Questions tagged [abnormal-psychology]
For questions about this branch of psychology which seeks to classify and characterize mental disorders. Aberrant or socially maladaptive thought patterns are the earmarks of many of these disorders, but the extent to which they are socially abnormal is evaluated subjectively based on customs and social practices. For questions related to treatment consider the tag psychiatry and for somatogenic disorders --- neurology.
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Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Limitations
In treating people with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy:
Which people can't be helped by therapy?
How are some people more treatable than others?
Additional Info
In the comments of a blog post ...
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Is there a scientific explanation for dramatic body shaking and trembling in religious settings? (see videos for illustrative examples)
Basically the title. I would like to know if there are scientific studies on the phenomenon of experiencing sudden body shaking and trembling in religious settings, usually in response to the command ...
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How, other than pharmacotherapy, can those diagnosed with thought disorders be treated?
In general, major depressive disorder is treated with pharmacotherapy, and talk therapy, as well as other little things written below:
People know what the little things you can do if you're ...
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PTSD based on false memories
Memory is not just static snapshots or video on a harddrive, but an active process. As such, it is possible to construct false memories (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). Some of these false memories can ...
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1answer
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At what point does a complex become pathological?
I've a first question so I apologize if the format is completely awry.
I'm reading Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature and I came across this passage by Edward C. ...
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What is the effect of viewing pornography on children?
It is generally accepted that porn shouldn't be seen by children, and we even sometimes punish parents who fail to stop their children from finding porn.
How much are these laws based in science? Can ...
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5answers
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What is the difference between a psychopath and sociopath?
The Internet is of course full of memes from Sherlock Holmes show, based on one of the episodes having Sherlock self-diagnose:
I'm not a psychopath, I'm a highly functioning sociopath
But what ...
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4answers
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Is serotonin conclusively linked to depression?
Some highlights from the article "The Depressing News about Anti-Depressants":
ever since a seminal study in 1998, whose findings were reinforced by landmark research in The Journal of the ...
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1answer
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What are the purported mechanisms of eidetic memory and why is it comorbid with autism?
Eidetic memory, often called "photographic" or "flashbulb" memory, is often associated with amazing feats of recall. Is the mechanism behind this phenomenon an aberration of the visualization of a ...
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1answer
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Would most people benefit from psychotherapy?
At least in my country, undergoing psychotherapy is perceived negatively.
People in my country perceive people as either healthy (normal), or mad and in need of a psychologist. My perception is ...
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1answer
113 views
Is there a survey regarding the meaning of distress in the definition of mental disorder?
Although without a doubt discussed in professional circles for a long time before, the definition of mental disorder has been recently brought to the limelight by Trump narcissism debate:
“Everyone ...
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1answer
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Can adhd and ocd coexist? Is it in the same way mania and depression can coexist (in bipolar disorder)?
Is it really possible for someone to have both ADHD and OCD?
I was thinking that ADHD is the opposite of OCD: 1 2
from 1:
alexThePotato:
With ADHD you may be forgetful, distracted, make careless ...
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1answer
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How widespread is learned-helplessness in society?
Looking at these resources:
Wikipedia, Learned helplessness
Christopher Peterson, Learned Helplessness, 2010
Mario Mikulincer, Human Learned Helplessness: A Coping Perspective, 2013
I'm still unable ...
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What is the psychology behind trolling?
For those new to the internet, trolling is an activity where one person intentionally tries to upset other members of the same community, presumably for entertainment.
This has been informally ...
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4answers
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Is pedophilia a sexual orientation or a mental disorder?
There are some different claims being made that pedophilia is a sexual orientation rather than a mental disorder.
At the moment there seems to be a growing group of psychologists advocating that ...
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1answer
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Omitting word(s) when typing
[Reraising a recently asked question that was closed here, but in more cogsci fashion, I hope.]
Some people are more inclined than others to omit a word when typing, but still be unaware of its ...
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1answer
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Can hypomania be induced by just thinking quickly and variably?
Emily Pronin and Daniel Wegner have shown that fast and variable thinking induces positive affect. This is independent of thought content. Sheri Johnson has noted that the key things that might start ...
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2answers
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Is perfectionism related to OCD?
Is it right to say that a really strong attitude and stubbornness to do something is really similar to an obsession?
I'll try to explain better what I mean.
Let's take a really good developer or a ...
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1answer
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Is the price of higher intelligence and more complex behaviours more mental illness?
"Our work shows that the price of higher intelligence and more complex
behaviours is more mental illness."
-Professor Seth Grant Professor of Molecular Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh
Is ...
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0answers
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Can “7 deadly sins/virtues” be explained in terms of brain hormone level or receptor mutations? [closed]
I'm thinking about this question on biology.se: do hormones make men think of sex?
From the interview linked in the answer, I get two takeaways: a man who lost most testosterone for 4 months ...
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2answers
228 views
What is the psychology behind choosing to be weird?
There is a saying I was once told:
"I no longer fear going insane, I am enjoying every moment of it"
For some (including myself), this is in fact a rather happy and liberating reality, albeit a ...
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1answer
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Is dissociative identity disorder a medical condition or artifact of psychotherapy?
The popular media has offered such examples as "Eve" (based on Chris Costner-Sizemore) and "Sybil" (based on Shirley Ardell Mason) as sufferers of dissociative identity disorder (at one point known as ...
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Are there any standard tests to measure psychopathy?
While looking into another question on how to measure the adoption of norms, I came to wonder whether there are any standard tests to measure psychopathy.
What are the accepted standard tests to ...
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1answer
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How do you know if it's psychosomatic or not?
"It's in your head" is often true and often offensive. But as your head can invent any number of psychological and physiological symptoms how can you distinguish whether something is or isn't ...
