Psycho 3.0

Question 1

Evaluation:two process model

Answer 1

Good explanatory power:main advantage of this theory is that it can explain the mechanism begin the acquisition and maintenance of phobias which classical or operant conditioning cannot do alone.This leads to practical benefits to therapies as it demonstrates why patient need to be exposed to their phobic stimulus.Once patients is prevented from practicing their avoidance behaviour the behaviours ceased to be reinforced so it declines.EG FLOODING AND SD.Strength leads to enhanced therapies

Question 2

Evaluation:Two process model

Answer 2

Alternative explanation for the-avoidance behaviour for all phobias is not as a result to avoid anxiety at least not in more complex phobias like agoraphobia.For example Buck et suggested that safety is a greater motivator for avoidance behaviour rather than simply avoiding due to anxiety.For example social phobias such suffers can venture out into public but only with a trusted friend despite being exposed to hindered of strangers that would usually trigger their anxiety.This means that Mowrers explanation of phobias may be incomplete and only suited for some.

Question 3

Evaluation:The two process

Answer 3

Alternative explanation for the requisition of phobias:Seligman suggests that we are more likely to develop phobias towards prepared stimuli.These are stimuli which would have posed a threat to our evolutionary ancestors such as fire or deep running and so running away from such stimulus increased the likelihood of survival and reproduction and so this behaviour has a selective evolutionary advantage.This means that alternative theory’s can explain why some phobias are much more frequent than other phobias .

Question 4

Evaluation:Two process model

Answer 4

There’s been research support for the importance of classical condition.Dinardo et al found that 60% of of dog phonics could recall a frightening experience with a dog this supports the behaviourist approach.However there’s mixed views of the importance of classical conditioning.Although Dinardo et al found this in the control group of participants without a phobia of Dogs the same percentage reported a frightening experience with a dog.This demonstrates that some people develop phobia without a frightening association and that frightening association does not cause phobias in everyone.Such individual difference pose a problem for this explanation.

Question 5

Evaluation:treating phobias
SD

Answer 5

It is effective in the treatment of phobias.For example gilroy et al followed up 42 patients who had been treated for spider phobia in three 45 minute sessions of sd.SD was assessed on several measures including the spider questionnaire and by assessing response to a spider.A control group was treated by relaxation without exposure.At both three months and 33 months after the treatment the SD group were less fearful than the relaxation group.This is a strength as it shows that SD is helpful in reducing the anxiety in spider phobia and the affects are long lasting.

Question 6

Evaluation:Treating phobias
SD

Answer 6

It is acceptable to patients-Those given the choice of Sd and flooding tend to prefer sd.this is largely because it does not cause the same degree of trauma as flooding.sd included elects such as relaxation procedures that are actually pleasant.there has been low refusal and attrition rates and this idea has economical implications because it increases the likelihood that the patients will agree to start and continue the therapy as opposed to waist time and effort of the therapist.

Question 7

Evaluation:Treating phobias
SD

Answer 7

It is more suitable for a diverse range of patients.The alternatives of sd like flooding and cognitive therapies are not well suited for some patients.For example suffers of anxiety disorders like phobias have learning
Difficulties.Learning difficulties make it hard for some patients to understand what is happening during flooding or engage in cognitive therapies that requires the ability to reflect on what your thinking.Therefore sd is the most appropriate treatment compared to alternatives.

Question 8

Evaluation:flooding

Answer 8

Less effective for complex phobias.Social pianos involves bother anxiety and cognitive aspects .For example thinking unpleasant thoughts about a situation.Thus in this case a cognitive therapy may be more appropriate because this therapy can target the unpleasant thoughts.This suggests that the alternatives may be more supportive
The treatment is traumatic for patients-The problem with flooding is that it’s not unethical but patients are often unwilling to see it through to the end.

Question 9

Evaluation:Flooding

Answer 9

Seen as cost effective-ourgin compared flooding to cognitive therapies and found it to be cheaper.This is because the patients phobia will typically be cured in one session therefore freeing them of their symptom and allowing them to continue living a normal life.This makes the treatment quickly as it is quicker.

