content is useful for nursing students

1. MALADAPTIVE
BEHAVIOR OF
INDIVIDUALS AND
GROUPS: STRESS,
CRISIS AND DISASTER

2. All living organisms have a tendency to
maintain themselves in a state of relative
constancy called as Homeostasis.
Adaptation occurs when there is a threat to
this homeostasis. Adaptive responses occurs
when a stimulus from the internal or external
environment causes a departure from the
balanced state of organism.

3.  Group adaptation is a process by which the
group maintains a balance so that it can
promote growth of individual and group
members.
For group to adapt successfully there must be:
1) Good communication skills.
2) Mutual respect for each other
3) Adequate resources available for adaptation
4) Previous experience with stressors

4. The word “Stress” was derived from Latin word
“Stringere” which means “to draw tight”.
Change in the internal/ external environment
causes stress and an organism has to adapt to
it to survive. The stimulus preceding or
precipitating the changes are called stressors.

5.  Crisis is a disturbance caused by a stressful
event or a perceived threat. The person usual
way of coping becomes ineffective in dealing
with the threat, causing anxiety.
 Disaster is defined by the WHO as “A severe
disruption, ecological and psychological, which
greatly exceeds the coping capacity of the
affected community. It can be natural and man
made, psychological reaction may be either
adaptive or maladaptive.

6. ETIOLOGY: BIO-
PSYCHO-SOCIAL
FACTORS

7.  Previously, cause of mental illness was
explained through humoral, demonic and
physical theories. However, over the last few
decades, a number of theories have been
elaborated to explain psychiatric disorders on
a scientific basis:
Some of these are:
1. Genetic theories
2. Biochemical theories
3. Psychological theories
4. Behavioral and cognitive theories

8. Cause of mental illness can be chronologically
divided into 3 groups:
I. Pre- disposing Factors:
These occurs before the onset of the disease
or before psychopathology have appeared.
1) Genetic Factors
2) Biological Factors
3) Psychological Factors

9. II. Precipitating Factors:
These are events that occur shortly before
the onset of disorders and appear to have
induced it.
1) Physical Factors
2) Physiological Factors
3) Psychological Factors
4) Social factors

10. III. Perpetuating Factors:
These are factors that prolong the course of a
disorder after it has been provoked. It is
extremely vital to consider these factors while
planning treatment.

11. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
OF MENTAL
DISORDERS

12. Meaning of Psychopathology:
Psychopathology is the systematic study of
abnormal experience, cognition and behavior.
It involves the observation and categorization
of abnormal psychic events, internal
experiences of the patient and his consequent
behavior.
Disorder may be due to disorder of personality,
activity, perception, thinking, affect, attention,
consciousness, memory and structural
disturbances in the brain

13. 1. DISORDERS OF
PERSONALITY

14. a) Cyclothymic Personality (Alternating Mood)
b) Hypomanic Personality (Cheerful, enjoyer of
life, energetic, confident, aggressive, pleasure
loving)
c) Melancholic Personality (kindly, sympathetic,
quiet, good tempered, easily depressed,
helplessness)
d) Paranoid Personality (suspicious, stubborn,
lonely, insecured, unhappy, sarcastic,
argumentative)
e) Schizoid Personality (loneliness, isolation,

15. f) Obsessive Compulsive Personality (rigid,
punctual, cannot work under pressure, do not
relax, cannot make decisions)
g) Hysterical Personality (self- centered
dramatization, labile affect, emotional out
burst, attention seeking)
h) Passive- Aggressive Personality (Manifest by
3 ways: (Passive- dependent, Passive-
aggressive, Aggressive type)
i) Explosive Personality (friendly, happy,
likeable, outgoing suddenly displayed guilt

16. 2. DISORDERS OF
MOTOR BEHAVIOR

17. a) Over Activity (seen in mania, can be goal
directed but goal keeps changing)
b) Decreased Activity (takes long time to start
activity, once started it is done very slowly)
c) Stereotypy (persistent, constant repetition of
activities, that involve position, movement or
speech) (e.g: catalepsy, waxy- flexibility,
mannerisms, verbigeration)
d) Repetitious Activities (activity is initiated, there
is tendency to repeat)

18. e) Automatic Behavior (echolalia, echopraxia)
f) Negativism (manifested by opposition and
resistance to what is suggested)
g) Compulsion (morbid and irresistible urges to
perform purposeless acts repetitiously)
h) Violence (expression of aggressiveness in the
form of murders, assaults, rape, damaging
self)
i) Suicide (means self- destruction, feel rejected
and unloved, commonly seen recovery
depression, acute schizophrenia and delirium)

19. 3. DISORDERS OF
PERCEPTION

20. a) Illusion (misinterpretation of sense
impression)
b) Hallucination (perception occurs in the
absence of the object, not related to external
stimuli)
Types: (auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory,
tactile and kinesthetic hallucination)

21. 4. DISORDERS OF
THINKING

22. a) Disorders of Form of Thought (thinking is the
response to a stimulus. This stimulus can be
from unconscious or external environment,
autistic thinking)
b) Disorders in Progression of Thought (flight of
ideas, retardation, perseveration,
circumstantiality, incoherence, tangentiality,
blocking)
c) Disorders of Content of Thought (overvalued
ideas, delusion)
d) Hypochondriacal Delusion (exaggerated
concern over physical health)

23. e) Obsession (persistent , irresistible thoughts)
f) Phobias (irrational fear)

24. 5. DISTURBANCES OF
AFFECT

25. a) Pleasurable Affects (euphoria, elation,
exhilaration, ecstasy)
b) Depression (feeling of sadness)
c) Anxiety (free- floating anxiety, agitation, tension,
panic)
d) Inadequate affect (emotionally dull o detached,
indifferent and apathetic)
e) Inappropriate Affect ( disharmony of affect ans
situation)
f) Ambivalence (contradictory feeling and attitude)
g) Depersonalization (feeling of unreality and loss
of self identity)

26. 6. DISTURBANCES OF
ATTENTION

27. a) Disordered attention (conation, affect and
associations, fatigue, toxic states and organic
lesion interfere and lowered attention)
b) Distractibility (inability to hold attention for
sufficient length of time)

28. 7. DISORDERS OF
CONSCIOUSNESS

29. a) Confusion (bewilderment, disorientation,
disturbances of associative function and poverty
of ideas)
b) Clouding of Consciousness (due to physical or
chemical disturbances producing functional
impairment of the cerebrum)
c) Delirium (acute brain syndrome)
d) Dream State (twilight state, person is unaware of
his surroundings, may last for several minutes to
few days)
e) Stupor (motionless, mute, movement of eyes and
respiration occur)

30. 8. DISORDERS OF
MEMORY

31. Memory is a function when information is
acquired, presented to the consciousness,
store and later recalled. There are three
processes:
1. Registration
2. Retention
3. Recall

32. There are several disorders of memory:
i. Hyperamnesia (exaggerated degree of
retention and recall)
ii. Amnesia (intergraded amnesia, retrograde
amnesia)
iii. Paramnesia (confabulation, retrospective
falsification)

33. 9. DEJA VU

34. Is a French term meaning, “Already seen”.
It is an experience of seeing with the feeling
that one has seen it before but does not know
when and where.

35. 10. DEMENTIA

36. Is a permanent, irreversible loss of intellectual
efficiency, it occurs due to structural
disturbances or degeneration of the higher
cortical neurons of the brain due to prolonged
toxication or malnutrition.