Psychopathology

• Statistical infrequency


  When an individual has a less common characteristic
• Failure to function adequately 


  When someone can’t cope with the ordinary demands of day to day living
• Deviation from ideal mental health


  When someone doesn’t meet a set of criteria for good mental health
• Deviation from social norms


  Behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in society
• OCD


  An anxiety disorder characterised by recurrent, uncontrollable, intrusive anxiety-provoking obsessions leading to needing to perform a a repetitive behaviour (compulsion)
• Rapoport et al. (1994)


  Surgery to disconnect BG from frontal cortex relieved symptoms of OCD
• Nestadt et al. (2000)


  People with parent who has OCD are 5x more likely to develop OCD
• Aylward et al. (1996)


  Conducted a meta-analysis and found no significant difference in basal ganglia structures of OCD patients and control group.
• SSRIs use for OCD

  Drugs which prevent the reuptake of serotonin, so levels increase in the synapse and it continues to stimulate the post-synaptic neuron (e.g. fluoxetine)
• Phobia


  A type of anxiety disorder where an uncontrollable, irrational fear is disproportionate to the threat
• Discrimination 


  The process of keeping a phobia specific to a conditioned stimulus
• Systematic desensitisation 


  A behavioural therapy designed to gradually reduce the phobic anxiety through classical conditioning, by learning a new response to the stimulus
• Anxiety hierarchy


  A list of situations related to the phobic stimulus arranged from least to most frightening (must be relaxed to progress)
• Flooding 


  A behavioural therapy designed to stop a phobic response quickly - without being able to avoid the stimulus, the patient learns that it is harmless (Sometimes only 1 session needed)
• GilRoy et al. (2003)


  Studied 42 people undergoing systematic desensitisation for fear of spiders - after 3 & 33 months they were less fearful compared to a control group
• Depression


  A mental disorder characterised by low mood and low energy levels
• Beck’s negative triad

  • Negative views of the world
  • Negative views of the future
  • Negative views of the self
• Ellis’s ABC model

  • A = activating event - triggers irrational beliefs
  • B = beliefs
  • C = consequences - emotional & behavioural
• Cohen et al.


  Found that people with cognitive vulnerabilities (ways of thinking) are more likely to develop depression
• Faulty information processing


  Attending to the negatives of a situation rather than the positives - black & white thinking
• Negative self-schema


  A framework of information about how an individual interprets the world and themselves which is negative
• REBT for depression

  • A = activation
  • B = beliefs
  • C= consequences
  • D = disputations - challenge irrational thoughts
  • E = effect - consequences of challenging beliefs
• CBT for depression

  • Behavioural activation - identify obstacles for enjoyable activities
  • Graded task assignments - help engage with more challenging activities
  • Thought catching - notice and challenge negative thoughts, replace with more positivity
• March et al. (2007)


  Found that CBT & drugs combined is a more effective treatment for depression than either alone
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias

  • Avoidance
  • Panic
  • Endurance
• Emotional characteristics of phobias

  • Anxiety
  • Fear
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias

  • Obsessive thoughts
  • Selective attention
  • Irrational beliefs
  • Cognitive distortions
• Behavioural characteristics of depression

  • Low activity levels
  • Disruption to sleep and eating
  • Aggression and self-harm
• Emotional characteristics of depression

  • Low mood
  • Low self-esteem
• Cognitive characteristics of depression

  • Poor concentration
  • Negative bias
  • Absolutist thinking
• Genetic explanation for OCD

  There are around 230 candidate genes contributing to OCD, including the an allele on the COMT gene more common in OCD patients, which controls the production of dopamine. A mutation of the SERT gene is linked to low serotonin levels seen in OCD.
• Neurochemical explanation for OCD

  • Low serotonin levels
  • High dopamine levels
• Neuro-anatomical explanation for OCD

  The frontal lobe is associated with decision making and risk taking - some OCD patients have abnormal functioning of this area, impacting their ability to think logically.

  Hypersensitivity of the basal ganglia (responsible for psychomotor functions)explains repetitive behaviours performed by people with OCD - damage to the caudate nuclei could account for more anxiety as signals continuously sent back to orbitofrontal cortex. This is known as the worry circuit.