Chapter Concept Check Answers

Concept Check 1

• The DSM-5 is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association. It is the most widely used diagnostic system for classifying mental disorders. Basing its classification upon behavioral and psychological symptoms, it provides reliable diagnostic guidelines for approximately 400 disorders, grouped into major categories that share particular symptoms.
• Labels attached to people bias our perception of these people in terms of their labels. Labels for mental disorders are especially problematic, because they tend to lead to negative perceptions and interpretations of a person’s behavior in terms of the label. In brief, labels guide our perception. Therefore, it is important to realize that there is much more to a person than a label. However, we need labels in order to know how to treat people with disorders and to conduct research on these disorders. This is why labels are necessary.

Concept Check 2

• A biopsychosocial explanation of a disorder entails explaining the problem as the result of the interaction of biological, psychological (behavioral and cognitive), and sociocultural factors. A good example is the explanation of specific phobia disorders in terms of a behavioral factor (classical conditioning) along with a biological predisposition to learn certain fears more easily. Thus, a psychological factor is involved in the learning of the fear but a biological factor determines which fears are easier to learn. Another good example is the vulnerability– stress model explanation of schizophrenia in which one’s level of vulnerability to schizophrenia is determined by biological factors, but how much stress one experiences and how one copes psychologically with the stress determines whether or not one suffers from the disorder.
• The anxiety and fear in the specific phobia disorder are exactly as the label indicates. They are specific to a certain class of objects or situations. However, the anxiety and fear in generalized anxiety disorder are not specific, but rather global. The person has excessive anxiety and worries most of the time, and the anxiety is not tied to anything in particular.
• The concordance rates for identical twins for major depressive disorder and schizophrenia are only about 1 in 2 (50 percent). If only biological genetic factors were responsible for these disorders, these concordance rates would be 100 percent. Thus, psychological and sociocultural factors must play a role in causing these disorders.
• Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder. This means the person loses contact with reality. Thus, the split is between the person’s mental functions (perception, beliefs, and speech) and reality. In “split personality,” which used to be called multiple personality disorder and is now called dissociative identity disorder in the DSM-5, one’s personality is split into two or more distinct personalities.

Concept Check 3

• In biomedical therapy, there is a direct biological intervention—via drugs or ECT, which has an impact on the biochemistry of the nervous system, or psychosurgery, in which part of the brain is actually destroyed. There is no direct impact on the client’s biology in psychotherapy. Psychological interventions (talk therapies) are used to treat disorders. However, successful psychotherapy may indirectly lead to biological changes in the client’s neurochemistry through more positive thinking.
• The neurogenesis theory of depression can be considered a biopsychosocial explanation, because both biological and psychological factors can have an impact on the neurogenesis process that is assumed to eliminate the depression. Antidepressant drugs with their antagonistic effects on serotonin and norepinephrine are good examples of possible biological factors, and the positive thinking produced by cognitive psychotherapy is a good example of a psychological factor.
• A psychoanalyst can be thought of as a detective, because she has to interpret many clues to the client’s problem. Discovering the client’s problem is like solving a case. The sources of the psychoanalyst’s clues are free association data, resistances, dream analysis, and transferences. The therapist uses these clues to interpret the person’s problem (solve the case) and then uses this interpretation to help the person gain insight into the source of his problem.
• Both of these types of psychotherapies are very direct in their approach. However, behavioral therapies assume that the client’s behavior is maladaptive and needs to be replaced with more adaptive behavior. Cognitive therapies instead hold that the client’s thinking is maladaptive and needs to be replaced with more adaptive thinking. In brief, the behavioral therapist works to change the client’s behavior, and the cognitive therapist works to change the client’s thinking.
• Spontaneous remission is when a person gets better with the passage of time without receiving any therapy. Thus, if it were not considered when the effectiveness of psychotherapy is being evaluated, the researcher might incorrectly assume that the improvement was due to the psychotherapy and not to spontaneous remission. This is why the improvement in wellness for the psychotherapy group must be significantly (statistically) greater than the improvement for the spontaneous remission control group. If it is, then the psychotherapy has produced improvement that cannot be due to just spontaneous remission.