Psych p1- psychopathology

• I've combined and summarized the content from my psych mythology videos into this psychic pathology revision video
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• Definitions of abnormality


  • Deviation from social norms
  • Failure to function adequately
  • Statistical infrequency
  • Deviation from ideal Mental Health
• Social norms are unwritten behavioral expectations that vary depending on culture, time and context
• Social deviants are individuals who break the norms of their society and are seen as abnormal
• Evaluations using social norms does not impose a western view of abnormality on other non-western cultures
• Diagnosing abnormality according to social norms can be inappropriate for example people from an afro-caribbean background living in the UK are seven times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia
• Failure to function adequately


  Individuals cannot cope with the day-to-day challenges of daily life such as maintaining personal hygiene
• Statistical infrequency


  Someone is mentally abnormal if their mental condition is very rare in the population
• The normal distribution curve shows a population's average spread of specific characteristics
• Just over two percent of the population have 70 IQ points or fewer, which is one element of diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder in the DSM-5
• Not all statistically rare traits are negative, for example IQs of 130 are just as statistically rare as IQs of 70
• There are common mental health conditions like anxiety, the NHS found 17% of people surveyed met the criteria for a common mental health disorder
• Deviation from ideal Mental Health

  Features are environmental Mastery, autonomy, resisting stress, self-actualization, positive attitude to yourself, and an accurate perception of reality
• This holistic definition considers multiple factors in diagnosis and provides suggestions for personal development
• Deviation from ideal mental health does not simply state what is wrong, it also suggests how problems can be overcome
• It's too strict to set up criteria to define mental health as it's challenging to achieve all of the requirements at any one time, most people would be defined as abnormal
• Characteristics of phobia's


  Behavioral avoidance, panic and uncontrollable physical response, failure to function, emotional anxiety and uncomfortably high and persistent state of arousal, cognitive irrational thoughts and fears
• Characteristics of depression


  Behavioral reduction in activity level, lethargy, change in eating behavior, emotional sadness, cognitive poor concentration and negative schemas
• Characteristics of OCD


  Behavioral compulsions, emotional anxiety and uncomfortably high and persistent state of arousal, cognitive obsessions and hyper vigilance
• Behavioral approach to explaining phobias

  Acquisition through classical conditioning, maintenance through operant conditioning, and generalization
• Watson and Rayna Watson demonstrated phobias can be acquired through association
• Dinardo showed that while conditioning events like dog bites are common, they were just as common in participants with no dog phobia
• Phobias of snakes and spiders may be better explained by evolutionary theory
• Systematic desensitization


  Therapist teaches relaxation techniques, then progresses through an anxiety hierarchy from least to most feared, a stepped approach
• Flooding


  Immediate and full exposure to the maximum level of the phobic stimulus, causing temporary panic until the client is calm in the presence of the phobic object
• Garcia palacitas found 83% of participants treated with VR exposure to spiders improved, compared to 0% in the control group
• Cognitive approach to explaining depression

  Beck's negative Triad of persistent automatic negative biases about the self, the world, and the future
• Ellis's ABC model


  A is the activating event, B is the belief (rational or irrational), C is the consequence
• Ari found women with negative thinking styles were the most likely to develop postpartum depression
• CBT had an 81% effectiveness rate after 36 weeks, the same as drug therapy
• CBT empowers patients and gives a sense of personal efficacy, in contrast to drugs which often require a passive role
• Biological approach to explaining OCD

  Genetic explanation, neural explanation of overactive worry circuit, and drug therapies like SSRIs
• Samara's meta-analysis found SSRIs significantly reduce symptoms of OCD compared to placebos
• Goldacre argues most research studies on drug therapies are conducted by the pharmaceutical companies that created them, potentially biasing results
• CBT requires the patient to find time for multiple sessions with a trained therapist, while drug therapy is relatively inexpensive and potentially more convenient for the patient
• Drug therapy can have a range of potential side effects like nausea, headache, and insomnia