Week 8 Assignment Marc McDougal
Chapter 15 - #1 Anxiety disorders are a class of disorders marked by feelings of excessive apprehension and anxiety. Studies suggest that anxiety disorders are quite common, and affect roughly 19% of the population. For this assignment I am focusing on a subject with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Post-traumatic Stress Disorder involves enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event. My subject is now 38, and lived in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina ravished through the south. His symptoms include re-experiencing the event in the form of nightmares, emotional numbing, alienation, anxiety, anger, and guilt. Research suggests that about 7% of the population has suffered from PTSD at some point in their life, and that prevalence is twice as high among women.¹ The etiology of PTSD, like most psychological disorders, develops out of complicated interactions among a variety of biological and psychological factors. In this case, my subject had witnessed many people die, lose their homes, and devastate his city of New Orleans. There are many factors that play into the role of PTSD; I’ll briefly cover each of them. * Biological factors: In studies that assess the impact of heredity on psychological disorders, investigators look at concordance rates. A concordance rate indicates the percentage of twin pairs or other pairs of relatives who exhibit the same disorder. The results of these studies suggest a moderate genetic predisposition to anxiety disorders. * Conditioning and Learning: Many anxiety responses may be acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning. * Cognitive factors: Cognitive theorists maintain that certain styles of thinking make some people particularly vulnerable to anxiety disorders. * Stress: Studies have supported the long-held suspicion that anxiety disorders can be stress related.
Like my subject who experienced PTSD from Hurricane Katrina in 2003, I found an article online about a woman named Susannah Breslin. She also lived in New Orleans when Katrina came through, and she too suffers from PTSD. Dr. Bessel Vanderkolk, a clinical psychiatrist explains how the disorder works. “Ordinarily, memories of particular events are remembered as stories that change and deteriorate over time and that do not evoke intense emotions and sensations. In contrast, in PTSD the past is relived with an immediate sensory and emotional intensity that makes victims feel as if the event were occurring all over again.”²

¹ - Weiten, Wayne (2013). Psychology: Themes and Variations, 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth
² - Breslin, Susannah (August 29, 2011). After Hurricane Katrina: Years of Post-Traumatic Stress. The Atlantic. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/after-hurricane-katrina-years-of-post-traumatic-stress/244029/
Week 8 Assignment Marc McDougal
Chapter 15 - #2
Eating disorders are severe disturbances in eating behavior characterized by preoccupation with weight and unhealthy efforts to control weight. The two established eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. There is also a third syndrome called binge-eating disorder, which is still pending further study.
The symptoms my subject has shared with me includes an intense fear of gaining weight, compulsive exercise, highly restrictive eating, sensitivity to cold, and hair loss. These symptoms all point to anorexia nervosa. No matter how frail she becomes, she insists that she is too fat. People entering treatment for anorexia are typically 25-30% below their normal weight.
A huge gender gap is seen in the likelihood of developing eating disorders, where 90-95% of individuals with eating disorders are female. Eating disorders mostly afflict young women; the typical onset age is 14-18 years old for anorexia, and 15-21 years old for bulimia.
The etiology of eating disorders is caused by multiple determinants that work interactively. There are several factors that contribute to the development of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. * Genetic Vulnerability: Some people may inherit a genetic vulnerability to eating disorders. Twin studies suggest that a genetic predisposition may be at work. * Personality factors: Certain personality traits may increase vulnerability to eating disorders. Victims of anorexia nervosa tend to be obsessive, rigid, and emotionally restrained. Recent research also suggests that perfectionism is a risk factor for anorexia. * Cultural factors: Cultural values contribute the increased prevalence of eating disorders. Young women are socialized to believe that they must be attractive. And to be attractive, they must be as thin as the actresses and models portrayed in the media. * Role of the Family: Some mothers contribute to eating disorders simply by modeling unhealthy dieting behaviors of their own, and by endorsing society’s message of “you can never be too thin”¹ * Cognitive factors: Patients with eating disorders display rigid, all-or-none thinking and many maladaptive beliefs.
Additional research is needed to determine whether distorted thinking is a cause or merely a symptom of eating disorders. I also found an article online about anorexia nervosa which was vey informing. The article is educational and describes symptoms, warning signs, health consequences, as well as statistics about the disorder.

