Lecture 1 - Introduction

Question 1

What fraction of people will be directly affected by mental health problems in their lifetime?

Answer 1

1/4

Question 2

What is involved in the study of psychology from a scientific perspective?

Answer 2

Trying to explain how behaviours arise, and identify means of preventing and/or treating them

Question 3

What is abnormal psychology?

Answer 3

The scientific study of behaviour with four main objectives:
1. Describing what behaviours are evident – do they fulfil criteria for a disorder?
2. Explaining why behaviour/a disorder is evident.
3. Predicting outcome.
4. Managing behaviours that are considered problematic
(DEPM)

Question 4

What is the relativist view of abnormal psychology?

Answer 4

Believes that symptoms and causes of abnormal behaviour vary across cultures.

Question 5

What is the absolutist view of abnormal psychology?

Answer 5

Believes that disorders are caused by the same biological factors across all cultures.

Question 6

What are some of the elements of ‘abnormality’?

Answer 6

• Personal suffering
• Maladaptiveness
• Irrationality and incomprehensibility
• Unpredictability and loss of control
• Level of emotional distress
• Interference in daily functioning
• Vividness and unconventionality
• Deviations from the norm (developmental, societal & cultural)
• Observer discomfort
• Violation of moral and ideal standards

Question 7

What are some of the key factors that define mental disorders?

Answer 7

• Cause distress
• Cause disability (impairment in one or more areas of functioning)
• Pose significant risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom

Question 8

What does Thomas Szasz argue?

Answer 8

Thomas Szasz argues that labeling children with diagnoses is stigmatization and that prescribing drugs is poisoning.

Question 9

What are some of the disadvantages and advantages of clinical labelling?

Answer 9

Clinical labelling can lead to stigma and discrimination.
However, it can also be used to help gain comprehensive understanding of disorders and how best to treat them based on past experience etc.

Question 10

What are the distinctions between the mental health professions?

Answer 10

➢	Psychiatrists – prescribes medicine. First does a medical degree then specializes. Trained in the medical model or biological model of mental illness. Some psychiatrists are trained in psychological treatments as well but it depends on the individual.
➢	Clinical psychologist
➢	Psychoanalyst
➢	Psychotherapist
➢	Counseling psychologist

Question 11

What does the term epidemiology refer to?

Answer 11

Refers to the frequency and distribution of disorders within a population.
In simple terms: How often does it occur and whom does it effect?

Question 12

What is the difference between incidence, prevalence and life-time prevalence?

Answer 12

Incidence: Number of NEW cases that appear in a population in a specific given amount of time.
Prevalence: Total number of ACTIVE cases in a specific given amount of time.
Life-Time Prevalence: Proportion of the population affected at some point during their lives.

Question 13

What are some of the most common disorders (life-time prevalence)?

Answer 13

Major depression
Alcohol abuse
Drug abuse

Question 14

In economic terms, how do mental disorders compare to health disorders in terms of disease burden?

Answer 14

Mental disorders (including suicide) are the second most severe burdensome health issue (second only to all cardiovascular conditions).

Question 15

How were mental disorders viewed in the ancient world (except in Greece)?

Answer 15

It was believed that mental disorders were caused by supernatural factors.

Question 16

How were mental disorders viewed in ancient Greece - specifically by Hippocrates?

Answer 16

Previously (in the middle ages) most mental disorders were regarded as being caused by supernatural forces. Except for in Greece where Hippocrates looked for other reasons. He classified three kinds of disorders:
1. Mania
2. Melancholia
3. Phrenitis (brain-fever)
Argued that all forms of disease (mental and physical) came from natural causes. Namely, he thought it was caused by imbalances of fluids:
➢ Blood
➢ Phlegm
➢ Yellow bile
➢ Black bile
Treatment procedures focused on restoring balance of the four essential fluids.

Question 17

How were mental disorders viewed in the middle ages?

