most people become anxious over certain things, but the intensity of the anxiety typically corresponds to the situation.

B. There is significant difficulty in controlling the anxiety and worry. If someone has a very difficult struggle to regain control, relax, or cope with the anxiety and worry, then this requirement is met.

C. The presence for most days over the previous six months of 3 or more (only 1 for children) of the following symptoms:

1. Feeling wound-up, tense, or restless
2. Easily becoming fatigued or worn-out
3. Concentration problems
4. Irritability
5. Significant tension in muscles
6. Difficulty with sleep

D. The symptoms are not part of another mental disorder.

E. The symptoms cause "clinically significant distress" or problems functioning in daily life. "Clinically significant" is the part that relies on the perspective of the treatment provider. Some people can have many of the aforementioned symptoms and cope with them well enough to maintain a high level of functioning.

F. The condition is not due to a substance or medical issue


(Source American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed., Text Revision). Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association.)



A specific phobia can be any kind of anxiety disorder that amounts to an unreasonable or irrational fear related to exposure to specific objects or situations. As a result, the affected persons tend to actively avoid direct contact with the objects or situations and, in severe cases, any mention or depiction of them.
The fear or anxiety may be triggered both by the presence and the anticipation of the specific object or situation. A person who encounters that of which they are phobic will often show signs of fear or express discomfort. In some cases it can result in a panic attack. In most cases of adults, this kind of phobia is consciously recognized by the person; still, anxiety and avoidance are difficult to control and may significantly impair person's functioning and even physical health.

 

 

Psychology Treatments

 









Lobotomy is a neurosurgical procedure also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy. It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain. By the late 1970s the practice of lobotomy had generally decreased and stopped, but some countries continued to use other forms of other psycho surgery. In 2001 there were, for example, 70 operations in Belgium, about 15 in the UK and about 15 a year at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, while France had carried out operations on about 5 patients a year in the early 1980s. Walter Freeman, an American physician, with his colleague James Watts, performed his first lobotomy operation in 1936.  He was so satisfied with the results that he went on to do many thousands more, and in fact began a propaganda campaign to promote its use.  He is also famous for inventing what is called ice pick lobotomy.  Between 1939 and 1951, over 18,000 lobotomies were performed in the US, and many more in other countries.  It was often used on convicts, and in Japan it was recommended for use on “difficult” children.  There are still western countries that permit the use of the lobotomy, although its use has decreased dramatically worldwide.


 Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure in which electric currents are passed through the brain, deliberately triggering a brief seizure. Electroconvulsive therapy seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can immediately reverse symptoms of certain mental illnesses. It often works when other treatments are unsuccessful.
Much of the stigma attached to electroconvulsive therapy is based on early treatments in which high doses of electricity were administered without anesthesia, leading to memory loss, fractured bones and other serious side effects.
Electroconvulsive therapy is much safer today. Although electroconvulsive therapy still causes some side effects, it now uses electrical currents given in a controlled setting to achieve the most benefit with the fewest possible risks.

Lithium carbonate is indicated in the treatment of manic episodes of manic-depressive illness. Maintenance therapy prevents or diminishes the intensity of subsequent episodes in those manic-depressive patients with a history of mania.
Typical symptoms of mania include pressure of speech, motor hyperactivity, reduced need for sleep, flight of ideas, grandiosity, elation, poor judgment, aggressiveness, and possibly hostility. When given to a patient experiencing a manic episode, lithium carbonate may produce a normalization of symptomatology within 1 to 3 weeks.

Aaron Beck

Who is Aaron Beck?
Explain his Cognitive Triad Theory
Describe Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a treatment for depression
Include 3 relevant pictures


Aaron Beck is an American psychiatrist who is best known for pioneering the use of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). He revolutionized psychotherapy in general by applying science and replicable data to create more efficient therapeutic techniques.Aaron Beck's  cognitive traid theory is a traid theory of types of negative thought present in depression. The traids form part of his Cognitive Theory of Depression
"The traids involve negative thoughts about"

1. The self (i.e., self is worthless)
2. The world/environment (i.e., world is unfair), and
3. The future (i.e., future is hopeless).

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck's_cognitive_triad)

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a common type of mental health counseling, which can be a very helpful tool in treating mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is generally short-term and focused on helping clients deal with a very specific problem. During the course of treatment, people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have negative influences on behavior. The goal of cognitive behavior therapy is to teach patients that while they cannot control every aspect of the world around them, they can take control of how they interpret and deal with things in their environment.