¹ - Weiten, Wayne (2013). Psychology: Themes and Variations, 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth
² - Anorexia Nervosa. National Eating Disorders Association. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/anorexia-nervosa
Week 8 Assignment Marc McDougal
Chapter 16 - #1

For my subject with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, I am now going to explore the treatments that would be best to use. There are many treatment methods that mental health professionals use. Discussion, advice, emotional support, persuasion, conditioning, relaxation training, role playing, drug therapy, biofeedback, and group therapy are all methods that have proven beneficial for patients. Therapists’ approaches to treatment can be classified into three major categories. * Insight therapy is “talk therapy”, where clients engage in complex interactions with their therapists as an individual or as a group. The purpose is to pursue increased insight into the clients’ difficulties and to sort through possible solutions. * Behavior therapies make direct efforts to alter problematic responses and maladaptive habits. Therapists use different procedures for different kinds of problems in an attempt to changing clients’ overt behaviors. * Biomedical therapies involve interventions into a person’s biological functioning. The most common procedures include drug therapy and electro-shock therapy.
I would use a combination of behavioral and biomedical treatments for my PTSD subject, which would be provided by a psychiatrist. This provider would offer psychoanalysis, where as a psychologist would focus more on behavior therapy.
Biomedical therapy can prove to be very helpful to patients when taken properly, although there remains controversy. Critics will argue that drug therapies produce superficial, short lived curative effects. These drugs can often be over prescribed, and potentially have damaging side effects when underestimated by psychiatrists.
I found an article which speaks about treatment options for PTSD. As I would suggest a combination of psychotherapy and drug therapy for my subject, this article shows basically the same information and options for treatment.

¹ - Weiten, Wayne (2013). Psychology: Themes and Variations, 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth
² - Cohen, Harold (January 30, 2013). Treatment of PTSD. Psych Central. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/lib/an-overview-of-treatment-of-ptsd/000161

Week 8 Assignment Marc McDougal
Chapter 16 - #2
For my subject with anorexia nervosa, treatment must be taken seriously and cautiously. Body weight and nutrition should be thoroughly evaluated first, and a complete medical evaluation should be completed to evaluate the patient’s health. After the evaluation, if the person is in any danger to themselves through a lack of eating, hospitalization should be carefully considered. Anorexic individuals usually do not realize that they have a problem, so intervention from family and friends may be necessary.
If the individual is not in immediate crisis, or suffering from medical complications, then a psychotherapist can first attempt to create a trusting and supportive relationship with the patient. * Insight therapy: Through focusing on issues of self-image and self-evaluation, the patients can begin the healing process; this has proven to be the most beneficial to those with eating disorders. * Group therapy: Not only is group therapy appealing for the cost savings, but also much more powerful. Group therapy can be easier to handle for an anorexic patient than individual therapy. * Biomedical therapy: Some medications can be extremely helpful in treatment, although the patient should be closely monitored since they may be vomiting. Anti-depressants are the most common, and can speed up the recovery process when taken correctly and monitored. * Cognitive-oriented therapies, focusing on issues of self-image and self-evaluation, are likely to be the most beneficial to the client.
I found a couple articles online about anorexia nervosa, both of which are very informative and educational about this eating disorder. The first is by Abigail Natenshon, and she talks about everything from defining anorexia to how to recognize it in your own life, or a child or loved one. Another article I found is called Beyond the Basics and offers new approaches to the treatment of anorexia nervosa. Although cultural attitudes toward thinness and adolescent developmental issues have relevance to the psychopathology of anorexia nervosa, they are unlikely to be sufficient to account for the pathogenesis of these disorders.

1 - Weiten, Wayne (2013). Psychology: Themes and Variations, 9th Edition. Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth
2 - Dr Greenblatt (August 10, 2012). Beyond the Basics: New Approaches to the Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa. Integrative Psych MD. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.integrativepsychmd.com/articles1/beyond-the-basics-new-approaches-to-treatment-of-anorexia-nervosa
3 - Natenshon, Abigail (2013). Anorexia Nervosa. TreatingEatingDisorders.com. Retrieved on July 31, 2014, from http://treatingeatingdisorders.com/anorexia.aspx
4 - Psych Central (2013). Anorexia Nervosa Treatment. Psych Central. Retrieved on August 1, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/disorders/anorexia-nervosa-treatment/