Psychopathology

• definitions of abnormality

  Statistical infrequency, deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, deviation from ideal mental health
• Statistical infrequency

  abnormality defined when an individual has a less common/ statistically infrequent characteristic (e.g. high IQ)
• Statical infrequency evaluation

  • Support: Useful and used in clinical practice as a part of formal diagnosis and as a way to assess the severity of the case (e.g. intellectual disorders)
  • Limitation: Infrequent characteristics can be positive or negative like high IQ or low depression score aren't seen as abnormal so doesn't make them abnormal
• Deviation from social norms


  Concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standards for behaviour in a community or society - what people think as acceptable (e.g. antisocial personality disorder)
• Deviation from social norms evaluation


  • Support: Used in clinical practice and helps diagnose antisocial personality as it's failure to conform to culturally normal ethical behaviour
  • Limitation: Might use their standards on a person with other standards so difficult to judge and carries risk of unfair labelling
• Failure to function adequately


  abnormality defined when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living
• Failure to function adequately evaluation


  • Support: Helps identify people who may need professional help as 25% of UK experience mental health problems but only some need help
  • Limitation: Easy to label non-standard lifestyle choices as abnormal (e.g. choosing to live off-grid) and all of us won't be able to function adequately at points
• Deviation from ideal mental health


  Occurs when someone doesn't meet a set of criteria for good mental health
• Deviation from ideal mental health evaluation


  • Support: Jahoda's criteria focuses on individual experience, holistic view of person, focuses on positive and sets out goals for individual
  • Limitation: ethnocentric criteria as developed with western ideologies of ideal mental health, difficult to measure criteria as subjective to person assessing patient
• DSM-5 categories of phobia


  • Specific phobia - phobia of a certain object
  • Social anxiety - phobia of a social situation
  • Agoraphobia - being outside or public place
• Behaviour characteristics of phobia


  • Panic (would panic in response to the presence of the phobic stimulus)
  • Avoidance (tend to make a lot of effort to prevent coming in contact with with the phobic stimulus)
  • Endurance (occurs when person chooses to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus)
• Emotional characteristics of phobias


  • Anxiety
  • Fear
  • Emotional response is unreasonable
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias


  • Selective attention (find it hard to look away from it)
  • Irrational beliefs (may have unfound thoughts like it can't be easily explained or no basis for reality)
  • Cognitive distortions (their perception is inaccurate and unrealistic)
• DSM-5 categories of depression


  • Major depressive disorder - severe but short term
  • Persistent depressive disorder - long term or recurring depression
  • Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder
  • Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
• Behavioural characteristics of depression


  • Activity levels (reduced levels of energy)
  • Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour
  • Aggression and self harm
• Emotional characteristics of depression


  • Lowered mood
  • Anger
  • Lowered self-esteem
• Cognitive characteristics of depression


  • Poor concentration
  • Attending to and dwelling on the negative (pay more attention to negative aspect)
  • Absolutist thinking (tend to think everything is 'black and white')
• DSM-5 categories of OCD

  • Trichotillomania - hair pulling
  • Hoarding - gathering and storage of possessions
  • Excoriation - skin picking
• Behavioural characteristics of OCD


  • Compulsions are repetitive
  • Compulsions reduce anxiety
  • Avoidance
• Emotional characteristics of OCD


  • Anxiety and distress
  • Accompanying depression
  • Guilt and disgust
• Cognitive characteristics of OCD


  • Obsessive thoughts (recurring intrusive thoughts)
  • Obsessive actions (person will need to perform these actions to be able to carry on with their day)
  • Excessive anxiety (person is are aware their obsessions and compulsions aren't rational but can't stop)
• Behavioural approach to explaining phobias


  1. Two-process model (Mowrer 1960)

  2. Acquisition by classical conditioning

  3. Maintenance by operant conditioning
• Behavioural approach to explaining phobias evaluation


  • Support: Has real-world application in exposure therapies once avoidance behaviour is prevented and phobia is cured, Little Albert study shows how a bad experience can lead to a phobia
  • Limitation: Not all phobias appear following a bad experience (e.g. snakes), Doesn't account for cognitive aspects and aren't simply avoidance response and have a cognitive component
• Behavioural approach to treating phobias: Systematic desensitisation


