Somatoform and Dissociative Disorders - Abnormal Psychology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Abnormal Psychology

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Somatoform and Dissociative

Disorders

Somatoform and Dissociative

Disorders

• In addition to disorders covered earlier,

two other kinds of disorders are commonly

associated with stress and anxiety:

• Somatoform disorders
• Dissociative disorders

Somatoform and Dissociative

Disorders

• Dissociative disorders: major losses or

changes in memory, consciousness, and

identity, but do not have physical causes

• Unlike dementia and other neurological disorders, these patterns are, like somatoform disorders, due almost entirely to psychosocial factors

Somatoform and Dissociative

Disorders

• Somatoform and dissociative disorders

have much in common:

• Both occur in response to traumatic or ongoing stress
• Both are viewed as forms of escape from stress
• A number of individuals suffer from both a somatoform and a dissociative disorder

What Are Hysterical

Somatoform Disorders?

• Conversion disorder
  • psychosocial conflict or need is converted into dramatic physical symptoms
  • Symptoms often seem neurological, such as paralysis, blindness, or loss of feeling
  • Most conversion disorders begin between late childhood and young adulthood
  • They are diagnosed in women twice as often as in men
  • They usually appear suddenly and are thought to be rare

What Are Hysterical

Somatoform Disorders?

• Somatization disorder
  • typically lasts much longer than a conversion disorder, typically for many years
  • Symptoms may fluctuate over time but rarely disappear completely without psychotherapy

Factitious Disorder

• People with a factitious disorder often go

to extreme lengths to create the

appearance of illness

• May give themselves medications to produce symptoms
• Patients often research their supposed

ailments and become very knowledgeable

about medicine

• May undergo painful testing or treatment, even surgery

Factitious Disorder

• Munchausen syndrome is the extreme and

chronic form of factitious disorder

• In Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a

related disorder, parents make up or

produce physical illnesses in their children

• When children are removed from their parents, symptoms disappear

What Are Preoccupation

Somatoform Disorders?

• Hypochondriasis
  • People with hypochondriasis unrealistically interpret bodily symptoms as signs of serious illness - Often their symptoms are merely normal bodily changes, such as occasional coughing, sores, or sweating
  • Although some patients recognize that their concerns are excessive, many do not

What Are Preoccupation

Somatoform Disorders?

• Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)
  • characterized by deep and extreme concern over an imagined or minor defect in one’s appearance - Foci are most often wrinkles, spots, facial hair, or misshapen facial features (nose, jaw, or eyebrows)
  • Most cases of the disorder begin in adolescence but are often not revealed until adulthood
  • Up to 2% of people in the U.S. experience BDD, and it appears to be equally common among women and men

What Causes Somatoform

Disorders?

• The psychodynamic view
  • Freud believed that hysterical disorders represented a conversion of underlying emotional conflicts into physical symptoms
  • Because most of his patients were women, Freud looked at the psychosexual development of girls and focused on the phallic stage (ages 3 to 5)…