Psychopathology

• Abnormality definition

  Four D's: Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction, Danger
• Szasz posits that societal involvement may invalidate the concept of mental illness
• Eccentric


  A person who deviates from common behavior patterns or displays odd behavior, out of pleasure and not mental disorder
• Treatment/therapy


  • Systematic procedure designed to change abnormal behavior into more normal behavior
  • Has three essential features: Sufferer who seeks relief from healer, Trained, socially accepted healer, whose expertise is accepted by sufferer and social group, Series of contacts between healer and sufferer, through which healer tries to produce changes in sufferer's emotional state and behavior
• History of abnormal behavior

  • Doing of evil spirits
  • Trephination (circular sections of skull cut out to let evil spirits out)
  • Exorcism (evil spirits expelled out of the body)
  • Humors (bodily chemicals) imbalance
  • Demonic causes
  • Mind can get sick just as the body
  • Asylums
  • Moral treatment (respectful and humane techniques)
• Perspectives in twentieth century

  • Somatogenic (abnormal functioning has physical causes)
  • Psychogenic (abnormal functioning has psychological causes)
• Psychotropic medications


  • Antipsychotic drugs (correct distorted thinking)
  • Antidepressant drugs
  • Antianxiety drugs
• Development of psychotropic medications led to treatment outside hospitals, leading to patients being released (deinstitutionalization)
• Before 1950s private psychotherapy was an arrangement in which person directly pays therapist
• Today's focus lies on prevention rather than healing, this has been influenced by positive psychology
• Trends in modern psychology

  • Multicultural psychology
  • Managed care program
  • Telemental health
• Nomothetic understanding


  • Understanding in terms of natural laws/principles
  • Researchers want to develop a general nomothetic understanding by finding nature of abnormality
• Types of investigation


  • Case study
  • Correlational method
  • Experimental method
• Alternative experimental designs


  • Quasi-experiment/mixed design
  • Matched design
  • Natural experiment
  • Analogue experiment
  • Single-subject experiment
• Guidelines for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

  • Participants must enlist voluntarily
  • Participants must be informed before enlisting
  • Participants can end their participation at any time
  • Benefits outweigh costs
  • Participants are protected from harm
  • Participants must have access to information about study
  • Privacy of participants is protected
• Models/paradigms


  Perspectives in science that are used to explain events and assumptions, guide treatment techniques and principles
• The biological model


  • Someone's thoughts, emotions and behavior can be explained by biological means
  • Considers illness to be brought about by malfunctioning parts of the organism
  • Brain anatomy and chemistry: neurons communicate via neurotransmitters at synapses, body can also communicate with hormones
  • Three factors that cause abnormalities: Genetics, Evolution, Viral infection
• Biological treatments


  • Drug therapy (psychotropic medications)
  • Psychosurgery
  • Brain stimulation (electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation)
• The psychodynamic model (Freud)

  • Behavior is influenced by unconscious forces, and abnormal behavior is a result of conflict between these forces
  • Psychoanalysis with three central forces: Id, Ego, Superego
  • If adjustment at developmental stages is unsuccessful, a person might become fixated
• Psychodynamic therapies


  • Free association
  • Therapist interpretation
  • Resistance
  • Transference
  • Catharsis
  • Working through
• Current trends in psychodynamic therapy: Short-term psychodynamic therapies, Relational psychoanalytic therapy
• The cognitive-behavioral model


  • Focuses on maladaptive behavior and cognitions in understanding and treating psychological abnormality
  • Behavioral dimension: Using conditioning (classical, operant, modelling)
  • Cognitive dimension: Focuses on maladaptive thinking processes (inaccurate assumptions, attitudes, illogical thinking)
• Exposure therapy


  Behavior-focused intervention in which fearful people are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations they dread
• The humanistic-existential model


  • Psychological health depends on ability to pursue goals and have a free and meaningful life
  • Humanistic view: Humans are driven to self-actualize (fulfil full potential)
  • Existential view: Humans must have accurate self-awareness and live a meaningful life in order to be psychologically healthy
• Humanistic and existential therapies


  • Client-centered therapy
  • Gestalt therapy
  • Existential therapy
• Spiritual views: Role of religion is an important factor in mental health and treatment
• The sociocultural model


  • Abnormal behavior includes social and cultural forces that influence the individual
  • Family-social perspective: Theorists should concentrate on factors that operate directly on an individual (social labels and roles, social connections and supports, family structure and communication)
  • Multicultural perspective: Theorists should concentrate on culture, ethnicity, gender and similar factors to understand thoughts and behavior
• Family-social treatments


  • Group therapy
  • Self-help group
  • Family and couple therapy
  • Community therapy
• Multicultural treatments


  • Culture-sensitive therapies
  • Gender-sensitive therapies
• Developmental psychopathology perspective


  • Uses an integrative framework to understand how variables and principles from various models account for adaptive and maladaptive human functioning
  • Central principles: Equifinality (you can end in same place after starting at different place), Multifinality (you can end in different place after starting at same place)
• Clinical assessment


  Collection of relevant information to reach a conclusion about how and why a person behaves abnormally and how that person may be helped
• Types of clinical assessment

  • Clinical interviews
  • Clinical tests
  • Observations
• Clinical interviews


  • Face-to-face conversation with client used to collect background data and detailed information
  • Can be structured (specific prepared questions) or unstructured (open-ended questions)
  • Often include a mental status exam
• Clinical tests


  • Gather information about client's psychological functioning with help of different sorts of procedures
  • Projective tests (people interpret vague stimuli and project parts of their personality)
  • Personality inventories (measure personality characteristics via questionnaires)
  • Response inventories (test that let people answer questionnaires focused on specific area of functioning)
• Assessment tests must be reliable (consistency) and valid (accuracy)
• Limitations: lack of validity/accuracy, bias or mistakes in judgement, lack or reliability
• Clinical tests


  Gather information about client's psychological functioning with help of different sorts of procedures
• Projective tests


  People interpret vague stimuli, and they will project parts of their personality onto the way they interpret things. Reliability and validity not supported and may be biased
• Projective tests


  • Rorschach test – inkblots
  • Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT) – pictures of vague situations
  • Sentence-completion test
  • Drawing – people draw and discuss what they have drawn
• Personality inventories


  Measures personality characteristics via questionnaires about own personality. Greater reliability and validity than projective tests