Cognitive behaviour therapy Flashcards
what is the name of the mental process that deals with noticing the stimuli in our environment?
perception
what is the name of the mental process of selecting which stimulus to focus on?
attention
what is the name of the mental process by which the mind stores information?
memory
according to the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia, the symptoms of schizophrenia are caused by?
- dysfunctional mental processes
- dysfunctional attention
- dysfunctional reasoning
what is the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia based on?
The cognitive explanation of schizophrenia is based around the idea of faulty information processing and faulty thinking.
how do non-schizophrenic brains process stimuli?
In non-schizophrenic brains, we are able to filter incoming stimuli and process them to extract meaning. It is thought that these filtering mechanisms and processing systems are defective in the brains of schizophrenics.
how does the cognitive approach explain hallucinations ?
The cognitive approach agrees with the biological approach in that during hallucinations they suggest the brains of people with Sz are producing strange and unreal sensations (triggered biologically) . The cognitive approach then says the disorder develops further when the individual attempts to understand the sensory experiences and is then worsened by those around them.
what are the two kinds of dysfunctional thought processing that could underlie some symptoms that are identified by Cristopher Firth et al. (1992)
- metarepresentation
2. central control
what is metarepresentation?
is the cognitive ability to reflect on our own thoughts, actions, goals and intentions. It also allows us to interpret the actions of others. If this ability is impaired, we could not easily distinguish between what actions or thoughts are being carried out by us or by other people.
what is thought insertion?
feeling as if one’s control are not one’s own, but rather belong to someone else and have been inserted into one’s mind.
what is central control?
is our ability to supress automatic responses and instead only act on/perform those that are deliberate.
what symptoms does central control explain?
Disorganised speech & thought disorder could results from the inability to control those automatic thoughts and the speech that is triggered from those thoughts.For example, people who suffer with schizophrenia tend to experience derailment of thoughts and spoken sentences because each word triggers associations, and the patient cannot supress automatic response to these.
what is jumping to conclusions bias ?
a tendency to assume something about a particular situation, based on little evidence
what is persecution bias ?
a tendency to believe that you are being singled out and unfairly treated
what is the cognitive explanation for schizophrenia?
the symptoms of schizophrenia are cased by dysfunctional mental processes
according to the cognitive explanation, which dysfunctional mental process cause someone to have schizophrenia
reasoning an attention
what is dysfunctional attention
when someone gets easily distracted and tends to over focus their attention on irrelevant details
what are the two types of dysfunctional reasoning
- persecution bias
- jumping to conclusion bias
what is the first step in how dysfunctional thought processes cause delusions?
dysfunctional attention causes patients to over focus on small irrelevant details of real events and coincidences. this leads to patients experiencing delusions because the patient tries to explain why coincidences keep happening but, their dysfunctional reasoning makes their explanation irrational, causing a delusional disbelief.
according to cognitive explanation of schizophrenia what is the first step in how dysfunctional processes cause hallucinations?
due to dysfunctional attention, people over focus on things that they imagine.
according to cognitive explanation of schizophrenia what is the second step in how dysfunctional processes cause hallucinations?
over focussing on imagined events causes the imagined events to begin to feel real. As a result, people with schizophrenia do not know the difference between things that they imagine and things that have actually happened.
according to cognitive explanation of schizophrenia what is the final step in how dysfunctional processes cause hallucinations?
people with schizophrenia struggle to tell the difference between things that they imagine and things that have actually happened.
according to cognitive explanations of schizophrenia what is the first step in how dysfunctional processes lead negative symptoms?
patients start to become overwhelmed by their abnormal experiences, hallucinations and delusions.
according to cognitive explanations of schizophrenia what is the second step in how dysfunctional processes lead to negative symptoms?
pants want to avoid their experiences, hallucinations or delusions
according to cognitive explanations of schizophrenia what is the third/final step in how dysfunctional processes lead to negative symptoms?
patients isolate themselves from the outside world which leads to the negative symptoms of schizophrenia
explain the similarities and differences between the cognitive explanations for delusions and hallucinations.
Hallucinations are when people with schizophrenia over focus on things that they imagined, whereas delusions cause people with schizophrenia to focus on small irrelevant details and coincidences in real events. Dysfunctional attention and reasoning cause delusions, whereas hallucinations are caused just by dysfunctional attention. Dysfunctional attention is when people with schizophrenia over focus on something.
what did O’Carroll investigate?
reviewed studies that investigated mental dysfunctional. he reviewed studies on people with schizophrenia. he reviewed studies on people who were at risk of developing schizophrenia.
what did O’Carroll studies show ?
Dysfunctional mental processes may cause the symptoms of schizophrenia and 75% of patients displayed dysfunctional mental processes.
limitation of the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia?
it does not account for the role of the biological factors in schizophrenia such as the role of genetics and the role antipsychotic medication as a treatment for schizophrenia.
in psychopathology there is a treatment based on the cognitive approach to psychology. what is the treatment called ?
cognitive behavioural therapy
what is the main aim of CBT ?
to challenge and treat a patients irrational beliefs and thought processes
what is the first step of CBT for schizophrenia ?
explanations: the patient explains their symptoms
what is the second step of CBT for schizophrenia?
normalisation: the doctor explains that the patients feelings are normal
what biases does CBT help correct ?
CBT corrects the biases in reasoning that the patient displays, such the jumping to conclusions biases and persecution biases. this helps to reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusional beliefs
what is the third step of CBT for schizophrenia ?
challenging: the doctors challenges beliefs and experiences
what is the fourth step of CBT for schizophrenia ?
alternative explanations: the patient is asked to develop alternative explanations for beliefs and experiences
what method was used in the studies in the NICE review
laboratory experiments and independent group design
what was the procedure of NICE’s studies
NICE conducted a review pf studies and they compared the use of CBT combined with medical drugs to drugs alone
what were the results of NICE’s studies
treatments with CBT and medical drugs were found to be more effective at reducing symptoms of schizophrenia. treatments with CBT were found to reduce the likelihood of a patient relapsing and having to go back into the hospitals
Limitation of research that supports CBT
- not all studies used random allocation, this is a problem because it means that the studies cannot control ppts variables that might have influence the patients behaviour. this means that studies maybe suffered from confounding variables.
- researchers knew which experimental group the patients had assigned to, this means that the researchers are not blind to the experimental group. And researchers may have lacked objectivity.
the consequence of these issues is that the effectiveness of CBT may have been over-exaggerated
what did Wykes et all review show about CBT
had a better research design, used control groups blinding and random allocation tended to show that CBT didn’t have as much benefit and was effective in treating schizophrenia.
what is the advantage of antipsychotic drugs
they are less expensive of CBT. They are easier to give it to patients than CBT.
what is the second limitation of CBT ?
it requires a lot of expensive sessions, which are usually one to one with a therapist. this is a problem because it limits the availability of the treatment