Answer 17

Religion dominated and there was a very supernatural view of mental disorders. Abnormal behaviour was believed to be the work of witches, devils or disfavour amongst the Gods. Exorcisms were the main treatment and many people with mental disorders were highly prosecuted.

Question 18

How were mental disorder viewed in the Renaissance period?

Answer 18

➢ More humane view of mentally ill.
➢ Paracelsus – believed stars and planets affected the brain.
➢ Weyer – first physician to specialize in treatment of mental illness.
➢ This lead to the development of asylums.
➢ Asylums established by the mid 16th century. Partly to treat, partly to isolate from other parts of society. First was London’s Bethlehem Hospital (“Bedlam”)
‘Treatment’ consisted of confinement (shackles, chains, isolation in dark cells), torturous practices (ice-cold baths, spinning in chairs, severely restricted diets) and medical treatments (bloodletting, purgatives)

Question 19

Describe the beginnings of modern thought on mental disorders that began in the 19th Century.

Answer 19

➢ Moral treatment.
➢ American and French revolutions → Individual rights.
➢ Humanitarian ideas characterised this age.
➢ Philippe Pinel – treated people and they actually started to improve.
➢ Pinel developed the first classification system of mental disorders:
o Melancholia
o Mania
o Mania with delirium
o Dementia
o Idiotism
➢ Kraeplin and the German classifiers (1920s) continued this work and added:
o Dementia praecox (schizophrenia)
o Manic depressive psychosis
➢ Around the same time: the discovery of general paresis in relation to the late stages of syphilis lead to research into biological causes of mental disorders.
➢ General paresis, also known as general paralysis of the insane or paralytic dementia, is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder, classified as an organic mental disorder and caused by the chronic meningoencephalitis that leads to cerebral atrophy in late-stage syphilis.

Question 20

What are somatic treatments?

Answer 20

Somatic treatments refer to biological treatments that were common in the 20s and 30s.
Examples:
➢ Injecting blood from people with malaria to induce fever (as they noticed that some people exerting mental illness symptoms with a fever sometimes later recovered though this was likely because the symptoms were causes by the physical illness that also caused the fever)
➢ Insulin coma therapy
➢ Lobotomies: Severing fibres connecting frontal cortex to the rest of the brain.

Question 21

Who is Franz Mesmer?

Answer 21

Franz Mesmer was a neurologist who treated hysteria with hypnosis.

Question 22

What did Freud and Breuer notice about hypnosis and free association?

Answer 22

➢ Joseph Breuer: Hypnosis and talking under hypnosis was catharsis.
➢ Freud: Noticed that all that was needed was catharsis. He called this free association. People given prompts and talk about these things with little interruption or given opinions.
➢ Frued and Breuer wrote the book “Studies in Hysteria”. It asserted that:
o Psychological factors affect behaviour
o Talking treatment more effective than harsh physical & moral treatments
o Behaviour influenced by thoughts, impulses & wishes (unaware of)
o Non-psychotic disorders are worthy of treatment

Question 23

What is the biopsychosocial framework?

Answer 23

The biopsychosocial framework is a framework that asserts that abnormal behaviour is the result of a combination of biological, psychological, social and environmental factors.
Also asserts that everyone is different and therefore the causes of abnormal behaviour will vary for each individual. This framework lead to the development of the diathesis-stress model.

Question 24

What is the scientist-practitioner approach?

Answer 24

Also called the “Boulder Model” the scientist-practitioner approach aims to train applied psychologists to practice with a foundation in research and scientific evidence.

Question 25

What are some of the improvements that have been made to the DSM over time?

Answer 25

Criteria more detailed & objective

Focuses entirely on verifiable symptoms

Psychopathology is not regarded as subset of medicine

DSM V discarded the multi-axial assessment

Diagnostic specificity

Harmonization with ICD-11

Question 26

What are two projective tests?

Answer 26

Rorschach Test (Inkblot test)
Thematic Apperception Tests (designed to reveal a person's social drives or needs by their interpretation of a series of pictures of emotionally ambiguous situations).