Major Psychological
Disorders
Mary Jennifer C. Bagazin, RPsy
May 6, 2025
#1: Wayne BIPOLAR I DISORDER
Wayne, a 32-year-old insurance appraiser, had been married for 8 years. He and
his wife and their two children lived comfortably and happily in a middle-class
neighborhood. One morning, Wayne told his wife that he was bursting with energy
and ideas, that his job was unfulfilling, and that he was just wasting his talent. That
night he slept little, spending most of the time at his desk, writing furiously. The
next morning, he left for work at the usual time but returned home at 11AM, his car
overflowing with aquariums and other equipment for tropical fish. He had quit his
job, then withdrawn all the money from the family’s savings account and spent it
on tropical fish equipment. Wayne reported that the previous night he had worked
out a way to modify existing equipment so that fish “won’t die anymore. We’ll be
millionaires.” After unloading the paraphernalia, Wayne set off to canvass the
neighborhood for possible buyers, going door-to-door and talking to anyone who
would listen.
Mood Disorders
• A disturbance in emotional experience that are strong enough
to interfere with everyday living
• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
• Bipolar Disorders
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
• Characterized by depressed mood & loss of interest or
pleasure
• DOES NOT mean the sadness you feel after experiencing a life
altering event (death of a loved one, loss of a relationship,
disappointment in school/work etc.)
• SEVERITY = represents a change in previous functioning
• DURATION = symptoms occur within 2 weeks
Bipolar Disorders
• Characterized by alternating periods of mania and depression
• In bipolar disorder, periods of depression are usually longer
than periods of mania
• Bipolar I & Bipolar II
• Mania - extended state of intense, wild elation, usually occurs at
least 1 week, hospitalization may be necessary
• Hypomania - increased activity or energy, lasting 4 consecutive
days, and present most of the day
Bipolar I Disorder
• Occurance of a manic episode and MDE
Bipolar II Disorder
• Occurance of a hypomanic episode and MDE
• There has never been a manic episode
#2: Jason AGORAPHOBIA
Jason is a 28-year-old graphic designer. He shares that he works remotely and
rarely leaves his apartment, attributing it to being “just introverted” and “liking his
routine.” With gentle probing, Jason reveals that he’s been avoiding social
invitations, grocery stores, and even brief walks around his neighborhood. He says
it's not that he dislikes people, but that he finds being out “mentally exhausting”
and sometimes worries about “not feeling right” or “getting stuck somewhere and
not knowing what to do.” He avoids elevators, crowded sidewalks, and long
drives—preferring environments where he can easily exit or retreat. He vaguely
recalls a panic attack on a subway about two years ago, which led to him
switching to remote work. Since then, he’s increasingly limited his outings, always
making sure he’s near home or accompanied by a friend. He has never sought
help because he doesn’t think of himself as “anxious”—just “overly cautious.”
Anxiety Disorders
• Occurence of anxiety without an obvious external cause
• Phobic Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Phobic Disorder
• An intense, irrational fear of a specific, identifiable object or
situation
• A full-blown panic attack may follow exposure to the stimulus
• Agoraphobia - fear of going outside, crowded places, where
help might not be available in case of emergency
Panic Disorder
• Occurence of panic attacks that last a few seconds to several
hours
• Occurs suddenly, often without warning, feeling a sense of
impending, unavoidable doom
• Do not have any identifiable, specific triggers (unlike phobias)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• Long-term, persistent anxiety, and uncontrollable worry
• Feeling that something dreadful is about to happen but can’t
identify the reason, and thus experience “free-floating” anxiety
• Their lives become centered on their worry.
OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE
#3: Bernice DISORDER (OCD)
Bernice is a 46-year-old woman. She was obsessed with a fear of contamination,
a fear she developed after her father’s death from pneumonia (which she related to
germs). Although she reported that she was afraid of nearly everything because
germs could be anywhere, she was particularly afraid of touching wood, “scratchy
objects,” mail, canned goods, and silverware. She was unable to state why these
particular objects were sources of possible contamination. To try to reduce her
discomfort, Bernice engaged in a variety of compulsive rituals that took up almost
all her waking hours. In the morning, she spent 3 to 4 hours in the bathroom,
washing and rewashing herself. Before each washing, she scraped away the
outside layer of her soap so that it would be free of germs. Mealtimes lasted for
hours because of rituals designed to decontaminate her food, such as eating three
bites of food at a time and chewing each mouthful 300 times. Her rituals had taken
over her life - she did almost nothing else. Because of her fear of contamination,
she would not leave the house, do housework, or even talk on the telephone.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Characterized by obsessions and compulsions
• The thoughts persist for days, or months, and may consist of
bizarre, troubling images
• Obsession - persistent, unwanted thought that keeps recurring
• Compulsion - irresistable urge to repeatedly carry out an act
OCD vs. OCPD
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder vs.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
• OCPD does not have true obsessions & compulsions
• They tend to exhibit rigid behavior related to order,
perfectionism, and control.