Question 10

Evaluation:becks theory

Answer 10

There is good supporting evidence that supports that depression is associated with faulty information processing.For example Terry and grazioli assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerability and depression before and after birth.They found that those women who judged to have been high in cognitive vulnerability were more likely to suffer post natal depression.Clark and beck reviewed research on this topics and concluded that there was solid support for all these confine vulnerability factors,suggesting that beck might be right about cognitions causing depression at least in some cases.

Question 11

Evaluation:Becks theory

Answer 11

Has practical application to CBT:becks cognitive therapy forms the basis of CBT.All cognitive aspects of depression can be identified and challenged in cbt.These inside the components of the negative triad that are easily identifiable.This means that the therapist can challenge them and encourage the patient to test whether that they are true.This is a strength of the explanation because it translates well into successful therapy.

Question 12

Evaluation:Becks

Answer 12

It does not explain all aspects of depression.Becks cognitive theory explains heartily the basic symptoms of depression however depression is complex.Some depressed patients are deeply anagrams beck cannot explain these extreme emotions.Some suffers of depression suffer hallucinations and bizarre believes.Very occasionally depressed patients suffer cotard syndrome,the delusion that they are zombies ,beck cannot explain these cases.

Question 13

Evaluation:Elis ABC model

Answer 13

One strength is that elisis explanation has a practical application in cbt.Has led to successful therapy / treatments for depression like cbt and rebt.this idea that by challenging irrational negative beliefs a person can reduce their depression is supported by research evidence by Lipsky et al.This in turn supports the basic theory because it suggests that irrational beliefs had some role in the depression.These therapies have been successful to treat people with depression proving further support to cognitive explanation of depression

Question 14

Evaluation:Eli’s abc model

Answer 14

One weakness of the cognitive approach is that it does not explain the origins of irrational thoughts and most of the research in this area is just a correlation.Therefore we are unable to determine if negative irrational thoughts cause depression or whether a persons depression leads to a negative mindset.Therefore it’s possible that other factors for example genes and neurotransmitter are the cause of depression and one of the side effects of depression is negative thoughts.
furthermore there are alternative explanations which suggests that depression is biological condition cause by genes and neurotransmitters.Reseach has focused on the roles of neurotransmitters serotonin and found lower levels in patients with depression.In addition drugs therapies including ssris are found to be effective in the treatment of depression which provide further support for the role of neurotransmitter in the development of depression.

Question 15

Evaluation:Eli’s ABC model

Answer 15

One limitation of Ellis abc model is that not all irrational thoughts are irrational.Alloy and Abrahmson found that depressed individuals had sadder but wiser effect where they have more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster than those not depressed.
Limitation:it gives all responsibility to the individual completely to them which in turn could be seen as blaming them.

Question 16

Evaluation:Extra for beck

Answer 16

There is research evidence which support the cognitive explanation of depression.Boury et al found that patients with depression were more likely to misinterpret info negatively and feel hopeless about their future which supports different comports of becks theory and the idea that cognitions are involved in depression.

Question 17

BCT

Answer 17

There is evidence to support the effectiveness of CBT for depression.For example March et al compared the effected of cBT with antidepressant drugs and a combination of the two in 327 adolescents with a main diagnosis of depression.After 36 weeks 81% of the CBT plus antidepressant and 86% of the cBT plus antidepressants groups were significantly improved.Therefore cBT emerged as an effected as medication and helpful alongside medication. Therefore good case for making CBT the first choice for treatment in public health care systems like the NHS.

Question 18

Cbt

Answer 18

One limitation of cbt is that it make not work for the most severe cases of depression.Since in some cases of depression it can be so severe that the patient cannot motivate themselves to engage with the hard cognitive work of CBT.They may not be able to pay attention to what is happening in the session.In this case it is possible to treat patients with antidepressant medication and commence cbt when they are more alert and motivated.This idea could have been reflected in the evidence found by MARCH Donal where a combination of cbt and antidepressant where most affect.due to the fact that patients may have lack of motivation ,inability to get out of bed.This is a limitation as it shows that cbt cannot be used as the sole treatment for all cases of depression.Also requires motivation

Question 19

Cbt

Answer 19

One limitation of cbt is that success may be due to the therapist patient relationship.Its been suggested ghat the differences between different methods of psychotherapy may be quiet small.All psychopatherojes all share one essential thing which is this relationship.It may be the quality of this relationship that determines the success rather than a particulate technique used.There has been very small comparative reviews and they find a very small difference.Which supports the view that simply having the opportunist to talk to someone who will listen could be what matters the most.

