This week in abnormal psychology I started to look through chapter 13, which is all about developmental and cognitive disorders. One part of the chapter I found interesting was the section about pervasive disorders. People with pervasive developmental disorders deal with problems that affect language, socialization and cognition. The word pervasive means generally a serious long term problem that affects a person throughout their life and even before they are 18. Aspergers, autism, and retts are examples of pervasive disorders. To help people with a pervasive disorder there are psychosocial treatments, such as skill building and behavioral treatment of behavior problems. There are different pharmacological treatments that have been found to be effective in the treatment of different pervasive disorders. There has been a lot of research done just on treating various behaviors and the symptoms of these types of disorders through pharmacology. It was interesting reading about these different disorders because there is so much to know about understanding and identifying them. Also this week in class we did a fun activity and talked about whether or not we were people who tend to daydream and have fantasies a lot. And I said that I was kind of in between because sometimes my imagination can take over if I am watching a fictitious Hollywood movie but I think I can also be really focused if I am reading an interesting book. So I would say that I fall some where in between.

This week at Keene State College it was spring break for college students, so I did not have any classes. But I got the opportunity to do some extra reading in The Essentials of Abnormal Psychology textbook so that I will be ready for the exam that will be coming up soon. Chapter eight covered a lot of information about sleep and eating disorders that I found to be interesting. People spend about one third of their lives sleeping, which would mean that in a one whole year people spend about 3,000 hours asleep. Research has found that about one out of seven people get less then 7 hours of sleep a night during the work week. Research has also found that even minor sleep deprivation over a couple of days can make people's thought processing abililities unclear. People who report having less sleep have been found also to have more health problems, which is probably because their immune system functioning is reduced with the loss of just even a few hours of sleep. Today sleep disorders are treated with long acting and short acting medicines, which are usually benzodiazepine or related type medicines. There are also different environmental treatments for sleep disorders, such as readjusting sleeping patterns and times. And finally there is also psychological treatment for sleeping disorders that can consist of relaxation techniques and stimulus control. Stimulus control means that people are instructed not to use their bedroom for any work or anxiety provoking activities. I think understanding more about sleeping patterns is important in the field of psychology because people have important and meaningful dreams and because without sleep daily functioning would be a serious problem. I think this chapter was interesting because it had important research facts about sleep and also because I find this topic interesting because Freud, Jung and other psychologists emphasized how important sleep was through their theories.

This past week in abnormal psychology we covered various different things but the teacher talked alot about panic disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. Panic disorder is a serious situation because people with this disorder can suffer through episodes in which they feel like they are dying or losing control of what is going on around them. And since people who suffer from this condition do not know when a panic attack is going to occur they can also develop what is known as agoraphobia, which is a condition where a person feels trapped in a particular place or situation. Some of the typical places that are avoided by people with agoraphobia are shopping malls, cars, buses, trains, subways, wide streets, tunnels, restaurants, theaters, supermarkets, stores, planes, elevators and escalators. Today there is both psychological treatment and medicine that is used to treat people who suffer from the condition of panic attacks. Often the process of exposure to feared situations is used to help people overcome their panic disorder. This process is done by arranging situations in which a patient can gradually face there panic attacking situation and learn that there is not really a need to be in a state of such panic. Even though most patients rationally know there is not a real reason to be afraid of their panic it is helpful for them to be convinced of this emotionally. Sometimes therapists will accompany their patients when they are conducting their exposure exercises. Panic is an interesting component that can be studied in the field of psychology because naturally panic occurs for all people so they can gain an understanding of how dangerous a situation can be but as research shows panic can be escalated to an extreme level through PTSD or other factors, which can make it hard for certain people to function in everyday circumstance. And also because research seems to show that panic can be developed over a wide spectrum of circumstances that cause people to have extreme fear. It will be interesting to learn more about these serious conditions of anxiety and panic in the Essential of Abnormal Psychology textbook.

This week in abnormal psychology I had my first exam that covered information from the chapters in the textbook and information covered in class. One thing that was covered on the exam that I believe is important in the field of psychology was information about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is necessary to have knowledge of in the process of clinical assessment. Clinical assessment is the evaluation and information gathering of psychological, social and biological factors in a person that might possibly have a psychological disorder. A diagnosis is the process of finding out if a particular problem an individual has meets the criteria of a specific disorder that could be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Three important factors that determine the value of assessment are reliability, validity and standardization. Reliability is important because it would prove that a diagnosis is truly accurate; validity is important in understanding how much a specific technique or test is designed to measure and standardization is the process of creating certain norms and requirements for a measurement technique or test to make sure of its accuracy in different situations. Clinical assessment consist of a clinical interview and manual status exams. I think that the exam covered a lot of important information such as understanding the Diagnostic and Statistical Assessment Manual and other psychology theories that I can further go over if I was not completely accurate about on the exam.