paper 1 - psychopathology

Question 1

what is statistical infrequency?

Answer 1

someone is mentally abormal if their mental condition is very rare in the population, the behaviour is judged on statistics comparing individual behaviour to the rest of the population.

Question 2

evaluate statistical infrequency

Answer 2

real world application - the diagnosis of intellectual disability, becks depression inventory
it is an objective model - based on statistics to determined what is abnormal. Cut off point still subjectively determined.
doesn’t distinguish between desirable and undesirable - high IQ would be seen as abnormal but isn’t undesirable

Question 3

explain the deviation from social norms definition of abnormality

Answer 3

norms tell individuals what is deemed as socially acceptable behaviours, these can be implicit or explicit written laws.
anyone who doesn’t follow these unwritten rules are classed as abnormal
each culture will have there own norms and will have made their own collective judgment about what is acceptable behaviour.

Question 4

evaluate deviation from social norms

Answer 4

it distinguishes between desirable and undesirable behaviours
it could make individuals more susceptible to abuse
social norms depend on the context of the behaviour.

Question 5

explain the failure to function adequately

Answer 5

an inability to cope with the demands of everyday life, for example not being able to wash clothes or hold down relationships between people. this may cause stress to the individual due to their inability to cope

Question 6

evaluate failure to function adequately

Answer 6

takes the subjective view of the patient into account
depends on the person making the judgment
some dysfunctional behaviours could be functional

Question 7

explain deviation from ideal mental health

Answer 7

marie johoda pointed out that physical illness is often diagnose by looking for an absence of physical health. she stated that mental illness should be treated in the same way
according to jahoda there are 6 criteria for good mental health which allows people to behave competently

Question 8

what are the 6 criteria for good mental health?

Answer 8

self attitude
self actualisation
integration
autonomy
having an accurate perception of reality
mastery of the environment

Question 9

evaluate deviation from ideal mental health

Answer 9

it is a positive approach to abnormality
the criteria is unrealistic
according to this mental health is the same as physical health

Question 10

what is a phobia?

Answer 10

is an anxiety disorder which interferes with daily living. it is an instance of irrational fear that produces a conscious avoidance of the feared object or situation.

Question 11

what are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 11

high levels of anxiety and fear when in the presence of their phobic stimulus.
this is an unpleasant state of high arousal
this may occur even by imagining the feared situation

Question 12

what are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 12

panic in response to a phobia stimulus, freeze cry or scream
a person will go out there way to avoid the phobic stimulus
when a person cant avoid it they will stay and experience high anxiety.

Question 13

what are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 13

selective attention: won’t be able to look at the stimulus when in the present of it
irrational beliefs: the individual will hold irrational beliefs and is likely to have cognitive distortions.

Question 14

what is the behavioural explanation of a phobia?

Answer 14

classical conditioning, neutral stimulus being paired with something feared which then causes someone to fear the paired thing.
operant conditioning, negative reinforcement as they avoid the phobia so no anxiety

Question 15

how are phobias maintained? (two step process model)

Answer 15

classical conditioning explains how phobias are acquired but not maintained.
negative reinforcement can be applied to phobias as it takes the negative feeling of anxiety and fear away, which negatively reinforces the phobia to maintain it.

Question 16

evaluate the two step process model?

Answer 16

It has real life application
empirical research support from Watson and raynor
sometimes patients with phobias do recall a specific event for there phobias but most cant
not all people who experience a traumatic event develop a phobia
the explanation is reductionist
there are alternative explanations

Question 17

what is counter conditioning?

Answer 17

a new association is taught to counter the original association

Question 18

what is reciprocal inhibition?

Answer 18

the idea that certain emotions cant be felt simultaneously e.g fear and relaxation

Question 19

what is desensitisation hierarchy?

Answer 19

a list of things that cause the patient fear gradually increasing from the stimuli that creates the least and most fear.

Question 20

what is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 20

a behavioural therapy developed by Joseph wolphe (1958), the therapy aims to extinguish an undesirable behaviour by replacing it with a more desirable one.
the patient is taught a new association to counter the original association (counter conditioning)
the fear response is replaced by relaxation due to the idea that an individual cant feel fear and relaxation at the same time.

