psychopathololgy

• definitions of abnormality A03

  • deviation from social norms
  • deviation from ideal mental health
  • statistical infrequency
  • failure to function adequately
• behavioural characteristics of phobias

  • panic behaviour ( crying , running away )
  • avoidance behaviour
  • endurance behaviour
• behavioural characteristics of depression

  • loss of energy
  • self-harm
  • sleep pattern disturbance
  • social impairment
  • weight changes
  • neglecting personal hygiene
• behavioural characteristics of OCD

  • compulsions are repetitive
  • hinder everyday functioning
  • compulsions reduce anxiety
• emotional characteristics of phobias

  • anxiety ( feelings of worry )
  • fear ( feelings of terror )
• emotional characteristics of depression

  • worthlessness
  • loss of enthusiasm
  • anger
  • constant depressed mood
• emotional characteristics of OCD

  • co-morbid with depression
  • extreme anxiety and distress
  • guilt and disgust
• cognitive characteristics of phobias

  • irrational thinking
  • selective attention
• cognitive characteristics of OCD

  • hyper-vigilance
  • realisation of inappropriateness
  • persistant and intrusive obsessions
• cognitive characteristics of depression

  • reduced concentration
  • suicidal ideation
  • delusions
  • negative thoughts
  • poor memory
• Behavioural approach to explaining and treating phobias

  • two process model ( cc acquires the phobia and oc maintains the phobia - all phobias are learnt from the environment)
  • systematic desensitisation
  • flooding
• cognitive approach to explaining and treating depression

  • Ellis's ABC model
  • Beck's negative triad ( depression is caused by faulty informational processing and irrational thinking , 3 negative self schemas that are acquired in childhood neg view of self, word, future)
  • CBT (aim is to change negative schemas and irrational thoughts ) (BCT identify automatic thoughts, patient scientist , reality testing )
• biological approach to explaining and treating OCD

  • genetic and neural explanations ( OCS is inherited in genetic material , the COMT and SERT genes)
  • drug therapy (increase or decreased lvls of neurotransmitters in the brain) - SSRIs inhibit serotonin reuptake , Benzodiazepine
• deviation from social norms

  • behaviour that goes against the standards of acceptable behaviour that are set by a certain social group
  • social norms are unwritten rules or expectations
  • the behaviour may offend members of the group in some way
• deviation from ideal mental health

  • Jahoda's criteria for ideal mental health
  • less criteria they meet the more abnormal they are
  • behaviour that fails to meet the criteria for psychological wellbeing
• failure to function adequately

  • behaviour that causes distress leading to an inability to cope with the demands of every day life
  • e.g. washing yourself, eating regularly
  • behaviour is shown to be maladaptive , irrational or dangerous
  • can cause distress to individual or others
• statistical infrequency

  • abnormality is defined as any relatively unusual behaviour or characteristic - any behaviour that is numerically rare or uncommon
  • any value that is two or more SD points away from the mean on normal distribution
• systematic desensitisation

  • counter - conditioning : taught a new response to phobic stimulus
  • relaxation techniques used at every step encourages reciprocal inhibition
  • fear hierarchy - patients work their way through and each stage is practiced until the fear is extinguished
  • gradual introduction to fear stimulus
• flooding:

  • immediate exposure to phobic stimulus
  • sessions last around 2 - 3 hours
  • patients are prevented from avoiding the fear stimulus
  • relaxation techniques are practiced
  • anxiety eventually subsides as adrenaline levels naturally start to decrease
• Ellis's ABC model:

  • A ( activating event ) leads to B ( behaviour ) ,can either be irrational or rational thoughts , leads to C ( consequences ) either desirable or undesirable emotions these lead to desirable or undesirable behaviour
  • due to irrational from mustabatory thinking
• Ellis's DEF model: D ( disputing and challenging irrational beliefs) E (effective new beliefs replace irrational beliefs ) F ( new feelings and emotions )
• COMT gene :

  • involved in the production of the enzyme COMT
  • regulates the amount of dopamine in the synapse by breaking it down
  • low level activity COMT gene is most common in people with OCD , it results in higher levels of dopamine
• SERT gene:

  • regulated the transport of serotonin in a synapse
  • high level activity SERT gene is the more common in people with OCD as it results in lower lvls of serotonin because the reuptake mechanism works too hard
• worry circuit : the frontal lobe in an OCD brain:

  OFC (orbital frontal cortex ) sends a worry signal to the hypothalamus which is alerted and confirms said signal creating a circuit
• behavioural explanation - phobias A03: strengths

  • research support : for the dual process model as 73% of people with the fear of dental treatment had a traumatic experience involving dentistry , this fear was acquired through classical conditioning
• behavioural explanation - phobias A03: limitation

  • limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it doesn't explain all phobias and why some phobias aren't developed from a traumatic event - Sligman suggest humans are more liekly to develop phobias to things that would have been dangerous in our evolutionary past
• behavioural treatment - phobias A03: strength

  • successful treatments : McGrath's 1990 study showed successful counter conditioning with systematic desensitisation , Choy (2007) Flooding to be successful - suggests that the behaviourist approach must be correct
  • flooding can be considered more appropriate and efficient as it only takes one long session rather than repeated sessions for SD which takes a long time
• behavioural treatment - phobias A03: limitation

  • flooding can be very traumatic and therefore not appropriate for everyone , although patients are aware of this before they begin they may quit during the treatment as it's too overwhelming
  • method of SD and Flooding : exposure may be more effective than relaxation. Klein et al (1983) compared SD to supportive psychotherapy and found no difference in effectiveness. This suggests that the success of the treatments is derived from the hope that the phobia would be overcome
• depression - cognitive treatment A03: strength

  • successful treatments - has led to the development of successful therapies, Ellis' led to different types of CBT such as Rational Emotional Behavioural therapy , when compared with drugs the therapy was seen as more effective for treating depression
  • research support - Hammen and Krantz support the concecpt of negative thoughts and irrational thinking leads to depression in a study comparing depressive ppts and non - depressed ppts in making errors of logic.
• Cognitive treatment A03: limitation

  Blames the client - The cognitive approach suggests that the mental disorder is the client's responsibility rather than situational factors. This may lead to the overlooking of said factors that may have contributed to the development and acquisition of the disorder
• Alternative Explanations : limitation of the cognitive approach

  • The cognitive approach to treating depression is reductionist as the biological approach could better explain the disorder through an interactionist approach such as the diathesis - stress model. The existence of alternative approaches suggest that depression can't be explained by the cognitive approach alone