Explaing_Two_Mental_Disorders

* Examine at least two mental disorders and two mental illnesses from the perspective of psychology. In order to understand mental disorder and mental illness it is important to understand that these are labels that refer to psychopathology which refers to the problematic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that disrupts an individual’s sense of well-being or social or occupational functioning. Anxiety disorders affect about 40 million adult Americans while OCD affects about 2.2 million American. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is characterized by recurrent, persistent obsessions or compulsions. These obsessions are intrusive ideas, thoughts, and images experienced as repugnant. Although these repetitive behaviors are generally recognized by the individuals as senseless and they do not derive any pleasure from them these rituals can provide a release from the tension build up. Individuals with this disorder most of the time go untreated and their symptoms become increasingly worse. These individuals are obsessed with dirt, germs, counting things, locking doors, washing their hands, and many other ritualistic behaviors. These individuals derive no pleasure from life and their repetitive actions are merely to placate their illness. Since there is no blood work or MRI to test for this disorder many patients go under diagnosed or undertreated. Although, there are several venues of treatment such as: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Exposure Therapy, medications- SSRI’s or Tricyclics these medications help to address the depression caused by this disorder and also help to raise the serotonin levels in the brain helping to reduce the symptoms of OCD. The difference between PTSD and a normal response to trauma, after a traumatic event your mind and body are in shock but as you start to come out of it you begin to process your emotions and what has happened you come out of it. With PTSD your mind and body remain in shock you remain in that state as you do not understand that the danger is over. In order to move on you have to deal with your feelings and emotions. The symptoms of PTSD can be sudden or gradual, appear out of the blue or be triggered by a smell, taste, sound, touch, voice, or even a whole new event. Although each individual will experience their trauma and symptoms differently these symptoms may include: increased agitation, anxiety, avoiding reminders of the trauma, re-experiencing the event. Inability to go to sleep or to stay asleep without remembering the trauma, difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, guilt ,shame, or self blame are symptoms characterized by this disorder. Treatments available for this disorder are trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) this therapy is characterized by bilateral tapping, sounds eye movements that are thought to unfreeze the brains information processing system which frees up the fragmented memory that is frozen at the time of trauma and stuck so that it can become a cohesive part of the processing. Medications such as Zoloft and Prozac are both used for PTSD because they not only take care of the depression aspect but also the anxiety that come with disorder. Bipolar disorder is categorized as mood disorders because it affects the ability for an individual to self regulate their own mood and emotions. There are four types of mood episodes in bipolar disorder mania, hypomania, depression, and mixed episodes the signs and symptoms of mania are heightened sense of energy, extreme feeling of euphoria, decreased sleep, grandiosity, invincibility, and creativity. The signs of hypomania are a less dangerous version of mania because although these individual still feel a sense of euphoria, creativity, and more energy they can still carry on with the activities of day to day life. Signs of depression are: bipolar depression although similar to the other type of depression is different. This depression should not be treated with antidepressants because it can cause a manic or mixed episode, also individuals with bipolar depression tend to sleep a lot have feelings of guilt, gain weight and have psychotic features. Signs of mixed episodes are mania, hypomania, depression, irritability, and agitation because it is in combination with anxiety and insomnia this makes for a dangerous suicidal situation. This is an illness that cannot just be treated with medication because by the time people are diagnosed their behavior is has become second nature to them and their families. Medications include Lithium, Lamictal, Seroquel, Abilify, Depakote and other anticonvulsants. Therapies should include cognitive behavioral therapy for behavior modification, peer support groups, and family education. Schizophrenia is the most stigmatized of all of the mental illness and disorders however, it is very treatable diagnosed early and treated with medication the individual has to stick with treatment. This brain disorder affects the way a person acts, thinks, communicates, speech patterns, emotions and sees the world. Individual suffering from this disorder lose touch with reality, have great difficulty. Most schizophrenic episodes begin in the late teens early twenties’. Most frequently accompanied by a major stressor such as a first big relationship breaking up, divorce among the parents, change of schools, going to college, sexual trauma, or any major life change that is perceived by the person. These individual often have a difficult time distinguishing what is real there perception is skewed, they suffer from delusion believing that the CIA is coming to get them, or that there children have been abducted by some alien war craft, to that the television and radio are speaking to them or reading their thoughts. Some have visual disturbances known as hallucinations they can see everything from spiders crawling on them individuals have been known to rip their own skin off try to get the spiders off of them. The often have a combination of auditory and visual disturbances just imagine for a moment that you are glued to your chair and someone else has control of the television and radio and they have all the channels and stations on at the same time try to concentrate, welcome to just a fragment of what these individuals live each and every day. There is no cure for this disorder/illness and sometimes the treatment can make the patient wonder what is worse the illness or the treatment. Medications to treat schizophrenia in the past and sometimes still thorazine and haldol some newer ones are Risperidone (Risperdal), Quetiapine (Seroquel), Aripiprazole (Abilify), Ziprasidone (Geodon), and Paliperidone (Invega) the most dangerous side effects of antipsychotics are the propensity for diabetes due to the tremendous amount of weight gain these medications cause.