Topic 5.4 Notes – Selection of Categories of Psychological Disorders

Psychological Disorders as Symptom Patterns

A psychological disorder involves clinically significant distress, impaired functioning, or both. That means the behavior has to actually disrupt life.

A few grounding ideas matter before the categories:

• Context matters. Behavior is judged in developmental and cultural context. A behavior that is typical for a young child, or acceptable in one culture, may not signal a disorder.
• Pattern matters more than one symptom. One panic attack is not panic disorder. One odd belief is not schizophrenia. You look for persistence, impairment, and the overall symptom cluster.
• These are representative categories. AP does not expect every DSM disorder, only the selected ones in this topic.
• Causes are usually biopsychosocial. That means biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors interact.
• Comorbidity means one person can meet criteria for more than one disorder.

On tests, the usual move is this. Read the vignette, identify the disorder category from the symptom pattern, then connect it to a likely cause.

The Ten Disorder Categories You Need to Recognize

Neurodevelopmental disorders

These begin during development.

• ADHD involves persistent inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity across settings, such as school and home.
  • Risks include genetic, physiological, and environmental factors.
• ASD includes social-communication difficulty plus restricted or repetitive behaviors, interests, or sensory patterns.
  • Strong genetic and physiological influences are especially important.

Schizophrenic spectrum disorders

The core issue is psychosis, which means losing contact with reality in some important way. Schizophrenia can be acute (a shorter episode) or chronic (long-lasting).

• Five symptom areas
  • delusions
  • hallucinations
  • disorganized speech/thinking
  • disorganized motor behavior
  • negative symptoms
• Positive symptoms add abnormal experiences or behaviors.
• Negative symptoms reduce normal functioning.

Causes often mentioned on AP are genetic vulnerability, prenatal virus exposure, the dopamine hypothesis, and the diathesis-stress model.

Mood disorders

• Major depressive disorder means at least 2 weeks of depressed mood and/or anhedonia (loss of pleasure), plus other cognitive or physical symptoms.
• Persistent depressive disorder is chronic, lower-level depression over a long time.
• Bipolar I requires full mania.
• Bipolar II includes hypomania plus major depression, with no full mania.

Causes can be biological, genetic, cognitive, behavioral, social, and cultural.

Anxiety disorders

• Specific phobia means fear of one object or situation.
• Agoraphobia means fear of situations where escape or help may be hard.
• Panic disorder means recurrent unexpected panic attacks and fear of more attacks.
• Social anxiety disorder means fear of judgment or evaluation by others. A culture-linked example is taijin kyofusho.
• GAD means chronic, broad, free-floating worry.
• Ataque de nervios is a culture-bound example linked to panic/anxiety symptoms.

OCD and related disorders

• OCD includes obsessions and compulsions. Rituals keep happening because anxiety drops after the ritual, which is negative reinforcement.
• Hoarding disorder means persistent difficulty discarding possessions, and clutter impairs life.

Dissociative disorders

• Dissociative amnesia means traumatic memory loss. It can include fugue, which involves confused wandering or travel.
• DID involves two or more identity states plus memory gaps.

Trauma and stressor related disorders

• PTSD follows trauma exposure and can include flashbacks, avoidance, hypervigilance, insomnia, detachment, and hostility.

Feeding and eating disorders

• Anorexia nervosa involves restriction, fear of weight gain, and significantly low body weight.
• Bulimia nervosa involves binge eating plus compensatory behaviors like vomiting or excessive exercise.

Personality disorders

These are enduring, inflexible patterns that begin by adolescence or early adulthood.

The Distinctions That Show Up on Tests

These are the comparisons students mix up most. The schizophrenia chart here is a quick reminder of the negative symptoms cluster.

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia vs DID
  • schizophrenia = psychosis
  • DID = identity disruption and memory gaps
• Positive vs negative schizophrenia symptoms
  • positive = delusions, hallucinations, word salad, catatonic excitement
  • negative = blunted or flat affect, catatonic stupor, reduced speech or motivation
• Bipolar vs depression
  • mania means elevated or irritable mood, high energy, less need for sleep, risky behavior
  • Bipolar I needs full mania
  • Bipolar II has hypomania + depression
• Anxiety comparisons
  • phobia = one thing
  • agoraphobia = escape/help concern
  • panic disorder = unexpected attacks
  • social anxiety = judgment concern
  • GAD = nonstop broad worry
• OCD vs OCPD
  • OCD = intrusive thoughts + rituals
  • OCPD = perfectionism and rigidity as a personality style
• Anorexia vs bulimia
  • anorexia includes significantly low body weight
  • bulimia is the binge-compensate cycle and the person may not be underweight

Causes and Classic Terms to Lock In

A few cause terms show up a lot in MCQs and FRQs:

• Schizophrenia connects to the dopamine hypothesis, prenatal viral exposure, genetic links, and diathesis-stress.
• Depression connects to Beck’s cognitive triad, learned helplessness, low reinforcement, stress, and loss.
• Anxiety and OCD connect to classical conditioning, observational learning, maladaptive thoughts, preparedness, and negative reinforcement.
• Dissociative disorders and PTSD are strongly tied to trauma and stress.
• Personality disorders and eating disorders usually involve mixed biological, genetic, cognitive, social, and cultural influences.
• Culture always matters in both symptom expression and interpretation.