Question 21

what are the stages of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 21

1. relaxation techniques, the patient is taught relaxation techniques e.g muscle relaxation
2. the patient and therapist work to construct a desensitisation hierarchy
3. the patient gradually works through the desensitisation hierarchy whilst practising relaxation techniques
4. once the patient is relaxed at one stage of the hierarchy they can progress to the next stage.
5. eventually the patient will master their feared situation

Question 22

what is rothbaum et al study (2000)

Answer 22

systematic desensitisation may be effective when using virtual reality.
this was shown with the effectiveness of SD when treating a fear of flying.
success rate was over 80% using VR based treatment approach, with very low relapse levels as well.

Question 23

evaluate systematic desensitisation

Answer 23

supporting research
appropriate for a diverse range of patients
may be more appropriate than flooding due to being less traumatic
not affective for all types of phobia

Question 24

what is flooding?

Answer 24

flooding involves exposing the patient to their phobia stimulus without the gradual build up seen in SD
the patient will endure one long session in which they are exposed to their phobia at its worst whilst they practice relaxation
this session will continue until the person feels comfortable in the presence of there phobia

Question 25

why does flooding help treat phobias?

Answer 25

it prevents the reinforcement of the phobia the person no longer avoids the fear stimulus so is no longer being negatively reinforced their fear will eventually subside and their new response is learned

Question 26

what are social norms?

Answer 26

unwritten behavioural expectations that vary on culture, time and context. Social deviants are individuals who break the rules and are seen as abnormal.

Question 27

what is the cognitive approach?

Answer 27

argues depression is due to irrational thoughts from internal mental processes.

Question 28

what's becks negative triad?

Answer 28

three schemas with a persistent automatic negative bias, the self, the future and the world.

Question 29

what is ellis"s ABC model?

Answer 29

A - activating event, anything that happens to someone B - belief, people with depression have irrational beliefs C - consequence, negative consequences thinking the world will lead to disappointment.

Question 30

evaluate the cognitive approach

Answer 30

practical applications - the cognitive approach to explaining depression has lead to the development of cognitive behavioural therapy research support - Krantz 1976, depressed patients made more errors in logic when interpreting written material. blames the individual - client is responsible for their disorder other factors like environment will be overlooked. hard to determined cause and effect - do negative thoughts cause depression or does the depression cause faulty thinking.

Question 31

what is mustabatory thinking?

Answer 31

this is the belief that ideas or assumptions must be true in order to be happy. I must be accepted or approved or I'm not important.

Question 32

what are negative schemas?

Answer 32

people will depression have negative schemas acquired in childhood for example they may be caused by rejection or criticisms from authority figures. this will then affect how you view new situations.

Question 33

what is Ellis' RBT?

Answer 33

used to identify and dispute irrational thoughts they would try to change the irrational belief and so break the link between negative life events and depression.

Question 34

what is Becks CBT?

Answer 34

will identify thoughts about the self the world and the future, once identified these are challenged which is the main component of the therapy. challenging thoughts directly aims to help patients test the reality of the belief, then homework will be set to record positive things which can then be used against there negative thoughts

Question 35

what is logical disputing?

Answer 35

disputing whether beliefs flow logically from the facts

Question 36

what is empirical disputing?

Answer 36

disputing that there is any evidence to support their belief

Question 37

what is pragmatic disputing?

Answer 37

emphasises the lack of usefulness of their beliefs

Question 38

how is homework used in CBT?

Answer 38

many types of cbt use homework to aid the patients progress between sessions, which allows the patient to challenge there beliefs

Question 39

what is behavioural activation?

Answer 39

one common symptom of depression is reduction of activities that they previously enjoyed, people with depression are encouraged to increase their activity levels

Question 40

evaluate cognitive treatments

Answer 40

there is research support - ellis 1957 had 90% success over an average of 27 sessions. requires motivation - patients need to be willing to put effort which leads to high drop out rates and disengagement overemphasis on cognition - may ignore other influences e.g abuse that also need to be resolved in order to treat depression.

Question 41

what is OCD?

Answer 41

a disorder characterised by obsessions and compulsions that affects 2% of the population

Question 42

what is the OCD worry cycle?

Answer 42

obsessions, anxiety, compulsions, relief

Question 43

what are the genetic explanations for OCD?

Answer 43

suggests its inherited and they need specific genes to develop OCD, focused on identifying particular genes, COMPT gene and SERT gene. COMPT results to higher levels of dopamine which is found in OCD. SERT causes lower levels of serotonin which is also associated with OCD.