Evaluation

• Usefulness - Alternatives

  • Highly useful due to the effective treatments- systematic desensitisation
  • May lack usefulness as it doesn’t consider the role of nature within the explanations (reductionist)
• Scientific - Alternatives

  • Explanations such as the psychodynamic have to rely on self-reports and interviews in order to decipher whether the cause of mental illness is due to factors such as cold rejecting mothers.
  • However, the behaviourist explanation of classical conditioning has been tested in a controlled way on Little Albert
• Reductionism/Holism - Alternatives

  • Reductionist as they mostly reject the medical model and focus on situational explanations for mental illness such as being nurtured by a cold rejecting mother.
  • However, Beck is holistic as he uses both faulty thought processes, stressful life event and the negative cognitive triad to explain depression.
• Determinism/Free will - Alternatives

  • The alternative explanations explain how certain situational variables, such as negative associations (classical conditioning) and faulty thought processes (cognitive) can pre determine mental illness
  • However, the treatments, such as systematic desensitisation illustrate how we can take back control and try and unlearn any negative associations we have with certain stimuli
• Nature/Nurture - Alternatives

  • The behaviourist explanation focuses exclusively on how we can learn a phobia from classical conditioning and how the way we are nurtured through negatively reinforcing that phobia can perpetuate the anxiety
  • Psychodynamic considers the innate drives of the personality
• Individual/Situational - Alternatives

  • Mainly situational explanations e.g. the behaviourist explanation assumes that phobia can be learnt due to negative associations within our environment.
  • However, the psychodynamic explanation considers individual  differences of how each of our egos is developed to a different extent
• Ethics - Alternatives

  • The treatments can have some harmful consequences for the patients, as they being exposed to feelings that cause them anxiety and phobia
• Socially Sensitive - Alternatives

  • People from dysfunctional families or families with a genetic pre disposition to certain mental illnesses may feel stigmatised and judged
  • Gottesman raised awareness of the genetic implications of schizophrenia and bipolar to reduce stigma of children of those with mental illnesses
  • Gottesman's research was controversial as he claimed people with certain genetics should engage in family planning.
• Validity - Alternatives

  • Due to the psychodynamic approach being based around self-reports and interviews, there is a question as to whether true natural behaviour is being measured
  • Watson and Rayners research on Little Albert has low population validity as it was only conducted on one male baby.
• Reliability - Alternatives

  • The treatments follow a very standardised and consistent procedure e.g. systematic desensitisation works through the same 3 stages with all of the patients
  • McGrath's research of Lucy has high external reliability as he collects quantitative data about Lucy's fear e.g. her fear of party poppers went from 9/10 to 3/10