pathology

• Psychopathology is the study of mental disorders and conditions that are considered psychologically abnormal
• Definitions of abnormality


  • Deviation from social norms
  • Failure to function adequately
  • Statistical infrequency
  • Deviation from ideal mental health
• Social norms


  The expected rules of behaviour in society
• Abnormality (deviation from social norms)


  Behaviour that deviates from social norms
• Deviation from social norms definition of abnormality

  • The social dimension can help both the abnormal individual and wider society
  • Social norms are flexible to account for the individual and situation
• Weaknesses of deviation from social norms definition

  • Social norms are not objective facts
  • Social norms change over time
  • Social norms vary between cultures
  • A person who deviates from social norms may simply be eccentric rather than psychologically abnormal
• Failure to function adequately


  A person is unable to navigate everyday life or behave in the necessary ways to live a 'normal' life
• Strengths of failure to function definition

  • The GAF provides a practical and measurable way of quantifying abnormality
  • The majority of people who seek clinical help do so because they believe the disorder is affecting their ability to function normally
• Weaknesses of failure to function definition

  • Not everyone with a mental disorder is unable to function in society
  • Not everyone who is unable to function is suffering from a mental disorder
  • What counts as failure to function adequately may differ between cultures
• Statistical infrequency


  Defining abnormality as statistically rare characteristics and behaviours
• Strengths of statistical infrequency definition

  • Statistical infrequency provides a clear and objective way of determining abnormality
  • Statistical infrequency does not imply any value judgements
• Weaknesses of statistical infrequency definition

  • Infrequency does not always mean abnormality
  • Abnormality does not necessarily mean infrequency
  • Some psychological disorders are difficult to measure objectively
• Deviation from ideal mental health

  Failing to meet the criteria for ideal mental health as defined by Jahoda (1958)
• Strengths of deviation from ideal mental health definition

  • The holistic description of ideal mental health focuses on the entire person
  • The definition provides a positive goal to strive towards
• Weaknesses of deviation from ideal mental health definition

  • Too idealistic - very few people meet all the criteria
  • Jahoda's criteria are subjective and hard to measure
  • What is understood by ideal mental health may differ between cultures
• Phobia


  An anxiety disorder characterised by extreme and irrational fear towards a stimuli
• Characteristics of phobias


  • Emotional: Extreme, uncontrollable, disproportionate fear

  Behavioural: Screaming, crying, freezing, avoiding the feared stimuli

  Cognitive: Recognition that the fear is irrational, but this does not reduce the fear
• Phobias


  • Arachnophobia: fear of spiders
  • Aerophobia: fear of flying in aeroplanes
  • Agoraphobia: fear of leaving one's house
  • Social phobias, such as fear of crowds or public speaking
• Characteristics of phobias


  • Emotional: Extreme fear that is uncontrollable and disproportionate to the situation
  • Behavioural: Screaming, crying, freezing, or running away from the feared stimuli. Avoidance of the feared stimuli
  • Cognitive: Recognition that the fear is irrational but unable to reduce it
• Behaviourism


  A psychological approach that analyses phobias based on external observations of environmental stimuli and behavioural responses
• Two-process model of phobias

  1. Acquired through classical conditioning

  2. Maintained through operant conditioning
• Classical conditioning of phobia


  • A person associates a neutral stimulus (e.g. dog) with an unconditioned fear response (e.g. pain from dog bite), leading to a conditioned fear response to the neutral stimulus
• Operant conditioning of phobia

  • A person avoids the feared stimulus (e.g. dogs) which reduces their anxiety, negatively reinforcing the avoidance behaviour and maintaining the phobia
• Not everyone who has an unpleasant experience at the same time as a neutral stimulus goes on to develop a phobia
• Systematic desensitisation


  Gradually increasing exposure to the feared stimuli until it no longer induces anxiety. An example of classical conditioning where the subject is conditioned to associate the object with relaxation instead of anxiety
• Successful treatment of phobia using systematic desensitisation

  • Jones (1924) - Removing a 2 year old boy's phobia of white rats by progressively increasing his exposure to a white rabbit
• Flooding


  Exposing the subject to the most extreme scenarios straight away, with the idea that extreme anxiety cannot be maintained indefinitely
• Successful treatment of phobia using flooding

  • Wolpe (1969) - Treating a girl's phobia of cars by driving her around in a car for four hours until her phobia disappeared
• Behavioural treatment works better with some phobias than others
• Behaviourist treatment of phobias, particularly flooding, may raise ethical concerns
• Depression


  A mood disorder characterised by feelings of low mood, loss of motivation, and inability to feel pleasure
• Types of depression


  • Unipolar
  • Bipolar
• Characteristics of depression


  • Emotional: Persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness, lack of enthusiasm
  • Behavioural: Low energy, reduced activity and social interaction, irregular sleep and eating patterns
  • Cognitive: Exaggerated negative thoughts, difficulty concentrating and remembering, thoughts of death and suicide
• Cognitive approach


  A psychological approach that analyses depression in terms of irrational and undesirable thoughts and thought processes
• Beck's negative triad


  A cognitive explanation of depression involving negative beliefs about the self, the world, and the future
• Negative schema


  Patterns of thought learned from experience that lead to a negative lens through which the individual views themselves and the world
• Cognitive biases


  Systematic deviations from an accurate perception of reality in favour of some less accurate interpretation
• Ellis' ABC model


  A cognitive explanation of depression involving irrational interpretation of negative activating events leading to negative emotional consequences
• Adopted children with depression are 8 times more likely to have biological parents with depression, suggesting a strong genetic/biological component to depression
• Successive negative life experiences can cause depression, suggesting depression is learned from the environment and negative thoughts could be an effect rather than cause