• They are generally comfortable with their behaviors, whereas
those with OCD are often distressed by their lack of control
over their compulsions.
BINGE-EATING
#4: Amy DISORDER
Amy, a 27-year-old African American woman, described a lifelong struggle with
her weight. She was described as “chubby” as a child, and peers often call her
“fatty.” She went on several diets as a child, but none of them were successful.
Amy had experienced several episodes of binge eating beginning at age 18, when
she first left home for college. After being left out of a social group on campus, she
retreated on her dorm room alone, where she ate two large pizzas and a bag of
Dorritos. After the binge, she felt very full and went to sleep. After that first binge,
she found herself doing this as often as twice a week throughout college. She was
not always hungry when she binged, but even though she felt extremely full, she
could not stop eating. Afterwards, she felt ashamed and angry at herself for having
eating so much. She gained 70 pounds during her college years.
Eating Disorders
• Characterized by abnormal eating behaviors that may include
eating too much or too little food
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa
• Binge-eating Disorder
Anorexia Nervosa Bulimia Nervosa
• Intense fear of gaining • Recurrent episodes of
weight or of becoming fat, binge-eating
or persistent behaviour that • Recurrent inappropriate
interferes with weight gain compensatory behaviors in
• Restriction of energy intake order to prevent weight gain
leading to a significantly low (self-induced vomiting,
body weight fasting, excessive
• Restricting type & binge- exercising)
eating/purging type
Binge Eating Disorder
• Recurrent episodes of binge eating, characterized by both:
• Eating, in a discrete period of time (e.g., within any 2-hour period), an
amount of food that is definitely larger than what most people would
eat in a similar period of time under similar circumstances.
• A sense of lack of control over eating during the episode (e.g., a
feeling that one cannot stop eating or control what one is eating).
• Marked distress regarding binge eating is present
• Occurs at least once a week for 3 months
#5: Lea CONVERSION DISORDER
Lea, a 34-year-old Filipina working as a tour guide in Japan, presents
with a history of sudden, unexplained vision loss that occurred shortly
after discovering her fiancé’s infidelity. Neurological and
ophthalmological evaluations were unremarkable, and her vision
gradually returned after several weeks. Lea describes the blindness as
terrifying but also oddly “numbing,” coinciding with intense emotional
turmoil and isolation. She was living alone in a foreign country and had
minimal social support at the time. Though she now functions normally,
she remains emotionally guarded and avoids discussing the incident in
depth, brushing it off as something that "just happened."
Somatic Symptom Disorders
• Psychological difficulties that take on a physical (somatic) form,
but which there is no medical cause
• Illness Anxiety Disoder
• Conversion Disorder
Illness Anxiety Disorder
• Constant fear of illness and preoccupation with their health
• Believe that everyday aches and pains are symptoms of a
dread disease
Conversion Disorder
• Involves an actual physical disturbance, such as the inability to
use a sensory organ or the complete or partial inability to move
an arm or leg
• The cause is purely psychological, there is no biological cause
#6: Burt DISSOCIATIVE FUGUE
A 42-year-old male was brought to the emergency room by the police after he was
involved in a fight at the diner where he worked. The patient had given his name as
Burt Tate, but when the police arrived he was unable to provide any identification.
Several weeks before the flight, Burt had arrived in town and begun working as a
short-order cook. He had no memory of where he had worked or lived before he
had arrived in town. At the emergency room, Burt could answer questions about
the date and his location but could not remember anything about his previous life.
There was no evidence that alcohol, drugs, head trauma, or any medical condition
could explain the gaps in his memory. A missing person search revealed that he fit
the description of a man named Gene who had disappeared a month before from
a city about 200 miles away. Gene’s wife was contacted, and she was able to
confirm that “Burt” was her husband. Gene’s wife explained that he had been
experiencing considerable stress in his job as a manager at a manufacturing plant
leading up to his disappearance. Two days before his disappearance, Gene had a
violent fight with his adolescent son, who called him a failure and moved out of the
home. Gene claimed not to recognize his wife.
