Midterm 1 Flashcards
Statistical concept of abnormality and it’s flaw
Abnormality as someone who’s behaviour is abnormal based on general statistics - flaw is anxiety and depression are not statistically infrequent but still require treatment
Personal distress concept of abnormality and its flaw
Abnormality as someone who experience personal distress - mania and psychosis often don’t cause distress
Violation of norms as concept for abnormality and its flaw
People who violate norms are abnormal - norms are culturally relevant
Diagnosis by an expert as concept for abnormality
use of the DSM by a professional - the DSM is flawed and has overlap in disorders, professionals often carry biases or abuse power
How abnormality is actually defined
A combination of all four: statistical deviance, personal distress, violation of norms, and diagnosis by an expert to determine if a persons behaviour is abnormal or counts as psychopathology
Describe how culture (or context) plays a role in determining whether a behavior is abnormal
what could be considered a violation of a norm in Canada could be perfectly acceptable in other cultures and places, with Canada’s diverse background we have to consider how these cultural differences affect diagnosis and that a behaviour can’t be defined as abnormal from just one clue or context.
DSM definition of Psychological disorders
Psychological, behavioural, or biological dysfunction that are unexpected within their cultural context and associated with present distress, impairment in functioning, or increased risk of suffering, death, or pain.
Dysfunctional behaviour
Interferes with individuals ability to function in daily life
Distress
Symptoms causing individual some form of extreme discomfort
Deviance
Behaviour unusual/ unexpected given context
Four D’s of maladaptive behaviour
Dysfunction, distress, deviance, dangerousness
Supernatural theories
Psychopathology caused by demons, treated using exorcisms
Historical Biological theories
Healing the body to treat psychological disorders - syphilis causing general paresis
Historical Psychological theories
Rest, relaxation, changing then environment for treatment historically
Equifinality
Multiple pathways to one outcome
Multifinality
Single risk factor leading to multiple outcomes - ex. Death in family could lead to depression, anxiety, eating disorder or PTSD
Etiology
Origins, where does psychopathology come from? Theories for cause of psychopathology influences treatment approaches
biological influences for psychopathology
Structural - Lesions, abnormalities in structure of brain
Biochemical - neurotransmitter or hormone deficiencies, poor functioning of receptors
Genetic - genetic abnormalities, combination of specific genes (polygenic)
Gene-environment interactions
Polythetic approach to DSM
Disorders are defined by multiple symptoms, but an individual doesn’t have to have them all to qualify for diagnosis - two people with same disorder could have no overlapping symptoms
Hindbrain
Motor functioning - most basic level
Midbrain
Sleep wake cycle, arousal
Forebrain
Higher level of functioning, thinking, behaviour, self regulation
Cerebral cortex
Advanced thinking processes
Hypothalamus
Regulates eating, drinking, sexual behaviours
Influenced basic emotions: pleasure and pain
Limbic system
Regulates instinctive emotions
Serotonin
Emotions and impulses
Dopamine
Reinforcements/ rewards, related to control over muscles (Parkinson’s)
Norepinephrine/ noradrenaline
Produced mainly in brain stem, stress hormone
Constricts blood vessels and increases blood pressure
GABA & Glutamate
GABA - Inhibitory
Glutamate - excitatory
GABA & Glutamate
GABA - Inhibitory
Glutamate - excitatory
HPA Axis
Disregulation leads to difficulty managing stress
Linked to depression and anxiety
Feedback loop where cortisol produced sends feedback to hypothalamus about producing more
Psychodynamic theories
Unconscious conflicts between desires and constraints
Behavioural theories
Reinforcements and punishments for behaviours and feelings
Operant and classical conditioning or combination as means for psychopathology
Social learning theory: modelling and observation is how behaviour is learned (Bandura)
Positive punishment
Stimulus added - behaviour decreases ex. Spanking
Negative reinforcement
Stimulus removed - behaviour increases
Ex. Taking away kids chores for keeping their room clean all week
Behavioural therapy
Exposure therapy
Identifying reinforcements and punishments leading to maladaptive behaviour and then changing that behaviour
Cognitive theories
Thoughts and beliefs shape our emotions and behaviour
Levels of cognition: schemas are core beliefs, then we have immediate beliefs which we pay selective attention to based on schema, then there’s automatic thoughts which is jumping to conclusions based on schema
Limitation of cognitive therapy
Difficult to prove that dysfunctional thoughts are cause rather then consequence of the problem
Limitation of cognitive therapy
Difficult to prove that dysfunctional thoughts are cause rather then consequence of the problem
Humanistic theories
All humans strive to fulfill their potential for good - self actualization
Pressures to society and conformity lead to inability to fulfill this potential and bring distorted perspective of the self
Emotion focused approaches
Prop emotion regulation leads to psychopathology
Treatment goal is to understand and regulate emotions - DBT, ACT
Social and interpersonal approaches and family systems theory
Focus on how larger social structure in an individuals life - context and environment focused - peer groups
Family dysfunction caused disorder and dysfunction
Sociocultural theory
Larger societal structures and how they impact psychopathology
Ex. Western society breeding eating disorders with societal beauty standards
Diathesis stress model
Vulnerability to disorder could occur at any level and so could trigger to disorder
Biopsychosocial model
Disorder is caused by multiple factors of all levels - integrated approach more accurate to how disorder occurs
Information gathered on clinical assessment:
Symptoms: what they are, how long, interfere with life and functioning
Recent events
Family history
Physical/neuron factors
Drug and alcohol use
Cognitive functioning - learning disabilities, dementia
Suicidality
Mental status exam
Clinical interview where clinicians assesses behaviour and appearance, mood and the way they answer questions and awareness of surroundings to to determine if they are experiencing psychotic symptoms
What’s was the first psychopharmalogical drug and how did it come about?
