Passage Based Questions: Psychological Disorders | Psychology Class 12 - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

Passage - 1

Passage: Mark was a 28-year-old single male who, at the time he entered treatment, suffered from severe obsessive thoughts and images about causing harm to others, such as running over pedestrians while he was driving. He also had severe obsessions that he would commit a crime, such as robbing a store or poisoning family members or friends. These obsessions were accompanied by lengthy and excessive checking rituals. For example, one day when he drove, he began obsessing that he had caused an accident and hit a pedestrian at an intersection, and he felt compelled to spend several hours driving and walking around all parts of that intersection to find evidence of the accident. At the time Mark went to an anxiety disorder clinic, he was no longer able to live by himself after having lived alone for several years since college. He was a very bright young man with considerable artistic talent. He had finished college at a prestigious school for the arts and had launched a successful career as a young artist when the obsession began in his early 20s. At first, they were focused on the possibility that he would be implicated in some crime that he had committed; later, they evolved to the point where he was afraid that he might actually commit a crime and confess to it. The checking rituals and avoidance of all places where such confessions might occur eventually led to his having to give up his career and his own apartment and move back in with his family.

Q1: How are obsessions defined?
Ans: Obsessions - Being unable to control their preoccupation with specific ideas or certain thoughts that make the individual anxious.

Q2: How are compulsions defined?
Ans: Compulsions - Being unable to stop the impulse to repeatedly carry out certain acts like checking, washing, counting, etc., in order to reduce this anxiety.

Q3: What were the specific symptoms of obsessions and compulsions observed in Mark?
Ans: Mark had severe obsessive thoughts and images about causing harm to others, such as running over pedestrians while he was driving. He also had severe obsessions that he would commit a crime, such as robbing a store or poisoning family members or friends. These obsessions were accompanied by lengthy and excessive checking rituals. For example, one day when he drove, he began obsessing that he had caused an accident and hit a pedestrian at an intersection, and he felt compelled to spend several hours driving and walking around all parts of that intersection to find evidence of the accident.

Q4: In what ways did Mark's obsessions and compulsions impact his life?
Ans: Mark couldn’t live by himself, and this disorder had made his professional, social, and personal relationships difficult. He wanted to seek treatment.

Passage - 2

Direction: Read the passage given below carefully and answer the following questions:

Passage: The symptoms of schizophrenia can be grouped into three categories: Positive symptoms (i.e., excesses of thought, emotion, and behavior), negative symptoms (i.e., deficits of thought, emotion, and behavior), and psychomotor symptoms. Positive symptoms are ‘pathological excesses’ or ‘bizarre additions’ to a person’s behavior. Delusions, disorganized thinking and speech, heightened perception and hallucinations, and inappropriate effects are the ones most often found in schizophrenia. Many people with schizophrenia develop delusions. A delusion is a false belief that is firmly held on inadequate grounds. It is not affected by rational argument and has no basis in reality.

Q1: How is schizophrenia defined?
Ans: Schizophrenia is the descriptive term for a group of psychotic disorders in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorates as a result of disturbed thought processes, strange perceptions, unusual emotional states, and motor abnormalities.

Q2: What are hallucinations?
Ans: Hallucinations are perceptions felt by an individual that are not actually present in the environment.

Q3: How are delusions described in the context of schizophrenia?
Ans: A delusion is a false belief that is firmly held on inadequate grounds. It is not affected by rational argument and has no basis in reality.

Q4: What are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Ans: Negative symptoms are ‘pathological deficits’ that occur in an individual with schizophrenia. The symptoms include poverty of speech (alogia), blunted or flat affect, loss of volition, and social withdrawal.