Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

530 CHAPTER 13 Psychological Disorderscoax her away from the door, she pushedtheir hands away. The male attendantglanced at me through the glass andfrowned. Gently but firmly, they tried toguide the young woman away from thedoor. For just an instant, the young womanturned and seemed to look directly into myeyes.“It’s okay, there’s no fire!” I blurted out,then they led her down the hallway.Silence. I stood by the steel door, mymind racing. I had never seen someonethat confused before. Never. What waswrong with her? Where did they take her?Did she really see fire? What was going tohappen to her?When I finally got to my dad’s hospitalroom, we talked the entire time about theyoung woman. My dad reassured me thatthe hospital staff would take care of thewoman, especially in her extreme state ofconfusion. As an attorney, my dad knewmore about mental disorders than mostpeople. Even so, he wasn’t able to answerthe most important questions that Iwanted answered: What was wrong withthe woman? Why was she that way? Whatcould they do to help her?“If you’d like,” my dad finally said, “Ican arrange for you to talk to a psychiatristthat I know. He can probably answer yourquestions better than I can.” True to hisword, about three weeks later, my dadarranged for me to talk to a psychiatristnamed Dr. Starr.Dr. Starr was perplexed by the lockeddoor. “It’s not normally a locked ward,” hesaid. But after asking me a few more questions,he determined that I had beenstanding at the service entrance at theback of the ward, where the kitchen andhousekeeping staff bring in the food andlinen carts. “If you go to the actual entranceof the ward,” he said, “it’s notlocked and you can look in and see it’s actuallyquite nice.”He carefully listened as I described theyoung woman I had seen, nodding severaltimes as I spoke. “She must have just beenadmitted to the hospital,” he said. “Thereare medications that can help her, but sheprobably hadn’t gotten them yet. Don’tworry, I’m sure they’ll take good care ofher.” Years later, I realized that the youngwoman was probably suffering from schizophrenia,a serious mental disorder that isoften accompanied by vivid hallucinationsthat can seem frighteningly real.In the course of our conversation, Dr.Starr also explained his own training andbackground. After attending medicalschool, he had specialized in psychiatry. Becausehe had had medical training, he wasqualified to prescribe medication. Some ofhis colleagues were clinical psychologists.Although they couldn’t write prescriptionsor order medical procedures, they weretrained in graduate school to use psychotherapyto help people with psychologicaldisorders.It was right then and there that I decidedI wanted to be a clinical psychologistand help people like the confused womanI had seen. Six years later as a collegesophomore majoring in psychology, Istarted working as a technician on thepsychiatric unit of a large hospital. For almostseven years I worked at psychiatricfacilities, learning enormously from bothpsychiatrists and clinical psychologistsabout caring for people with severemental disorders.In this chapter, you’ll learn about thesymptoms that characterize some of themost common psychological disorders, includingthe disorder experienced by theyoung woman who saw fire. As you’llsee, the symptoms of many psychologicaldisorders are not as outwardly severe asthose the young woman was experiencingon that particular day. But whetherthe psychological symptoms are obviousor not, they can seriously impair a person’sability to function. You’ll also learnin this chapter about some of the underlyingcauses of psychological disorders.As you’ll see, biological, psychological,and environmental factors have been implicatedas contributing to many psychologicaldisorders.