Question 20

Cbt

Answer 20

Another limitation of cbt is that it have overemphasis the role of cognitions.CBT suggests that a persons irrational thinking is the primary cause of their depression and cbt does not take into account other factors.Cbt therefore ignores other factors and circumstances that might contribute to a persons depression for example a patient suffer for domestic violence or abuse does not need to change their negative and irrational beliefs but infant needs to change their circumstances.Therefore cbt would be ineffective treating these patients until their circumstances have been changed.
ADDITIONALLY:Fails to acknowledge that some mental disorders have a biological factor for example according to the biological approach that some mental disorders can be linked to low levels of serotonin in the brain suggesting that cognate therapies ignore the biology can play in a mental disorder.

Question 21

Cbt

Answer 21

A strength of cbt is that research suggests that it can be successful to treat a range of different abnormalities including ocd and social phobias.From a meta analysis it concluded that cbt is an effective treatment for a range of different distorted.This is a positive because it suggests that cbt can be used to help more people than many other treatments aswell as there being no harmful side affects.Furthermore cbt can not only help individuals with their symptoms but they can transfer their skills developed from cbt to help them with other issues such as stress management.

Question 22

Biological explanation of ocd

Answer 22

One limitation is that there are too many candidate genes.With over 230 candidate genes each individually coding for an increased risk of ocd then this poses as a practical issue.It makes it difficult to assess which candidate genes have the greatest impact and so which genes drug treatments should target.Therefore explanation is likely to have little predictive value in the future.

Question 23

Explanation:biological explanation of ocd

Answer 23

Another limitation is that it ignores environmental factors.Cromer et al found that of his patients with ocd over half had experience trauma in their lives and there was a positive correlation between an increasing number of trauma a and the increasing severity of the ocd which patients suffered from.This suggest that is cannot be entirely genetic in origin or at least in some cases.It may be productive to focus on environmental causes because we are more likely able to do something about these

Question 24

Explanations of ocd

Answer 24

One strength is that there is evidence from a various of sources for the idea that some people are vulnerable to OCD as a result of their own genetic makeup.Nestadt et al reviewed previous twin studies of ocd and found that 68% of identical twins compared to 31% of non identical twins share ocd.This strongly suggests that there is a genetic basis for the disease because identical twins share 100% of their genes with each other while dizygotic twins only share 50% of genes with each other.Therefore this strongly suggests a genetic inflict on ocd.

Question 25

Characteristics of phobias:
Behavioural,emotional,cognitive

Answer 25

-Avoidance,panic,endurance
-Anxiety,aware it’s irrational
-Concentration,irrational beliefs,cognitive distortions

Question 26

Characteristics of depression:
Behavioural,emotional,cognitive

Answer 26

-aggression/self harm,low activity levels,increase/decrease eating and sleeping
-lowered mood,low self esteem,anger
-dwelling on negativity,poor concentration,absolutist thinking

Question 27

Characteristics of OCD:
Behaviours,emotional and cognitive

Answer 27

-compulsions are repetitive and reduce anxiety around 10% of suffered experience this,avoidance
-guilt/disgust,leads to depression,anxiety
-cognitive strategies,irrational,thoughts are obsessive

Question 28

Drug therapy

Answer 28

• One strength is that there is clear evidence for the effectiveness of SSRIS in reduced the severity of ocd symptoms and improving the quality of life for ocd patients.Soomro et al reviews studies comparing SSRIS & placebos in the treatment of ocd and concluded that all 17 studies reviews showed significantly better results for SSRIS than the placebo confirms.There is research that shows that effectiveness is greatest when the combine SSRIS with psychological treatment like cbt.

Question 29

Drug therapy

Answer 29

• Another strength of drugs is that there are cost effective and non disruptive compared to psychological treatments.Using drugs to treat ocd is therefore good value for a public health system for example the NHS and are also non disruptive in the patients life.This is if you wish to take the drugs until the symptoms decline and not engage in hard work is psychological therapy.-Patients can discreetly take the drugs to manage their symptoms as compared to life in a hospital.