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Is there a psychological explanation for people being 'overcome by the Holy Spirit'?
I am a scientist by nature, and I don't believe at all in God or any form of spirituality or the Holy Spirit (of course).
However, it does confuse me as to how some people genuinely do seem to be ...
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What is the difference between social anxiety disorder and shyness?
It seems that there are similar symptoms shown by people who suffer social anxiety and shyness, but what is actually the main difference between them? Thank you.
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What are the mechanics behind the mind of a conspiracy theorist?
Conspiracy Theorists, in my opinion, are people I don't like except for some exceptions. However, this question will not be answered with my irrelevant opinions on said people..
Now, here is the ...
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1answer
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Current theories of the psychology of ambivalence
This question querying the authenticity of people's words and actions and the resulting commentary after this answer, has led me to ask this question.
Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous, ...
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1answer
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Why would I be asked to count backwards by 3, from 100 in a psychological test?
On an initial mental health consultation with a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I was asked, among many other odd questions, to count backwards by three. 100, 97, 94...
This was quite a number of ...
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2answers
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Correlation between anxiety disorders and PTSD
The mega study on the genetic correlations of psychiatric (and neurological) disorders published in Science this summer has one interesting non-correlation: between anxiety disorders and PTSD.
Are ...
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1answer
332 views
How objective are scientific measures of paraphilia?
Paraphilia (from Greek para = beside and -philia = friendship, meaning love) describes the experience of intense sexual
arousal to highly atypical objects, situations, or individuals.
Which ...
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2answers
500 views
How effective is cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders?
How effective have cognitive behavioral therapy type techniques been shown and proven to work for anxiety based on published literature?
Citations please.
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1answer
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For depression diagnoses, does one make a clear distinction between endogenous and exogenous causes of depression?
Roughly speaking, we might imagine that people have depression predominantly for one of two reasons:
Endogenously induced: The person has some inherent inballance between different neurotransmittors; ...
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Is there a scientific term for when you fall asleep because you can't handle something?
I'm wondering if there is a scientific term that describes when you fall asleep or pass out after some traumatic event?
This effect happens when people witness something gruesome (a friend being ...
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2answers
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Why ADHD instead of ADD? / Why predominantly hyperactive-impulsive instead of predominantly-impulsive?
The types of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are:
predominantly inattentive
predominantly hyperactive-impulsive
combined
Not sure I understand. People with ADHD are hyperactive because of ...
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2answers
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Are there advantages of psychopathic traits?
After watching a fairly engaging 2016 TEDx talk titled "Psychopaths and three reasons why we need them" I was hoping to read more systematic/traditional research output from its author, Armon Tamatea. ...
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1answer
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What are the key predictive traits of therapeutic success?
In my answer here, to this question : Does hypnotherapy/hypnosis, in any form, for any type of disorder, work?
It brought up the valid question of why people quit therapy. Obviously, if the therapy ...
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Excessive empathy, social cues and adaptive behavior evaluation
An article by Gunnar Bartsch of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, JMU started me on this line of inquiry.
The original source is no longer available but has been reproduced at ScienceDaily (...
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1answer
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Are individuals who are generally jealous more likely to experience sexual jealousy?
Some people are just jealous of many things they perceive others to possess. Materially or as part of that person.
Is a person who is prone to jealousy more likely to be jealous in romantic ...
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1answer
351 views
Correlation between anorexia and mass media stereotypes
I know anorexia is a complex phenomenon.
I've been reading on Wikipedia that:
Sociocultural studies have highlighted the role of cultural factors,
such as the promotion of thinness as the ideal ...
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0answers
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Techniques to combat sexism at school level
I am from India, and if you take a glance at the daily news you will see a lot of gruesome gangrapes and murders. Nirbhaya, Kathua rape case and the Hathras gangrape
There are other such incidents ...
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2answers
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Is autism caused by genetics?
Is autism and Asperger's syndrome caused by genetics or some other factor such as the environment?
I am aware about the Neanderthal Theory of autism, Asperger and ADHD, but am not interested in this ...
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2answers
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Are psychiatric disorders merely statistical deviations?
When we suppose that a segment X of the population is at high-risk for disorder Y, don't we assume that anyone carries the same psychophenotype, yet not in a statistically-significant degree?
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1answer
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Which brain areas are linked to Hyperactivity in ADHD?
I'm looking for some research identifying which brain areas or biological processes are behind specifically the hyperactivity symptoms of ADHD? I have done a preliminary search but most of the ...
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1answer
253 views
What causes pathological jealousy?
Taking the meaning of the word pathological to mean maladaptive and unhealthy.
What is/are the aetiology of pathological jealousy?
What conditions are associated with features of pathological ...
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1answer
550 views
DSM and references to ICD
I am still studying and where I extensively use the DSM whilst writing essays etc. for my coursework, a question has arisen with regard to referencing the International Statistical Classification of ...
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3answers
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How to change someone's beliefs? [closed]
I tried to change my brother's beliefs. He gets motivated by some bad ideas. Following my attempt to change his beliefs, his beliefs have become even stronger.
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1answer
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Psychological explanation for exorcisms?
I'm doing research on alleged testimonies and evidences of the spirit realm. In particular, I've been lately reviewing testimonies and live recordings of exorcisms, some of which I find particularly ...
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How does one respond to an ADD/ADHD diagnosis of one's self or one's child? [closed]
I read:
Is ADHD even a thing?
This kind of question can be offensive to some. The same kind of thing
can be applied to other conditions:
Is depression even a thing? Or are they just ...
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1answer
318 views
Emotional detachment as a reaction can be considered an aggressive behavior?
Social Rejection from Wikipedia
rejection can be passive, by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent
treatment".
Is it possible to say that the victim of a verbal aggression who hide or repress ...