  1. Anxiety hierarchy - make list of situations that provoke most to least anxiety

  2. Relaxation - teaches client to relax as deeply as possible

  3. Exposure - client is exposed to phobic stimulus while in relaxed state
• Behavioural approach to treating phobias: Flooding


  Involves exposing people with a phobia to their phobia stimulus but without gradual buildup of an anxiety hierarchy. Involves immediate exposure to a very frightening situation.
• Behavioural approach to treating phobias evaluation: Systematic desensitisation


  • Support: Has evidence for its effectiveness, used to treat people with learning disabilities as alternatives aren't suitable
  • Limitation: VR exposure may be less effective than real exposure for social phobias because it lacks realism
• Behavioural approach to treating phobias evaluation: Flooding


  • Support: Highly cost effective as clinically effective and not expensive and can work as little as one session
  • Limitation: Can be traumatic, only masks symptoms and doesn't tackle underlying causes of phobias
• Becks negative triad


  1. Faulty information processing- people attend to the negative aspects of a situation and ignore the positives

  2. Negative self-schema- we interpret all information about themselves in a negative way

  3. Negative triad- negative view of the world, self and the future
• Ellis' ABC model


  1. Activating event- irrational thoughts are triggered by external events
  2. Beliefs- a range of irrational beliefs (e.g. we must always succeed or achieve perfection)
  3. Consequences- when an activating event trigger irrational beliefs, there are emotional and behavioural consequences
• Cognitive approach to explaining depression evaluation: Becks negative triad


  • Support: Has supporting research, allows psychologists to screen young people, identifying those at at risk and monitoring them
  • Limitation: Some parts of depression aren't particularly well explained by cognitive explanations
• Cognitive approach to explaining depression evaluation: Ellis' ABC model


  • Support: Has real world application REBT is that by rigorously arguing with a depressed person, they can alter irrational beliefs that make them unhappy
  • Limitation: Only explains reactive depression not endogenous which is not traceable to life events and not obvious as to why/how they became depressed so ABC is less helpful, located blame on depressed person so unethical
• Cognitive approach to treating depression: CBT


  Cognitive element - assessment where the patient and therapist work out the client problems and identify goals

  Behavioural element - involves working to change negative and irrational thoughts
• Cognitive approach to treating depression: Beck's cognitive therapy


  Aims to identify automatic thoughts about world, self and future then challenge them to help clients test the reality of their negative beliefs
• Cognitive approach to treating depression: Ellis's rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT)


  ABCDE model, D- dispute and E- effort

  Identify and dispute irrational thoughts by rigorous argument to change irrational belief

  Behavioural activation - gradually decrease their avoidance and isolation and increase their activities
• Cognitive approach to treating depression evaluation


  • Support: Effective, CBT is effective for people with learning disability

  Limitation: Lack of suitability for severe cases as can't motivate themselves to engage and for people with learning disabilities, high relapse rates
• Genetic explanations (biological approach to explaining OCD)


  OCD runs in families/genes, researchers have identified genes which create vulnerability for OCD and are involved in regulating developments of serotonin system, OCD is polygenic - not caused by one single gene but by several genes
• Neural explanations (biological approach to explaining OCD)


  Role of serotonin - believed to help regulate mood, if have low levels of serotonin then the person may experience low mood

  Decision-making system - seems to be associated with impaired decision making, may be associated with abnormal functions of the lateral of the frontal lobes of the brain
• Biological approach to explaining OCD evaluation: Genetic explanations


  • Support: Has strong evidence base, you can be vulnerable to OCD as a result of genetic makeup

  Limitation: Are environmental risk factors that can trigger or increase the risk of developing OCD, animal studies can be seen as unethical
• Biological approach to explaining OCD evaluation: Neural explanations


  • Support: Has supporting evidence, antidepressants work on serotonin and are effective in reducing OCD symptoms, suggesting serotonin may be involved in OCD

  Limitation: May not be unique to OCD, many people with OCD also experience depression, which involves disruption of serotonin so it reduces OCD symptoms because it helps the depression
• Biological approach to treating OCD


  Aims to increase or decrease levels of neurotransmitters in the brain or to increase/decrease their activity

  SSRIs - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and work on the serotonin system that is released by certain neurons in the brain and travels down the synapse where neurotransmitters convey signals and is reabsorbed by presynaptic neuron where its been broken down and reused

  Combining SSRIs with other treatments - often used alongside CBT and drug reduce emotional symptoms so people with OCD can engage more effectively with CBT