Alternatives to the Medical Model Flashcards
What are 3 alternatives to the medical model?
Cognitive, psychodynamic and behaviourist explanations of mental illness.
What does the cognitive explanation of mental illness assume about mental disorders?
-Assumes that mental disorders are a result of faulty thought processes/errors in the way people think
Outline the cognitive model.
Situation —> Thought —> Emotion —> Behaviour
- Some people may think irrationally
- People with depression have different thoughts about themselves and the world around them
What did Beck suggest about depression?
- Suggested 3 beliefs that can be found in someone with depression
- This is called the negative Cognitive Triad
What is the Negative Cognitive Triad?
Negative views about:
- Themselves
- The World
- The future
These are dysfunctional belief themes.
What did Albert Ellis say about mental illness?
- That it is caused and sustained by irrational thinking
- Suggested people with faulty thinking may set high and unrealistic goals for themselves and when they don’t reach them they feel like failures
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?
- A therapy that tries to change the negative thought processes in the present
- Changes thought processes to change behaviour
- Therapist tries to show patient their thinking is irrational and rigid and try to change their thought processes
What are Arbitrary inferences?
When you draw negative conclusions off the back of insufficient evidence.
What is selective/abstract thinking?
Focusing on the negative details of events whilst ignoring the positive ones.
What is overgeneralisation?
Drawing sweeping conclusions based on a single incident.
What is catastrophising?
Exaggerating a minor setback until it becomes a complete disaster.
What is black and white thinking?
Seeing everything in terms of success or failure - nothing in between.
What does the behaviourist explanation assume?
That all behaviour is learnt as a result of nurture, and we can learn through association (classical), rewards and punishment (operant) and imitation of role models (social learning theory).
What can classical conditioning help explain?
-Can help us to understand where anxiety disorders come from (e.g. phobias)
What happened in the famous study of Little Albert by Watson and Rayner?
- Wanted to see if you can induce phobias
- Used classical conditioning to create fear response
- Showed baby different stimuli that he was initially not scared of
- Every time Albert saw white rat, they would make loud noise
- Associated loud noise with white rat and therefore cried when he saw white rat
What can operant conditioning help us to explain?
-Can help us to understand the maintenance of mental illness through negative reinforcement - removing something negative
What can social learning theory help us understand?
-Perhaps disorders like depression and anxiety can be explained by observation and imitation
What is a strength of the behaviourist explanation?
-Explains disorders than biology fails to explain
What are some weaknesses of the behaviourist explanation?
- Reductionist
- Deterministic
- Doesn’t always work
- Some people have bad experiences and don’t develop a disorder
What are the four main behaviourist treatments of mental illness?
- Systematic desensitisation
- Flooding
- Aversion therapy
- Token economy
What is systematic desensitisation?
- Relies on relaxation techniques
- Gradual exposure to feared situation or object while relaxed
- Patient creates a hierarchy of fear from least to most fear provoking
What is Flooding?
- Maximum exposure to most feared situation until fear subsides
- Initial adrenaline subsides and the patient starts ti feel calmer
What is aversion therapy?
-Unwanted behaviour is associated with unpleasant stimulus - feeling sick or electric shock
What is token economy?
- Tokens given for ‘good’ behaviour and tokens can be saved up and exchanged for rewards later
- Used to shape behaviour of patients in mental hospitals
