Psych Reading for the Week of April 15th Pages 616 625 Symptoms of Schizophrenia The Shattered Mind Schizophrenia Split mind The difficulties of individuals with schizophrenia arise from disturbances in attention thinking language emotion and relationships with others Schizophrenia is characterized by one personality that is shattered DID is multiple intact personalities Symptoms of schizophrenia Delusions Hallucinations Disorganized Speech Disorganized Behavior Catatonic Symptoms Delusions Strongly held fixed beliefs that have no basis in reality Delusions are psychotic symptoms Psychotic Symptoms Represent a serious distortion of reality Hallucinations Sensory perceptions that occur in the absence of an external stimulus Catatonic Symptoms Involve motor problems such as extreme resistance to complying with even simple suggestions holding the body in bizarre or rigid postures or curling up in fetal position Explanations for Schizophrenia The Roots of the Shattered Mind The family and expressed emotion Brain Biochemical and Genetic Causes 1 Brain Abnormalities Ventricles which cushion and nourish the brain are typically enlarged in individuals with schizophrenia 2 Neurotransmitter Differences Dopamine 3 Genetic Influences Diathesis Stress Models Propose that schizophrenia along with many other mental disorders is a joint product of a genetic vulnerability called a diathesis and stressors that trigger this vulnerability Childhood Disorders Recent Controversies Autistic Disorders Autism Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD Behave like caricatures of the exuberant child Pages 436 437 Eating disorders Bulimia Nervosa Bingeing eating large amounts of highly caloric foods in brief periods of times followed by purging vomiting or other means of drastic weight loss like frantic exercising or excessive dieting Anorexia Nervosa Individuals display a refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height Pages 630 635 Psychological and Biological Treatments Psychotherapy A psychological intervention designed to help people resolve emotional behavioral and interpersonal problems and improve the quality of their lives Psychotherapy Clients and Practitioners Women are more likely to seek treatment than men Members of many racial and ethnic minority groups particularly Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans are less likely to seek mental health services than Caucasian Americans Clients who are better adjusted to begin with realized they may be contributing to their problems and are motivated to work on those problems are mos likely to improve Clients who experiences some anxiety do better in psychotherapy as do clients with temporary or situational problems Psychologists psychiatrists mental health counselors and clinical social workers are the mainstays of the mental health profession Religious vocational and rehabilitation counselors also provide psychological services though unlicensed Paraprofessonials Helpers who have no formal professional training Effective therapists are likely to be warm and direct establish a positive working relationship with clients and tend not to contradict clients Pages 643 651 Behavioral Approaches Changing Maladaptive Actions Behavior Therapists Focus on the specific behaviors that lead the client to seek therapy and the current variables that maintain problematic thoughts feelings and behaviors Systematic Desensitization and Exposure Therapies Learning Principles in Action Systematic Desensitization An excellent example of how behavior therapists apply learning principles to treatment Exposure Therapy A class of procedures that confronts clients with what they fear with the goal of reducing this fear SD is based on the principle of reciprocal inhibition which says that clients can t experience two conflicting responses simultaneously Counterconditioning By pairing an incompatible relaxation response with anxiety we condition a more adaptive response to anxiety arousing stimuli First relaxation a ladder of situations that climbs from least to most Then anxiety hierarchy anxiety provoking Then asks the client to relax and imagine the first scene and mores to the Can also occur in vivo in real life gradual exposure to what the client next etc actually fears Dismantiling Isolating the effects of each component and comparing these effects with that of the full treatment package Flooding Therapy Jumps right to the top of the anxiety hierarchy and exposes clients o images of the stimuli they fear the most for prolonged perioids Response Prevention Therapists prevent clients from performing their typical avoidance behaviors Modeling in Therapy Learning by Watching Participant Modeling A technique in which the therapist models a calm encounter with the client s feared object or situation and then guides the client through the steps of the encounter until she can cope unassisted Assertion Training Therapists teach clients to avoid extreme reactions to Behavioral Rehearsal The client engages in role playing with a therapist to others unreasonable demands learn and practice new sills Operant Procedures Consequences Count Token Economies Certain behaviors like helping others are consistently rewarde with tokens that clients can later exchange for more tangible rewards whereas other behaviors are ignored or punished Aversion Therapies Use punishment to decrease the frequency of undesirable behaviors While a person engages in a problem behavior therapists introduce stimuli that most people experience as painful unpleasant etc Cognitive Behavioral Therapies Learning to Think Differently Advocates of cognitive behaivioral therapie hold that believs play the central role in our feelings and behaviors These therapies share three core assumptions Cognitions are identifiable and measurable Cognitions are the key players in both healthy and unhealthy functioning Irrational beliefs or catarstrophic thinking can be replaced by more rational and adaptive cognitions Aron Beck s Cognitive therapy Emphasizes identifying and modifying distorted thoughts and long held negative core beliefs Donald Meichenbaum s Stress Inoculation Training Therapists teach clients to prepare for and cope with future stressful life events Third Wave Therapies Instead of trying to change maladaptive behaviors and negative thoughts third wave therapies embrace a different goal to assist clients with accepting all aspects of their experience