Dissociative Disorders
• Characterized by separation of different facets of a person’s
personality that are normally integrated
• Several dissociative disorders exist, although all of them are
rare
• Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• Dissociate Amnesia
• Dissociative Fugue
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• once called Multiple Personality Disorder (to shift in
understanding that the disorder is not about having
multiple personalities, but rather a fragmentation or
splintering of identity. Instead of multiple personalities,
individuals with DID experience distinct identities that
take control at different times.
• Individual personalities often have a unique set of likes
and dislikes, and their own reactions to situations
Dissociative Amnesia
• a specific type of memory loss associated with traumatic or
stressful events, where individuals can't recall important
personal information, often with a sense of detachment from
their life story
Dissociative Fugue
• a form of amnesia in which a person leaves home suddenly and
assumes a new identity
• people take sudden, impulsive trips and adopt a new identity
#7: John SCHIZOPHRENIA
John, a 24-year-old male, is brought to the emergency room by his
parents due to increasingly bizarre behavior over the past six months.
He recently dropped out of college and has become socially withdrawn,
spending most of his time alone in his room. His parents report that
John has been speaking to himself and appears to be responding to
voices that no one else can hear. He has also expressed paranoid
beliefs, insisting that the government is watching him through his phone
and that his professors were trying to poison him. He has become
increasingly agitated, especially when questioned about his delusions.
Upon examination, John appears disheveled with poor eye contact. He
reports hearing two male voices commenting on his actions and
laughing at him. He denies any substance use or past psychiatric history.
Schizophrenia
• A class of disorders in which severe distortion of reality occurs
• Positive symptoms - presence of disordered behavior
(hallucination, delusion, emotional extremes)
• Negative symptoms - absence or loss of normal functioning
(social withdrawal, blunted emotions)
Symptoms of Schizophrenia
• Hallucinations
• the experience of perceiving things that do not actually exist
• Delusions
• firmly held, unshakeable beliefs with no basis in reality
• Negative Symptoms
• affective flattening, alogia, anhedonia, avolition
NARCISSISTIC
#8: Katy PERSONALITY DISORDER
Katy was having difficulty fitting in at her new job. While she had initially
been enamored with her new boss and the position, after a few months at
work she was beginning to regret her decision to accept the position. She
no longer viewed it as the ideal position and was beginning to see
numerous flaws in her supervisor’s management style. She herself
perceived her own performance as excellent and wondered why she had
not been promoted yet or at least duly recognized for her outstanding
contributions to the company. She had little patience for team discussions
that didn’t center around her ideas, and she felt irritated when others didn’t
acknowledge her input as superior. Despite her confidence, Katy seemed
hypersensitive to perceived slights and often ruminated about not being
appreciated or admired enough. Over time, her colleagues began to
distance themselves, describing her as arrogant and difficult to work with.
Personality Disorders
• Characterized by a set of inflexible, maladaptive behavior
patterns that keep a person from functioning properly in society
• Typically have little sense of personal distress
• Antisocial PD
• Borderline PD
• Narcissistic PD
• Histrionic PD
Antisocial Personality Disorder
• sometimes referred to as sociopathic personality
• has no regard for the moral and ethical rules of society or the
rights of others; lacks guilt or anxiety; appears intelligent and
likable, but is manipulative and deceptive
Borderline Personality Disorder
• has problems regulating emotions, display impulsive and
reckless behavior, and have unstable relationships with others
Narcisstic Personality Disorder
• exaggerated sense of self-importance
• expect special treatment while disregarding others’ feelings
• seeks admiration
Histrionic Personality Disorder
• a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, including
inappropriate seduction and an excessive desire for approval
• seeks emotional validation
Childhood Disorders
• ADHD - Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• marked by inattention, impusilveness, a low tolerance for
frustration, and a great deal of inappropriate activity
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• severe developmental disability that impairs one’s ability to
communicate and relate to others
• difficulty with verbal & nonverbal communication, and may
avoid social contact
Coverage for Final Exam (May 22, Thurs)
• Memory
• Language, Thinking, and Reasoning
• Intelligence and IQ Testing
• Emotion and Motivation
• Personality
• Psychological Disorders
