alternative explanations

• behaviourist explanation

  • behaviour is learned because of environmental experiences
  • basis of operant conditioning working with classical conditioning
• research evidence behaviourist

  • Watson and Rayner
  • sue - found that people with phobias recall a specific incident when their phobia appeared
• strengths behaviourist perspective

  • useful applications
  • nurture side of debate
• weakness behaviourist persepctive

  • reductionist
  • biological preparedness goes against learning theory
  • sampling bias
• application behaviourist

  • systematic desensitisation - classical conditions, remove the fear response by substituting it with a relaxation response
  • flooding - cannot remain in a state of stress for a long period of time, begin at the high end of the fear heirarchy
• cognitive explanation - mental illness is due to faulty thinking patterns or irrational thinking

  • becks negative triad model - self, future and world are all linked negatively
  • cognitive biases - when we assume we know what others are thinking, polarised thinking, overgeneralisation
  • evidence = grazioli and Terry, did a study on 65 pregnant women and found those more vulnerable had post partum depression
• strengths cognitive approach

  • reliable
  • holistic approach
• weakness cognitive approach

  • sampling bias
  • unscientific
  • unfalisifiable
  • cannot locate source
• application of cognitive approach - cbt

  • aim - identify what situations cause their symptoms then identifying what illogical or irrational beliefs about the situation and then identifying the consequences
  • patients must restructure their thoughts into more logical ones
  • beck found a massive decrease in pz with depression who used CBT over using drugs and a much lower drop out rate
• psychodynamic explanation - mental illness is caused by the incorrect resolving of psychosexual stages during childhood or the over reliance on defence mechanisms
• strengths psychodynamic

  • useful applications
  • holistic approach therefore more accurate
• weakesses psychodynamic

  • psychic determinism increases sterotyping
  • unscientific
• psychodynamic application - psychoanalysis

  • resolves the unconscious conflict by bringing it to the conscious and moving forward
  • or dream analysis can be used
• szasz - mental illness is a myth

  • mental illness is a metaphor - if it were real it would be a disease
  • fifty years of change in us healthcare - healthcare is government responsibility
  • mental illness - legal or medical concept - politicisation of mental illness
  • changing perspective on human life - mental illness used to be seen from a religious perspective and now from dehumanised
  • mental illness is in the eye of the beholder - over medicalisation eg drugs
  • having an illness foes not make a patient - treatment should be talking therapy