Main content
MCAT
Course: MCAT > Unit 11
Lesson 6: Psychological disorders- Psychological Disorders Questions
- What is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)?
- What is post traumatic stress disorder?
- Introduction to mental disorders
- Categories of mental disorders
- Schizophrenia
- Biological basis of schizophrenia
- Biological basis of depression
- Anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder
- Somatic symptom disorder and other disorders
- Personality disorders
- Sleep disorders
- Sleep wake disorders breathing related sleep disorders
- Reward pathway in the brain
- Drug dependence and homeostasis
- Tolerance and withdrawal
- Substance use disorders
- Biological basis of parkinson's disease
- Depression and major depressive disorder
- Depression and bipolar disorder
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Somatic symptom disorder and other disorders
Visit us (http://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and-medicine) for health and medicine content or (http://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat) for MCAT related content.
These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video. Created by Arshya Vahabzadeh.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is Conversion Disorder a sort of catch-all then for everything neurologically-based that we don't have categorized yet?(8 votes)
- So, just to clarify: A somatic symptom disorder is when somebody has a physical symptom that can be medically explained, and that results in the patient worrying excessively, to the point that it impairs their lives.
On the other hand, a conversion disorder is when someone has undergone some sort of psychological stress or trauma that manifests as a neurological problem that can't be explained by medical tests.
Do I have the right idea here or am I missing something?(5 votes)- Sort of.
Somatic symptom disorder is based of a mental response, such as anxiety, that produces a somatic affecter - like chest pain for instance.
Seems to me like you got conversion disorder.(5 votes)
- what's the difference between somatic symptom disorder and bipolar disorder?(3 votes)
- bipolar disorder is not clearly cyclicing episodic mood since there are 2 classifications of bipolar disorder; bipolar 1 and 2, and looking at the critiria for diagnosis bipolar 1 can be diagnosed without having depression, just one episode of mania is significant for diagnosis. Bipolar 2 however is characterised by an episode of depression and atleast one episode of hypomania. Hope this helps.(3 votes)
- what age can someone get somatic disorder?(1 vote)
- its shouldn't be particular to any age. remember that disorder is "functional" inability. Like most working things, a body can have problems at any point in time depending on the circumstances. Good question.(2 votes)
- So would the symptoms and issues that Freud's patients (e.g., Anna O) be considered conversion disorder?(1 vote)
- I believe that Frued diagnosed her with hysteria (which is what conversion disorder used to be called) although other psychologists thought he misdiagnosed her and proposed that she had meningitis, epilepsy, etc.(1 vote)
- idk
liuytrgfhjkio987654etgfhjkuoi89765ryfhgjku986tfnygiy7 toyub, kbv tuhuom ijiby k bi hiyb kh(0 votes)
Video transcript
- [Narrator] We know
that medical conditions often result in physical symptoms. We also realize that mental disorders, disorders affecting the
mind, such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, they can result in psychological symptoms. We should also realize
that medical conditions can in fact, also manifest
in psychological symptoms. Whether we look at autoimmune conditions or we look at cardiovascular
disease or diabetes, people with those conditions can get symptoms of depression,
symptoms of anxiety, and even full blown
psychiatric/mental disorders, so we should also bear that in mind. By the very same token, Mental disorders can also
manifest in physical symptoms. Part of that could be, for example, depression can manifest
in disturbances of sleep, but I want you to really
concentrate on this, because for some mental disorders, this becomes a really big deal and manifests in a really
big way as physical symptoms either directly leading
to physical symptoms or exacerbating physical symptoms that may already be occurring
from medical conditions and may already be present. I'm going to talk about
a couple of those now. The first one I want to talk about is something called
Somatic Symptom Disorder, and I actually want to compare
that to another disorder called Conversion Disorder. Now when I say somatic, what
I'm actually referring to is physical symptoms, so if we go back to our boxes up here, when I said "physical symptoms," when we talk about how
mental disorders manifest, this is just another word for somatic, and somatic is another word for physical. You can think of this as
Physical Symptom Disorder in some ways. The first thing I want to do is to talk about what kind
of symptoms can arise, and in Somatic Symptom Disorder,
we can have any symptom. It could be something very,
very specific like wrist pain, or it could be something
much more generalized like a general feeling of fatigue. It could be any symptom whatsoever. Now contrast this to what we
have in Conversion Disorder, because in Conversion Disorder, we're actually looking for something that's very neurological. Think about it as a problem
with speech, with swallowing, with seizures, or even with paralysis, anything whatsoever that could
be a neurological symptom that looks like, I should
say, a neurological symptom. Now the second point I'm going to say, when we think about
Somatic Symptom Disorder, we may or may not be able
to explain what we see these symptoms with medical tests. What this means is that
they may or may not be related to a medical condition. Conversion Disorder on the other hand, is very, very different. The neurological symptoms that we see are incompatible with
any known neurological or medical condition. We simply cannot explain them based on our tests or clinical exam. What makes Somatic Symptom
Disorder a mental disorder? Well, when we say
"disorder," we're looking at some functional impairment. This condition stops
people from doing things that they like to do. It stops them from say, going to school, enjoying life, and how does it do that? It does that in a variety of ways. These individuals, when
they have these symptoms, really get stressed out. They really get worried, and they get worried
very, very excessively. They can have really
extreme levels of anxiety, and they can spend a
lot of time and energy worrying and thinking
about their symptoms. All of these things are to
a totally excessive level. Excess, totally excessive level, and it's really impairing for them, the level of worry, anxiety, and the amount of time
and resources they spend worrying about these,
stressing about these symptoms. Now when we look at Conversion Disorder, we have these neurological
symptoms that cannot be explained by our understanding of
medicine or neurology, but it's something that
we sometimes can see, not always, but sometimes can see when we talk to these individuals and we try and understand them is that they sometimes have a
level of psychological stress or traumatic event
that's happened to them, and the stressor or trauma
can actually be resulting in this manifestation of
these neurologic symptoms. Finally, there's another
condition I want to touch base on, and that condition is
called Factitious Disorder. Now in this disorder, the
patient wants to be "sick," and they will falsify or deceive their physical signs and symptoms in order to get a diagnosis and treatment. They may injure themselves. They may falsify tests. You may have heard of
this as Munchhausen's or even Munchhausen's by proxy. Munchhausen's by proxy
is a Factitious Disorder of another individual. One person is actually trying to make another person look ill, so that there's medical attention,
investigation, treatment provided for another individual. What's notable about Factitious Disorder is that people aren't
doing this for money, and people are doing
this very specifically to be in this "sick" role.