Jonathan Valladares
Professor Henry
Psychology
12 April 2015
Chapter 12:
The Troubled Mind: Psychological Disorders In this chapter, we focus on psychological disorders and how these disorders may lead to behavior’s that violate cultural standards. I found this chapter very interesting because it made me think of just how difficult it must be for a doctor to diagnose these disorders. This is interesting because for them to correctly be diagnosed by the doctor, the doctor has to see abnormal behavior in the persons every day, and I believe that the definition of “abnormal” changes from person to person. For example, when someone is tested for mental retardation it is measured by a IQ test and these test scores are monitored closely because the diagnosis of the disorder relies heavily on statistics. I believe this approach is very vague and fails to capture the true social distress a person may be in. The reality is, it is impossible to identify exactly how many people living within our society may have a psychological disorder. What I found interesting is that psychological disorders are more common within young adults here in the US. In the first section of this chapter, we focus on the psychological disorders associated with anxiety. We experience anxiety in our everyday lives, anxiety can come from anything like waiting in traffic. Normal levels of anxiety are beneficial to motivate us to get move forward within our everyday life. Generalized anxiety disorder is defined as a person experiencing excessive amounts of anxiety and associated with physical pain such as migraines. This disorder is very common in individuals with high-reactive temperament and in an individual who consistently produces patterns that maintain high levels of worry. This sections also focuses on disorders revolving around “panic.” Unlike anxiety, panic attacks and disorders focus on more immediate and nearby situations. Anxiety is more related to distant situations such as final exam. Panic attacks and disorders are not unusual but being diagnosed with a panic disorder is very unlikely.
Phobias are diagnosed when a person experiences unrealistic fear and certain objects or situation may trigger fear and anxiety for the individual. Phobias may be seen as unusual in society due to some phobias. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) which is a more dramatic disorder tends to lead to ritual like behavior. The disorder tends to revolve around of the idea of “perfection and readiness” and may lead to a exaggerated version of everyday life, which may lead to unhealthy excessive anxiety. Post-traumatic stress disorder formerly (PTSD) “shell shock” is anxiety directly related to a traumatic experience. The second section focuses on disorders related to mood and feelings. Depression and bipolar are the major categories. Major depressive disorder is defined as lengthy, uninterrupted hours of depressed mood. In bipolar disorder, the mood is expressed through periods of mania, which tends to cause the person to experience unrealistically elevated moods.