Models/Theories

• What does the psychoanalytic model believe?

  The loss of self-esteem in depression results from a loss (can by symbolic)​

  Freud proposed that the withdrawal of love and support by a significant figure during a crucial stage in development predisposes an individual to depression later in life. ​​

  The depressed individual redirects feelings of hostility that they had previously felt towards the lost person or love object and instead, channels that anger toward themselves. ​​

  Two essential assumptions: psychic determinisms and the unconscious
• What are three weaknesses of the psychoanalytical model?

  Little empirical support

  Fails to explain all types of depression

  Relies on exploration of a person’s unconscious, past experiences​
• What are two weaknesses of social models?

  Disregards internal processes of an individual

  No assumption about an underlying disease process
• What do social theories believe?

  Psychological factors interact with environmental conditions causing depression. ​​

  Individuals react within their environment to situational events, most will adapt, those who don’t result in depression.​

  The social model emphasizes the importance of the relationship between the social environment and the likelihood of developing depression and loss of self-esteem when their expectations are not fulfilled. 
• What does the behavioural model believe?

  core of depression = decrease in the rate of the response-contingent reinforcement​

  An individual becomes depressed as a direct result of not being able to obtain sufficient satisfaction from their environment or positive reinforcement for actions and behaviours​

  Julian Rotter – abnormal behaviours are learned and maintained because the individual has a relatively high expectancy that these types of behaviours will lead to a reinforcement of value or avoid or reduce some potential punishment. ​
• What is a weakness of the behavioural model?

  Learning views tend to be mechanistic, and too often generalized from data generated by animal studies.
• What are the two biochemical theories?

  The catecholamine theory: ​Drug that treated TB also elevated mood/Reserpine for high BP (depleted brain of catecholamines) caused severe depression​ But underestimated importance depression​​

  The indoleamine theory of depression:​the critical evaluation of the catecholamine theory.​​

  The main evidence comes from the effectiveness of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors with lifting clinical depression.​
• What are the weaknesses of the biochemical model?

  Underestimated role of Serotonin ​

  The biochemistry of psychopathology is a highly complex and technical area of research that includes methodological issues that are difficult to resolve 

   Ethical considerations have prevented more direct experimental approaches with humans​
• What does the reward system believe?

  The system has a common pathway which is the culmination of various processes that converge in areas that modulate arousal, mood, motivation and psychomotor function utilizing dopamine as the main neurotransmitter that is most active in these regions. ​​

  This explains how a disruption of normal functioning in the reward system can result in a range of diverse effects involving arousal endocrine function and psychomotor activity.​​
• EEG (electrical activity in the brain)

  1. Depressed subjects take longer to fall asleep

  2. Have more spontaneous awakenings

  3. Have less stage 4 (deep sleep)

  4. Tend to wake earlier in the morning than normals
• Evoked potentials (EEG changes in response to a stimulus)

  1. Bipolar depressed patients have been shown to produce evoked potentials that are significantly different from normal

  2. Unipolar depressed patients do not appear to differ consistently from normals
• EMG (electromyograph –muscles)

  1. Investigators have reported a generalized increase in muscle tension in depression

  2. EMGs of the facial muscles of depressed patients frequently reflect an unhappy facial expression even when their faces do not appear sad to the observer
• Depressed subjects take longer to fall asleep, have more spontaneous awakenings, have less stage 4 (deep sleep) and tend to wake earlier in the morning than normals
• Bipolar depressed patients have been shown to produce evoked potentials that are significantly different from normal, while unipolar depressed patients do not appear to differ consistently from normals
• Investigators have reported a generalized increase in muscle tension in depression, and EMGs of the facial muscles of depressed patients frequently reflect an unhappy facial expression even when their faces do not appear sad to the observer
• Cognitive model

  Views depression as a multidimensional problem
• Individuals with depression

  • Display abnormal patterns of thinking - tendencies toward low self-esteem, excessive self-criticism, frequent self-commands and exaggerated concepts of responsibility
• Depressive schemata

  Cognitive triad - self, world, and future
• Learned helpless model

  Depression = individual's negative perception of behaviour that results from negative expectations
• Depressed affect

  Proportional to the importance of the expected negative event and the person's certainty that the event would occur
• What are three weaknesses of the cognitive model?

  Emotions are overlooked

  Reductionist

  Mechanistic
• Humanistic model

  Blends together the elements of sociocultural models and the mechanisms of learning theories to provide a model that has existential elements to its orientation towards personality and abnormal behaviours. This model attempts to understand the whole person in terms of present functioning and capabilities for the future
• Maslow's view


  • An individual is always striving for perfect self-actualization
  • The role of the environment is to help individuals actualize the potential that they are born with
  • Abnormal behaviour results when the individual is unable to reach their goals
• Rogers' view

  • Every person is born with inherent potentialities
  • Life experiences are perceived by the individual as either favourable or unfavourable in terms of self-actualization
• Basis of psychopathology (in humanistic model)

  Individual becomes unwilling to assume the responsibility as well as take the necessary action that would achieve self-awareness
• What are two weaknesses of the humanistic model?

  Vague and incomplete

  Variables are too vague so can't be tested or predictable