There are a number of different approaches to CBT that are regularly used by mental health professionals. These types include:

• Rational Emotive Therapy
• Cognitive Therapy
• Multimodal Therapy  

  (Source: http://psychology.about.com/od/psychotherapy/a/cbt.htm)

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer Disease is a neurological disease that affects the brain and causes memory-loss as the disease progresses, it eventually leads to death. It was first described by a german psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer in 1906, as he tried to understand the cause of the disease. Until today nobody really knows how the disease is caused, and there is no cure for AD, only drugs that could slower the process of the disease. The disease starts off by affecting the Hippocampus, which is essential for forming memory and keeping the LTS active. As more neurons die in the brain, affected parts of the brain start to shrink. Abnormal proteins start to form, which are called amyloid and tau proteins, that tangle throughout the brain, replacing neurons and keeping them inactive. AD can cause language problems, memory loss and unpredictable behavior. In the BBC Movie about Alzheimer, filmed different AD affected patients that suffer from the disease over years. It shows how cruel the disease can be as it progresses. People that were affected with AD in the movie, denied the fact that they had the diseases inside them, and are afraid of the truth. Many Psychologist call it an Epidemic, an outspread disease that could affect anyone. Alzheimer usually occurs in most cases at the age of 65 and could last a decade or longer, until most of the cognitive memory is affected by it.

Here are the stages of AD as it progresses:

Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, memory loss worsens, and changes in other cognitive abilities are evident. Problems can include, for example, getting lost, trouble handling money and paying bills, repeating questions, taking longer to complete normal daily tasks, using poor judgment, and having some mood and personality changes. People often are diagnosed in this stage.

Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

In this stage, damage occurs in areas of the brain that control language, reasoning, sensory processing, and conscious thought. Memory loss and confusion grow worse, and people begin to have problems recognizing family and friends. They may be unable to learn new things, carry out tasks that involve multiple steps (such as getting dressed), or cope with new situations. They may have hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia, and may behave impulsively. 

Severe Alzheimer’s Disease

(Source: NNDB, "Alzheimer", nd, web. October 10. 2011)

By the final stage, plaques and tangles have spread throughout the brain, and brain tissue has shrunk significantly. People with severe Alzheimer’s cannot communicate and are completely dependent on others for their care. Near the end, the person may be in bed most or all of the time as the body shuts down. 

Schema Theory

Sigmund Freud was an austrian psychologist and the first one to use psychoanalysis, a method of investigating someones mind and the way one thinks. It is because of that we now understand the human behavior more and allowed many other psychologist to develop different psychological experiments. The Schema Theory or the schema is the system for understanding of how knowledge is represented and being used.
Sir Frederic Charles Bartlett was a british psychologist and specialized his work on cognitive psychology, especially remembering. One of his most famous experiment that he performed was in 1932, when he asked a couple of volunteers to read the story of "The War of Ghosts." The aim of this experiment was to investigate the way that memory stores meaningful information. The people who were part of the experiment were asked to recall the story repeatedly at different time time intervals.
Another famous psychologist is Elizabeth Loftus, who focused her main studies on how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness's account of an event. In her "Loftus and Palmer" experiment in 1974, people had to watch a short clip of a car cash and than take a test were she would ask random questions about the incident. 5 out of 6 of these questions are irrelevant, but the most important question was "About how fast were the cars going when they (hit, smashed, bumped, collided, contacted)?" The wording of this question at the end, determined the results of the test and most people scored differently on the test. The estimated speed was affected the verb used. The verb implied information about the speed, systematically affected the participant's memory of the accident.
At last I want to address the Ronald Cotton case, were an innocent teenager was accused for raping a girl, that studied the face features and voice of the person who committed the crime. He was sentenced to jail over forty years and with the help of DNA testing, he could prove his innocence. This shows that we shouldn't always trust our memory to be a reliable source of evidence, since it is very easy to manipulate our memories.

False Memory

What we see, smell or hear are senses that transmit information into our brain and stores it for a very long time. Therefore memory was long thought to be reliable and there would be no better evidence than eyewitnesses that saw the crime. By studying how memory works and what factors influence what we remember, we can prove that the memory is like a software, that is easy to manipulate.
A good example would be the case of Ronald Cotton who was accused of raping Jennifer Thompson and sentenced to jail innocent for plus forty five years. During the crime, Jennifer Thompson was focusing on memorizing details of his facial structure, his voice, height and other physical features, that helped her identifying the rapist on a photo line-up. However to make sure Ronald Cotton was the right guy she made a composite sketch before she identified him. This shows that our memory is easy deceived and that it is not the most reliable source for evidence. Eyewitnesses have a hard time if the person who committed the crime is not in the line up. Our human mind analysis and chooses therefore the person that looks similar. Elizabeth Loftus a famous psycholgist spent decades studying the human mind. In her famous "Car Crash" study shows how easy memories are influenced by different things. Eyewitnesses should be still used on a court trial, because it is still an important evidence, but shouldn't be totally relied on since what we already know, memories aren't the best evidence to give.