applied psychology Flashcards
what was believed to be the cause of mental illness in prehistoric times?
madness was believed to be the cause of mental illness. Trepanation used in 6500BC.
Ancient Greeks blamed it on demonic possession and used exorcisms, beatings, and starvation to drive out demons.
hippocrates 5000BC theory
theorised the cause was an imbalance of four bodily humours- blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm as sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.
Advanced understanding through suggesting cause as a physical change and began the medical model.
what began to be used in 300AD?
the Church used bloodletting and prayers saw madness and illness as a punishment from God. Often confined without any real help.
when did psychiatry become a recognised medical specialty?
in 19th century- underfunded and understaffed with poor living conditions.
Mental hospitals established- Bedlam founded in 1330.
1900s saw leukotomies, lobotomies and electroshock therapy which reset electrical rhythms and destroyed specific areas of the brain.
what did talking treatments lead to?
outpatients and shorter stays in hospital 1918-1939.
when was the antipsychiatry movement?
1960s questioned coercive power- Lang and Szasz. Community healthcare in 2000, but underfunded -> criminal justice system bears the impact.
when was the first recorded treatment of insanity?
1403- 6 men diagnosed with insanity and inmates were publicly viewed until 1815.
what do newer treatments include?
prescription drugs, talking cures, therapy, systematic desensitisation, cognitive behavioural therapy, and counselling.
ICD-10
is an international classification system with 11 categories of mental disorder and features of them.
DSM-V
is a multiaxial tool to consider people’s mental condition.
benefits of ICD-10 and DSM-V
Both of these are generally accepted, consistent and kept updated.
limitations of ICD-10 and DSM-V
However, cultural bias can influence new categories, it becomes complex if patients fall into multiple categories and is widely reductionist.
what does the chinese classification have?
40 culturally related diagnoses. In 2013 Internet Gaming Disorder was included and homosexuality was removed in 1986.
what percent of the panel working on DSM-V had links to the pharmaceutical industry?
69%
how did stratton and hayes define abnormality?
statistical infrequency, deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, and deviation from ideal mental health.
statistical infrequency
states that any behaviour that is 3SD from average is abnormal. But this implies there is not a normal curve for behaviour and does not consider desirability.
deviation from social norms
breaking societal rules or standards. But this is subjective, and unclear at who decides the limit. Reliant on value judgements.
failure to function adequately
inability to experience normal range of emotions and behaviour, but uncertain what constitutes dysfunction or distress, and is hard to agree on.
deviation from ideal mental health
identifies characteristics people should possess such as positive self-view, accurate perceptions, and social interaction. Shows that statistical infrequency is not necessary for abnormality.
rosenhan aim
Rosenhan aimed to test the reliability of diagnosing mental illness.
rosenhan method and sample
Eight psuedopatients went to different psychiatric hospitals reporting hearing voices and were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
rosenhan results
Once they were patients everything they did was interpreted in the context of their diagnosis- such as ‘writing behaviour’, ‘oral-acquisitive syndrome’ and they felt dehumanised.
Psychiatrists responded to requests 7% of the time, nurses only 3.6% and patients spent less than 7 minutes a day with psychologists.
A second study challenged a hospital to spot fake patients- none were sent, but the hospital said 41 had been detected.
rosenhan conclusion
This shows the process of diagnosis is neither reliable nor valid.
symptoms of affective disorder (depression)
loss of interest, disturbed sleep, changed activity level, disturbed appetite and extreme sadness.
symptoms of anxiety disorder (OCD)
recurrent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours (compulsions).
Performing compulsions prevents obsessive thoughts and provides temporary relief from anxiety.
symptoms of psychotic disorder (schizophrenia)
need to have both 2 positive (an excess of normal function) and negative (loss of normal function) symptoms for at least a month.
positive symptoms
hallucinations, delusions (paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur, delusions of control) and disordered thinking and speech.
negative symptoms
affective or emotional (reduction in range of emotional expression), poverty of speech, and reduced motivation (‘catatonic state’).
issues with categorising mental disorders
validity of diagnostic tools can be questioned.
Ford and Widiger (1989) found presenting same symptoms but changing gender results in different diagnoses- women had histrionic disorder and men had anti-social disorder.
No category of mental disorder has consistently high reliability- only 3 mental disorders had a satisfactory Kappa score, and the majority of categories were poor.
behavioural model
ssumed that behaviour is the consequence of abnormal learning from the environment and what is learned can be unlearned. No qualitative difference between normal and abnormal behaviour as they are all learned in the same way.
learning by association
when two environmental changes occur together, we learn to associate them. Responses can transfer, meaning behaviours can be learned. Watson and Rayner’s (1920) classical conditioning with Little Albert and the white rat.
learning by consequence
the likelihood of individuals repeating behaviour depends on its consequence, e.g. avoiding situations negatively reinforces anxiety.
learning by observation
if someone grows up around someone with mental illness they may imitate this behaviour.
behavioural treatments
include systematic desensitisation- learn to relax and participants are taken through a hierarchy of increasingly frightening stimuli.
Aversion therapy- patients learn to link negative associations to objects.
Flooding- unlearning associations all at once by being exposed to the stimulus.
systematic desensitisation
phobics can be gradually reintroduced to a phobic object or situation by learning to relax and associating the phobic object with lower levels of stress.
Involves constructing a hierarchy of fears, training in relaxation, and graded exposure to the stimulus and reaction.
70% of patients show improvement- even gradual can be helpful- and McGrath (1990) resolved Lucy’s phobia of balloons.
benefits of behavioural explanations
simple, testable, and supported by evidence. They are hopeful and predict that people can change behaviour.
Paul and Lentz (1977) found it was effective in reducing symptoms of schizophrenia.
limitations of behavioural explanations
However, they can be dehumanising and mechanistic (Heather 1976) by reducing people to stimulus-response units and cannot explain all disorders and cannot cure conditions such as schizophrenia.
cognitive model
assumes dysfunctional behaviour is caused by faulty irrational thoughts. Inaccurate representations of the world may cause behaviour to become distorted.
Irrational beliefs include when people feel unloved and as if nothing good will ever happen.
what did beck believe?
depressed people have acquired negative schemas in childhood which create an expectation of failure.
Found 80% benefited from his cognitive behavioural therapy- a talking therapy that changes the way people think and behave.
cognitive treatments
aim to change faulty cognition and help the client see how their irrational beliefs are contributing to their mental illness.
benefits of cognitive explanations
focus on individual experience and are hopeful in assuming people have the power to change their behaviour.