Question 30

Drug therapy

Answer 30

• A limitation of drug therapy is that there can be serious side effects.For example some patients suffer from side effects like indigestion,blurred vision and loss of sex drive .For those taking clormipramine more than 1 in 10 suffer from erection problems,weight gain and tremors.And more than 1 in 100 suffer from increased heart rate and aggressiveness.These side effects can have serious implications on how the patient goes on about their lives.This reduces the effectiveness which is why people stop taking them.

Question 31

Drug therapy

Answer 31

• Increased knowledge about the effectiveness of certain drug treatments can have positive economical value.OCD treatments and cognitive treats can reduce the time people take off work through sick days thus increasing the productive of the workforce and ensuring that more people are working.This means that more people will be paying taxes.Research into the cost effectiveness of treatments for ocd can be the basis of public health services choose which treatments they should use and help them save money.

Question 32

Drug therapy

Answer 32

• Some cases of OCD follow trauma.does not have an entirely biological origin.May be a range of causes and factors for ocd for example traumatic events in their life.Furthermore once a patient stops taking the drug they are prone to relapse suggesting that psychological treatments may be more effective as a long term solution

Question 33

Statistical infrequency :

Answer 33

Not everyone unusual benefits from a label:for example where someone is living a happy fulfilled life there is no benefit to them being labelled as abnormal regardless of how unusual they are.So someone with a very low iq but is not distressed quite capable of working would simply not need this diagnosis.If a person is labelled this might have a negative effect on the way other view them and the way they view themselves.

Question 34

Statistical infrequency :

Answer 34

It takes the assumption that any abnormal characteristic are automatically negative but this is not the case:For example iq scores over 130 are just as unusual as those below 70 but we would not think that having super intelligent as an undesirable characteristic that needs treatment.This shows that just because people display certain behaviour does not make the behaviour statistically abnormal or does it require any treatment.This is a limitation to the concept of statistical infrequency and means that it would never be used alone to make a diagnosis.

Question 35

Statistical infrequency:

Answer 35

Real life application:for example it is almost always used in the clinical diagnosis of mental health disorder as a comparison with a baseline or normal value.This is used to assess the severity of the disorder eg the idea that schizophrenia only effects 1% of the general population but subtypes are less frequent.Also all assessment of patients with a mental disorder includes some kind of measurement of how severe their symptoms are as pared to statically norms..Therefore it is a useful part of clinical assessment.

Question 36

Statistical infrequency:

Answer 36

Real life application:for example it is almost always used in the clinical diagnosis of mental health disorder as a comparison with a baseline or normal value.This is used to assess the severity of the disorder eg the idea that schizophrenia only effects 1% of the general population but subtypes are less frequent.Also all assessment of patients with a mental disorder includes some kind of measurement of how severe their symptoms are as pared to statically norms..Therefore it is a useful part of clinical assessment.

Question 37

Deviations from social norms :

Answer 37

Due to its reliance on subjective social norms this explanation also suffers from cultural relativism:for example hearing voice which have no basis in reality or hallucinations.Some African and Asian cultures in particular would look upon this symptom positively viewing it as a sign of spirituality and a strong connection with ancestors as opposed to a symptom of schizophrenia.This therefore suggest that the use of this definition of abnormality may lead to some discrepancies in the diagnosis of mental health disorders between cultures.

Question 38

Deviations from social norms :

Answer 38

It can lead to human rights abuse:for example too much reliance on deviations form social norms to understand abnormality can lead do systematic abuse of human rights.For example in the 19th century within Great Britain nymphomania described the mental health disorder suffered by women who demonstrated sexual attractions towards the working class men.In reality this diagnosis was made to prevent infidelity ,reinforce the differences between social classes and discrimination against women.Therefore this is a limitation as these diagnosis are there to maintain control over women and ethnic groups.

Question 39

Deviation from social norms:

Answer 39

One strength of deviation from social norms is that it can help keep society orderly:for example this means that social norms in society inform people of what is and is not acceptable to do and this maintains order in society avoiding chaos and dysfunction.This is a strength since it suggest that this definition of abnormality does have some practical and real life use.