PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Agoraphobia, Startle Response, Hypervigilance

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Caroline F Pukall

Document Summary

Judgment exists as to what normal is. Normal has a broad range: it varies across ime & culture, for ex. , the dsm used to consider homosexuality as a mental disorder. 3-prong approach: gives us a general idea of when symptoms are indicaive of a mental disorder, 1 cause a clinically signiicant impairment in ability to funcion. Need a professional to help relieve symptoms: 2 are not a predictable reacion to an external event. For ex. , being sad ater a loved one"s passing is typical. Making a diagnosis would occur ater mourning coninues over an extreme amount of ime or is unrelated to external events: 3 are not result of voluntary choice. For ex. , you would not diagnose someone protesing by doing a hunger strike with anorexia. The diagnosic & staisical manual of mental disorders. A manual that helps in diagnosing disorders. # of disorders seem to increase exponenially with each new ediion.