Abnormal Psychology: Carl Landau’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Presenting symptoms

Carl Landau symptoms are behavioral and emotional. They include, he has excessive showering and washing, he studies and dresses following magic rituals. He has a behavior of coughing and hissing before taking food. When eating, he has a behavior of tossing his head. Carl is observed to walk in a manner of wiping and shuffling his feet when walking. Has a deteriorated healthy and his body is weak. He looks confused and not composed, (Carson et al., 2000). His funny physical appearance with long and dirty hair. He is always withdrawn and does not interact with anybody. He has a behavior of urinating at the corner of his room. He has stopped brushing. He wears the same close and does not wash them. He has developed a funny behavior of overturning wastebaskets and removing curtains. He has developed a behavior of selecting some food while avoiding others. Has a behavior of doing a given activity repeatedly without being occupied with another. He keeps his left hand out of shirt withdrawn making it appear as if the arm is injured. He does not sleep at night and is ever occupied with his disturbing or problematic behavior.

Background info / Personal history

Carl Landau is a 19 years old. Carl gender is a male, belonging to African American race and is single. He is a first-year student in college undertaking philosophy as his major subject. He is attached to some ceremonial rituals and beliefs and hence is culturally traditional. He has isolating behavior and does not associate himself with friends. Has a deteriorated healthy and his body is weak. Has a deteriorated behavior and he cannot keep by himself. He has emotional stress, (Carson et al, 2000). Does not engage in personal hygiene and has neglected his appearance. He has a trauma after he was harassed by his classmates. He also has long and dirty hair. Carl's history items are relevant to his symptoms. This is because most of his history items are associated with his abnormal behavior which seems to be developing to be more complex as time goes on. His initial abnormal behavior was not as chronic as the current abnormal behavior that has turned disturbing, very complicated which has made his parent to take him to a psychiatric hospital for diagnosis.

Assigned Diagnosis

After a thorough diagnosis of Carl Landau disorder using DSM-V diagnostic criteria, I traced post-traumatic stress disorder to be the source of his emotional and behavioral change.

Rationale for diagnosis

The disorder was diagnosed using DSM-V diagnostic criteria. After focusing on various presenting symptoms, I applied DSM-V diagnostic criteria and focused on the change of behavior of Carl Landau that according to his clinical history shows that his behavioral change was observed after his classmates had harassed him, (Carson et al, 2000). His symptoms also display emotional disorder as he has even withdrawn himself from people. Application of DSM-V diagnostic criteria involves analysis of patient's described behavior that may be related to emotional dysfunctions that are associated with an individual as a result of personal stress especially resulting from harassment. According to DSM-V, individuals suffering from emotional stress those results in behavior change, the cause of emotional stress should be determined as the first step in diagnosis process of the disorder.

After tracing the origin of Carl from harassment from his classmate and this opened the way for more diagnosis and analysis of Carl disorder focusing on post-traumatic stress disorder. DSM-V diagnostic criteria further give that as a result of continued memory flashback of such emotional event in the mind of the victim facilitates re-experiencing of such event which triggers victim's emotion with high impact, (Goethe et al, 2017). After a short period, the victim starts to experience frequent flashbacks and nightmares'of threatening event. Victims of such events are faced with emotional feelings that make them start withdrawing slowly from other people since they do not trust anybody anymore. Such victims are also are characterized with quick to anger and being chronically over-aroused. Within a period of up to three months, the victim that has emotional feelings develops a trauma as a result of such traumatic event. This is a point when the total behavior of the trauma event victim starts showing behavioral changes such as isolation, continued fear not only to human beings but also to almost everything that comes across traumatized individuals, (Carson et al, 2000). For instance, analysis of Carl behavioral change was identified after a short time of harassment, and it continued becoming complicated. Has the trauma continues to grow in one's brain more effect of such trauma continues to be observed. For instance, emotional and behavioral change of Carl after it started deteriorating; even parents were in a position to note the change in his behavior and emotional change thus why they took him to a psychiatric hospital. And thus concluding that, Carl disorder diagnosis using DSM-V diagnostic criteria fitted the characteristics of his disorder and the results obtained was effective.

Differential diagnoses

It is also possible that Carl could also be suffering from the obsessed, compulsive disorder. This is a kind of disorder that many individuals suffer from as a result of obsession thoughts such as aggressive impulses, somatic concern as well as thoughts of contamination. Focusing on Carl change of behavior, we can find that he is obsessed with the fear of contamination of food that's why he coughs and produces hissing sound to determine whether the food has poison. Individuals suffering from obsession are characters with personal withdrawal from other people, and hence they are much conserved with doing their activities, (Carson et al, 2000). They are also associated with compulsions which include thoughts or action that individuals suffering from obsessed, compulsive disorder provide relief to them. For instance, such victims may be concerned with praying and worshiping or excessive washing and cleaning. From the Carl symptoms, initially was taking excessive bathing and showers and thus he could also be suffering from the obsessed, compulsive disorder.

Treatment recommendations

Psychological treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder involves making the tarmac victim gradually re-experience the necessary aspects of traumatic events which are effected by supportive context. This ensures that such person has developed essential and effective coping procedures that highly aids in impacting emotional learning which makes the traumatized individual recover from such trauma. For instance, a person who has post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of harassment need to be exposed to such event special in a film context, (Goethe et al, 2017). This will enable him/her to develop alternative or repulsive ability to such traumatic events.

Prognosis

Individual diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder have the average likelihood to recover from such disorder since it affects their brain. But after they have started the process of recovering using either psychological or clinical; method, there is a high likelihood that they will recover completely from it.

References

Carson, R. C., Butcher, J. N., &Monika, S. (2000). Abnormal psychology and modern life. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Goethe, W. F., Duello, J. A., Schmitt, A. L., Sullivan, J. R., & Rangel, A. (2017). Comparing Delivery Approaches to Teaching Abnormal Psychology: Investigating Student Perceptions and Learning Outcomes. Psychology Learning & Teaching,? 16(3), 336-352. Schaefer, J. D., Casper, A., Balky, D. W., Harrington, H., Hoots, R., Harwood, L. J.,& Moffitt, T. E. (2017). Enduring mental health: Prevalence and prediction.? Journal of abnormal psychology,? 126(2), 212.

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