Chlorpromazine - was used to calm down patients before surgery and lady thought it would work for schizophrenia
Peripheral nervous system
Somatic and automatic nervous system
Somatic - controls muscles
Automatic: sympathetic and parasympathetic: function together to make heart rate, digestive, sexual arousal, breathing go right
- involved in fear and anxiety reactions - may increase ptsd or anxiety risk
Freud’s leaves of consciousness
Unconscious: repressed memories and desires that can only be brought out with great difficulty
Pre conscious: thoughts not in our mind presently but can be brought forth when prompted
Conscious: everything we are currently aware of
Freud levels of awareness
Id - instinctual desires (pleasure principle)
Ego: curbs desires of id, tries to mediate
Superego: moral principle
Behavioural observations
Often done with children
Self monitoring - keeping log of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
May be in vivo observation - observing naturally in real life environments
Analogue - observation done in artificial setting to mimic real setting to elicit specific behaviour
Cognitive behavioural assessment
Understanding how thoughts relate to maladaptive behaviours
1. How biases in information processing are related to development of mental disorders
2. Who might be at rain for processing info in a pathological way
3. How CB treatments eliminate or reduce processing bias
EEG
Uses electrodes placed on head to measure electrical activity, impulses are able to amplify and record activity in brain
CT
X-rays create 2-D image of brain
MRI
Non invasive way of seeing structure and function of brain
Strong Magnetic field is made around head to show small changes in water concentration in brain
MRI
Non invasive way of seeing structure and function of brain
Strong Magnetic field is made around head to show small changes in water concentration in brain
fMRI
Provides dynamic view of metabolic changes occurring
Can show what brain regions are associated with different disorders
PET
Radiation is injected and goes to brain, allows measuring of biological activities and processes in brain
Can show distribution on neurotransmitters
PET
Radiation is injected and goes to brain, allows measuring of biological activities and processes in brain
Can show distribution on neurotransmitters
Neuropsychological
Used to determine relations between behaviour and brain function, can find brain impairments
Validity
ACCURACY
is experiment measuring what it’s supposed to be?
Internal: degree to which changes in dependent variable are a result of the manipulation of independent variable - internal integrity of study
External: generalizability of findings and how much they can apply to other individuals in other settings
Reliability
CONSISTENCY
Will the same results be shown if study is repeated?
Quasi experimental study
Participants in experimental group are not randomly assigned but selected based on specific characteristics - allows for meaningful analysis of aspects of psych disorders but cannot be studied by experiment
Scientific method
Theory - hypothesis - collect and analyze data - draw and share conclusions
Case studies
Detailed study of small group of individuals - can provide lots of info and treatment options for one or few people - can’t be applied to general group
Correlational studies
Relationships between two variables without any manipulation
Correlational studies
Relationships between two variables without any manipulation
How to make causal inference
- correlation (positive or negative)
- proper temporal relationship which one comes first
- rule out other variables
Experimental study
Random sample from population is tested with control group and manipulation of variables
Epidemiological research
Study of incidence (number of new cases to disorder over period of time) and prevalence (frequency of disorder in population)
Epigenetics
Study of modifications of gene expressions that are caused by mechanisms and other changes in underlying DNA sequence
Statistical vs clinical significance
Statistical: experimental results deemed significant if it is extremely unlikely results obtained could have occurred by chance - p= 0.5
Clinical: treatments practical utility and applicability to natural environments
Normative comparison
Compares treatment results to non- disturbed population
Effect size
Measurement of how strong of an effect a certain intervention/ treatment has
Family history studies
Identify probands (people with disorder)
Identify controls ( family members without disorder)
Compare rates of disorder in family
Shared environments have to be considered here not just genetics
Twin studies
Determine contribution of genetics to disorder by comparing identical and fraternal twins.
Questionnaires and their flaws
Ex. Beck anxiety and depression test
Not diagnostic but help to understand symtoms person is experiencing
Peoples perception alters answers, people also lie, must consider context
Passive gene environment correlation
Parent influences genotype but also environment to create aligning outcome
Evocative (reactive) gene environment correlation
Heritable behaviours encourage an environmental response
Active gene environment correlation
People with certain heretible traits through genotype will be more likely to actively select certain environments
Assessments of intelligence
First widely accepted psychological testing
1883 - tests to see if intelligence was hereditary came
- IQ shows more stability over time then any other trait
Inter-rater reliability
Refers to extent to which two clinicians agree on diagnosis of one patient - most common reason for this is inadequate diagnostic system
Concurrent validity
Refers to ability of a diagnostic category to estimate what other factors not in diagnostic criteria could be present. Ex. Schizophrenia and downward socioeconomic shift.
Predictive validity
Ability of a test to predict future course of disorder progression
Two factor theory
Fears are learned through classical conditioning but maintained through operant conditioning
