Psychopathology - psyche boost

• Definitions of abnormality


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


  Unwritten behavioral expectations that vary depending on culture, time and context
• Behaviors showing high cultural specificity


  • Tolerance to homosexuality
  • Religious experience
  • Public displays of emotion
• Diagnosing abnormality according to social norms is not ethnocentric
• Defining people who move to a new culture as abnormal according to the new cultural norms can be inappropriate
• Failure to function adequately


  Individuals cannot cope with the day-to-day challenges of daily life such as maintaining personal hygiene
• Features of failure to function adequately


  • Maladaptive behavior
  • Irrational, unpredictable actions that go against their long-term best interests
  • Personal anguish
  • Observers feel discomfort in their presence
• Statistical infrequency compares the individual's behavior to the rest of the population
• The normal distribution curve shows a population's average spread of specific characteristics
• Not all statistically rare traits are negative, for example IQs of 130 are just as statistically rare as IQs of 70
• Deviation from ideal mental health


  Features are environmental mastery, autonomy, resisting stress, self-actualisation, positive attitude to yourself, and accurate perception of reality
• Characteristics of phobias, depression and OCD


  • Phobias: Behavioral avoidance, panic, failure to function, emotional anxiety, cognitive irrational thoughts
  • Depression: Behavioral reduction in activity, emotional sadness, cognitive poor concentration
  • OCD: Behavioral compulsions, emotional anxiety, cognitive obsessions
• Behavioral approach to explaining and treating phobias


  1. Acquisition: Classical conditioning

  2. Maintenance: Operant conditioning

  3. Generalization
• Behavioral therapies like systematic desensitization and flooding are effective, suggesting the behaviorist principles they are based on are valid
• Systematic desensitization


  Therapist teaches relaxation techniques, then gradually exposes client to phobic stimulus
• Flooding


  Immediate and full exposure to maximum level of phobic stimulus
• Compared to flooding, systematic desensitization is a more pleasurable experience for the client but may require more sessions
• Systematic desensitization and flooding may be limited to the controlled environment and not translate to real-world experiences
• Beck's negative triad


  Persistent automatic negative biases about the self, the world, and the future
• Ellis's ABC model


  1. Activating event, B: Belief, C: Consequence
• CBT and REBT are effective in treating depression, suggesting the underlying cognitive explanations are valid
• Some people with severe depression may be too unmotivated to engage with the demands of CBT
• Genetic explanations for OCD


  • Serotonin reuptake gene, Gen9 comp gene, 5ht1d beta gene
• Neural explanation for OCD


  Low serotonin levels, overactive 'worry circuit' in the brain
• Twin studies suggest a genetic component to OCD, but the environment also plays a role
• SSRI drugs are effective in treating OCD, suggesting a biological aspect to the disorder
• Drug therapies for OCD


  • SSRIs
  • Benzodiazepines
  • Tricyclics and SNRIs
• Drug therapy for OCD can have side effects like nausea, headache, and insomnia
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