Psych Notes: Psychological Disorders

-A harmful dysfunction in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable.
Early theories were that afflicted people were possessed by evil spirits. Some "treatments" included trephining, which was the poking of a hole through the skull to "let out the bad spirits" and wasn't effective at all.
Current Perspectives

• Medical Perspective: psychological disorders are sicknesses and can be diagnosed, treated, and cured
• Biopsychosocial Perspective: biological, psychological, or sociocultural factors are at play in the cause of psychological disorders 
• Used to be called the "diathesis-stress model"- meaning predisposition-environment

Classifying Psychological Disorders
  -DSM-IV: Diagnostic Statistical Manual provides a standard criteria in classifying and diagnosing psychological disorders
  -The old classification of psychological disorders had two main  types: neurotic and psychotic disorders.

1. Neurotic Disorders: distressing, but one can still function in society and act rationally. 
2. Psychotic Disorders: loses contact with reality, experiences disturbed perceptions

The major category of neurosis has been replaced by several more specific categories. Among them are: anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, and schizophrenia.