18. Contemporary Approaches to Psychopathology Flashcards
____ theorists distinguish three broad classes of psychopathology that form a continuum of functioning, from the least to the most disturbed: neuroses, personality disorders and psychoses.
Psychodynamic perspective
Problems in living, such as phobias, constant self-doubt and repetitive interpersonal problems such as trouble with authority figures. Most people will have this in their lives.
Neuroses
Categorised by enduring maladaptive patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour that lead to chronic disturbances in interpersonal and occupational functioning. People with personality disorders often have difficulty maintaining meaningful relationships and employment, interpret interpersonal events in highly distorted ways, and maybe chronically vulnerable to depression and anxiety.
Personality disorders
Are gross disturbances involving a loss of touch with reality. A person who is psychotic may hear voices telling him to kill himself or believe that the secret service is trying to assassinate him.
Psychoses
According to psychodynamics theorists, these three levels of pathology also lie on a continuum with respect to ____ – origins of psychological disorders and or the physiological disturbances.
Aetiology
Psychoses result primarily from ____ ____, with some environmental input.
biological abnormalities
Neuroses and personality disorders stem more from ____ ____, often interacting with biological vulnerabilities.
environmental experiences
____ ____ is a set of hypotheses about the patients personality structure and the meaning of the symptom. This formulation attempts to answer three questions:
Psychodynamic formulation
(1) what does the patient ___ ___ ___ ____?
wish for and fear
(2) What psychological ____ does the person have at his disposal?
resources
(3) And how does he ____ himself and others?
experience
The first question focuses on the person’s ____ ___ ___ ____.
dominant motives and conflicts
The second question is about ____ ____ – the person’s ability to function autonomously, make sound decisions, think clearly and regulate impulses and emotions.
ego functioning
The third question addresses ____ ____; that is, the person’s ability to form meaningful relationships with others and to maintain self-esteem.
object relations
____ ____ clinicians integrate an understanding of classical and operant conditioning with a cognitive-social perspective.
Cognitive-behavioural
From ____ perspective, many psychological problems involve conditioned emotional responses, in which a previously neutral stimulus has become associated with unpleasant emotions. Irrational fears in turn elicit avoidance, which perpetuates them and may lead to secondary problems, such as poor social skills.
behavioural
From a ____ perspective, many psychological problems reflect dysfunctional attitudes, beliefs and other cognitive processes, such as a tendency to interpret events negatively.
cognitive
The biological approach looks for the roots of mental disorders in the brain’s circuitry, such as neurotransmitter dysfunction, abnormalities of specific brain structures, or dysfunction anywhere along a pathway that regulates behaviour or mental processes.
Biological approach
Theorists of various persuasions often adopt a ____-____ model, which proposes that people with underlying vulnerability (called a diathesis) may exhibit symptoms under stressful circumstances.
diathesis-stress
A ‘____ ____’ explains an individual’s behaviour in the context of a social group, such as a couple, family or larger group.
Systems approach
Most systems clinicians adopt a ‘____ ____ model’, which views an individuals symptoms as symptoms of family dysfunction.
family systems
The methods family members use to preserve equilibrium and family are called ‘family ____ ____’.
homeostatic mechanisms
Family systems theorists focus on the ways families are ____, including family roles (the parts individuals play in the family), boundaries (physical and psychological limits of the family and its subsystems) and alliances (patterns in which family members side with one another).
organised
They also focus on problematic ____ patterns.
communication
