Midterm Sample Questions Flashcards
How would you define a psychopathology?
Psychopathologies are a result of a psychological distress that can cause harm to oneself or others. The symptoms can very per individual and per cullture and must not be the expected response to a significant live event. Usually, they are identified in a culture by the violation of norms which sets the expected response to different events. We now have the DSM-5 that helps us classify the different types of psychopathologies, but there is much overlap between all of the different illenesses. They may cause personal distress and impairement to continue one’s life as previous to their psychopathology coming into play.
What is the most important characteristic of abnormal behavior? Is it sufficient to define a psychopathology?
I would argue that the most important characteristic is personal distress. When someone suffer from a mental illness, it can impair every spheres of their life and if left untreated it could potentially evolve into unpredictable, harmful and irrational behaviors. However, this characteristic is not sufficient to embody all of the different psychopathologies we have identified yet since some illnessed such as mania and narcissism are both considered a mental illness yet they are not causing any personal harm.
What was drapetomania?
Drapetomania was an considered a mental illness a in the 19th century. It was characterized by slaves running away from their masters. Physicians would label their “deviant” behavior as a mental instability that caused them to act irrationally. They could be treated with proper medical advices to prevent this from happening again.
What were the consequences of de-institutionalization of mentally ill?
- Multiple readmission into psychiatric hospital
- Homelessness
- Mentally ill people will fill up prisons
Why biologically oriented de-stigmatization programs sometimes fail?
the biological model offers an explanation of mental illness that have biological underlying causes such as as chemical imbalance, brain dysfunction and genetic heritability. This causalty perspecive leads people to believe that it is harder to treat since one is “doomed” to their fate. This leads people to be less likely to believe that the treatment will be successful, hence the mentally ill people are likely to act unpredictibly and this causes an anxiousness that they could become dangerous at any moment.
Were the so-called witches psychotic?
Most likely not. It is possible that some of them had psychotic episodes, but the Malleus Malificius was including any behaviors that was socially discouraged. This put women in a position where they could not fight for their rights or else they would be labelled as witches. Any women labeled as a witch could not come out of the “trial” found non-guilty since they were either cohersed to admit and repent or get killed.
Who was Avicenna or Philip Pinel or Benjamin Rush etc.?
Avicenna is a physician from Persia (middle East) and was ahead of his time to introduce talk therapy around the 9th century. He encouraged humane treatment of mentally distressed patients.
Benjamin Rush was the father of contemporary psychiatric therapy. He preceeded Philippe Pinel in asylum by slightly improving living conditions but still had questionable practices such as nearly drowning patient and removing large quantity of blood of people to cure them.
Philippe Pinel was working in asylum and encouraged humane treatment of mentally ill patients. He dramatially changed the living conditions by removing chains, removing the patients from dungeons and rather gave them beds and windows. He had successful results and people would eventually leave the treatment facility
Define epigenetics
Epigenetics is a field of genetic studies that look at the interaction between gene expression and environment. It is believed that you can largely influence which genes will be expressed or not depending on social and environmental stressors.
Recent studies suggest that kids inherit epigenome information from their parents and grandparents.
This new field reconciling raises the importance of the nurture in the nurture and nature debate since the predisposition of people to any illness may be manipulated in the environment
What functions of the temporal lobe are implicated in psychopathology?
The temporal lobe is the primary auditory cortex, but also holds the amygdala and hippocampus.
It may be implicated in psychopathologies in auditory hallucinations, but also in emotion processing. Capgras syndome is believed to implicate the amygdala’s emotional response to a visual stimuli. Since the emotional response is not the expected one when seeing a loved one, the person assume that the loved one is an imposter.
How does imbalance in serotonin affect mental health?
Serotonin is implicated in sleep regulation, motivation and pleasure. Too little serotonin could lead to ADHD and depression whereas too much could lead to decreased sexual drives, motivation and overall pleasure
What is TMS and how does it work? (or ECT or DBS, etc.)
TMS = transcranial magnetic stimulation
TMS has many different form, but the most commonly used and effective shape is an “8”. It is a strong magnet that is applied on top of the head to send a strong magnetic field either through small repetitions or one strong impulse. It is believed to stimulate the targeted area and increase connectivity of the area. It is currently being used in treatment resistent MDD and OCD. It has some effectiveness and does not appear have major side effects other than migraine and possible seizures.
ECT = electroconvulsive treatment
ECT is used mainly to treat MDD. It is used for treatment resistant patients. Electrodes are applied on the head and an electrical current is sent through the brain to cause a controlled brain seizure. It is still unclear the mechanisms of action, but some believe it may contribute to neurogenesis to increase connectivity. Other believe it stimulates the activity of glial cells. Moreover, it could impact the serotonin sensitivity.
How does a method of aversive conditioning work? (or counter-conditioning or modelling…)
aversive conditioning:
It is a type of classical conditionning where the person tries to associate the undesirable behavior to an aversive reaction by negative reinforcement. For example, someone addicted to alcohol could take a pill that makes them throw up everytime they have alcohol so they associate alcohol with an unpleasant experience. However, it is not very effective as addiction could override the unpleasant experience as soon as the treatment is finished.
Counterconditioning
It is a type of classical conditionning where someone tries to positively reinforce an anxiety inducing experince. For example, if someone has a phobia of birds, they would be put in a room with a bird with some reward until they associate the bird with the reward instead of with anxiety
Assertive training
It is a type of modelling where you encourage someone to get involed in an anxiety inducing situation by practicing with the therapist first. It can be useful in socially anxious people.
What is the basic premise of cognitive therapy and how does it work?
Cogntivie therapies assume that people react to their environment through the lense of their cognitive structure. If someone’s thoughts are incorrect, they will analyse a situation through a false lense that will bring up anxious emotions. By changing the cognitive structure, it can regulate the emotions.
There are multiple ways to administer cognitive therapy such as learning new concepts to re-arrange the thoughts until they are no longer harmful and incorrect. Moreover, it can be combined with behavioral therapy to strengthen the cognitive framework.
How is DBT different from CBT?
Dialectical behavioral therapy is first based on self-awareness of one’s behaviors and emotions. Once they are acknowledged, it becomes easier to regulate the emotions and reframe the new information to modify the maladaptive behavior/emotional response. It focuses on giving back the control of their lives. It requires to learn a lot of new concepts to actively change the framework.
On the other hand, cognitive-behavioral therapies is more focus on a behavior change rather than trying to completly understand the underlying cognitive causes in the framework. Some people may learn adaptive behaviors without the having to dig throught the complexity of the mind.
Why is transference so important in classical psychoanalysis?
Psychoanalysis puts a big importance on the relationship between the patient and the therapist. The therapist must try to understand the unconscious struggles and drives that the patient has. Since the patient is unaware, they cannot come to a conclusion without the help of the therapist. One tool the therapist will use is transfere which is that they are the symbolic representation of the struggle the patient is trying to address. By being the ones to put the patient in an anxiety provoking state, the patient will respond to the therapist the same they would to their anxiety. That way, the therapist can analyze what creates anxiety in the patient by analyzing how the patient reacts to their therapist.
