Ronald Comer, Fundamentals Of Abnormal Psychology

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

Francies sounded extremely upset and with a loud voice started talking regarding yesterday appointment. The writer tried hard to listen and follows what she said, as she was telling her many things at once and she could hear Francies’ daughter talking in the background.

The narrator suffers from catalepsy, a physical condition in which the individual cannot move or speak for hours or, in extreme cases, for months. According to the narrator’s explanation, what are some of the ways that one can tell a cataleptic is still living?

After reading Chapter 2 of Ronald J. Comer’s book, Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, I now understand key principles of 4 models that that contribute to understanding abnormalities. The first model is the biological model, which can be linked to Roman and Greek times as I read in chapter 1. It mainly states that the cause of psychological abnormalities is that of physical illness. In addition, the abnormalities are introduced because of malfunctioning parts in the brain. This includes the possible malfunction of neurons that are found in the cerebrum and the possible malfunction of these neurons and the transmissions between them. Other factors may include genes, evolution and viral infections

Phobias have been in existence for many years. Phobias date back to the works of Hippocrates, a prehistoric Greek physician (Korgeski, 2009). The works of Hippocrates are still debated today. In The Seventh Book of Epidemics, one of the publications by Hippocrates, he studied an individual and he interpreted a condition that the person portrayed. The results of the observation were that the individual was petrified of the sound of a flute, if he wasn’t intoxicated. He noticed the individual was fine during the day listening to the flute but during the night hours everything was different (Korgeski, 2009). From this observation and the work of Hippocrates helped contribute to the creation of term phobia. The word phobia was formulated from

“While biological factors certainly increase the vulnerability to developing fear and phobia, findings have not yet confirmed that these behaviors are controlled by biological mechanisms” (Rofé). Treating and understanding, psychoanalysis, phobias are believed to be a defense mechanism against trauma that might have been brought up as child. It still debated wether phobias are biological or created through life experiences. Due to varied experiments and evaluation, stating phobias derive from young childhood traumas would be untruthful and not factual. In the theory of psychoanalytic fear and phobias are created if the child remembers the experience which have brought

Phobias are irrational sensations of fear that are triggered by a traumatizing event in a person's life. At a young age we are taught fear. Dont touch the stove, it's hot. Dont talk to strangers, they could take you. “Although they would pay me to take you back” Mom would say.

Jeffrey was arrested in the same year, 1988, for sexually fondling and drugging a young teenage boy (age thirteen); for this, he was put on probation for five years and for one year he was assigned to a work release camp where he was registered as a sex offender from the incident with the thirteen year old boy. Due to good behavior and a built up trust with the authorities, Dahmer was paroled from his work release camp two months early.

A phobia is an overwhelming and unbearable fear of something, such as an object, place, situation, feeling or animal. Phobias are a lot profounder than fears. In my essay I will be looking at a scenario of a woman called Amy with an extreme phobia of birds and how we can explain her fear looking at different psychological theories that explains learnt behaviour.

In general, a phobia refers to “extreme [and] irrational fear reactions” (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p. 190). Phobias are developed through a process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves “a process in which one stimulus that does not elicit a certain response is associated with a second stimulus that does; as a result, the first stimulus also comes to elicit a response” (Powell et al., 2013, pp. 109-110).

Phobias are described as "a persistent, irrational fear of an object, activity or situation that compels a

Known as a mental disorder a phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it. Phobias tend to affect the way people live their lives, for example, their working and social environments, considering that they last for a very long time and are capable to cause intense psychological physical stress. It is considered today the most common mental and anxiety disorder in the United States (Matig Mavissakalian & David H. Barlow 1981 pp 2). There are many phobias such as: the fear of aging, fear of changing, fear of clowns, fear of getting fat, fear of being in closed spaces, etc.

Abnormal is something deviating from what is normal or usual, typical in a way that is uncommon or irregular.

However, phobia can even cause people to risk their health. For example, the fear of dentists can leave people suffering from it willing to risk the health of their teeth in order to avoid having to go through an exam or procedure ( MacKay). When one knows about an upcoming confrontation, it can be the reason why one can not sleep or finds it hard to focus on important tasks. Due the change in daily routine, this unrealistic fear can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, brought on by and object, event or situation. But even animals have anxieties and phobias just as every human being (www.phobia-help.de). A phobia is an irrational fear, one knows that the object or situation, one is scared off, can not hurt one, but one is still afraid. A reason for this is that the human mind can not distinguish what is real and imaginary. When one has uncontrollable anxiety attacks, he loses rational judgement, leading to complicated problems. However, anyone can develop a phobia, men and women, teens and young adults, and elderly lady or a one-year-old boy (MacKay).

Abnormal and clinical psychology are two branches in the field of psychological studies. In simple words, abnormal psychology can be defined as the study of people who engage in unusual behavior and emotional thoughts. These actions and thoughts are considered abnormal compared to those of other members of society, and they significantly interfere with their functioning in life. Clinical psychology goes hand in hand with abnormal psychology because it is the study that deals with the assessment and treatment of those abnormal actions. Learning about these branches of psychology can help us understand and predict behaviors of people who that are affected by these disorders. It is also essential to advance our knowledge to help assess the people who suffer these illnesses to lead a life of better quality. In this paper, a case study that entails a brief vignette of a 35 year old paralegal named Greg will be analyzed. According to concepts of abnormal and clinical psychology, Greg will be diagnosed with the psychological disorder of obsessive-compulsive disorder (more formally known as OCD) that might have originated in the anal stage of the psychoanalytic theory, for which cognitive behavioral therapy will be used as a possible treatment.