Psychopathology Flashcards
Statistical infrequency
- when an individual has a less common characteristic
- abnormal
- e.g. people with a fear of buttons
- e.g. people with an IQ below 70 (intellectual disability disorder)
Statistical Infrequency: Evaluation
P - real-life application
E - aids in the diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder
- assessment of patients for all mental disorders includes some kind of measurement of how severe their symptoms are compared to statistical norms
C - useful for clinical assessment
P - not necessary/useful to label everyone
E - many statistically infrequent people can live happy, undistressed lives and be capable of working
- can have negative effects on the way they view themselves and others view them
C - can cause more harm than good
P - unusual characteristics can be positive
E - IQ scores over 130 are just as unusual as those below 70
- we wouldn’t see super-intelligent as undesirable/needing treatment.
C - Just because very few people show the characteristics doesn’t mean that they require treatment to be normal.
- Limitation because it cant be used alone to make a diagnosis.
Deviation from social norms
- behaviour that differs from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society
- a collective judgement as a society about what is right
- can differ by culture and generation so very few universally abnormal based upon this e.g. some countries still punish homosexuality with death
- e.g. antisocial personality disorder
Deviation from social norms: Evaluation
P - cultural relativism
E - social norms vary from one generation to another and from one community to another
- e.g. one culture may label someone as abnormal based upon their standards but based on that induviduals standards it may benormal
e.g. in some cultrues it is considered normal (spirtitual) to hear voices
C - creates problems fo people from one culture leaving within another cultural group
P - can lead to abuse of human rights
E - diagnosing people based of deviating from social norms can be used to maintain control over minority groups
- as seen in seen in history black slave were diagnosed with draptomania if they tried to run away
C - in modern times it can be said that this method of diagnosis are really abuses of people rights to be different
Failure to function adequately
- occurs when someone is unable to cope with the ordinary demands of day-to-day living
- e.g. not keeping basic standards of nutrition or hygiene, not holding down jobs, or maintaining relationships
Failure to function adequately: Evaluation
P - attempts to include the subjective experience of the individual
E - may not be entirely satisfactory - difficult to assess distress
- does acknowledge that the experience of the individual is important
- captures the experience of many people who need help
C - useful for assessing abnormality.
P - could be considered just not following social norms
E - people who practice extreme sports with high mortality rates could be seen as maladaptive
- when in reality this is just an alternative lifestyle that we ourselves would not choose
C - if we start labelling alternate lifestyles as failing to function
- we risk limiting personal freedom and/or discriminating against minority groups
P - Subjective/hard to judge if someone is failing to function
E - you have to judge if a patient is distressed
- some may be distressed but be judged as not being distressed
- there are checklists that make these judgements as objective as possible
C - but someone still has the right to make this judgement
Deviation from ideal mental health
- occurs when someone does not meet a set criteria of ideal mental health
- rather than considering what makes someone abnormal consider what makes anyone ‘normal’
- uses characteristics of ‘normality’ to identify who deviates
- some overlap between deviation from ideal mental health and failure to function adequately e.g. failing to keep a job could be either
Deviation from ideal mental health: Evaluation
P - cultural relativism
E - some ideas from Jahoda’s classification are based upon European and north-American cultures
- e.g. the emphasis on self-actualisation and personal achievement may be seen as self-indulgent in some cultures
- (some cultures have more emphasis on community contribution)
C - ideal mental health is judged based on individualist standards
P - sets high mental health standards
E - very few people achieve all the criteria or are able to keep it up for long periods of time
- would see pretty much all of us as abnormal
C - can be good or bad
good —> shows the benefits of seeking help/counselling to better yourself
bad —> no value in determining who needs treatment against their will
The Two-process model: summary
- emphasises the role of learning in the acquistion of behaviour
- phobias are acquired through classical conditioning
- phobias are maintained through operant conditioning
The Two-process model: acquisition through classical conditioning explained fully
- classical conditioning: learning to associate something which we initially had no fear of (neutral stimulus) with something that already triggers a fear response
- Little Albert = prime example
- UCS = UCR
- NS = NR
- UCS + NS = UCR
(repeat pairings): - CS = CR
- (NS–>CS = NR–>CR)
The Two process model: Evaluation
P - applications
E - explains how phobias are maintained over time
—> important bc explains why patients need to be exposed to their feared stimulus
- once a patient is prevented from practicing avoidance (negative reinforcement) the behaviour declines
C - strength bc helps improve the quality of life of people/can be used in real life contexts
P - does not explain all phobias
E - e.g. we easily acquire phobias for things that have be dangerous to us in our evolutionary past
(fears of snakes or the dark)
- these recquire further explaining:
- biological preparedness: innate predisposition to acquire certain fears
C - this is a problem for the 2 process model because it shows it cannot explain the acquisition of all phobias (not all phobias occur through learning)
P - evidence support for aquisition
E - Little Albert study by Watson and Rayner. - Showed how a Neutral Stimulus (A White rat) can become a Conditioned stimulus that can lead to a conditioned response (fear) –> phobia
C - this is real life evidence to show classical conditioning can create phobias
H - this is only a case study so it may possibly lack generalisability, as well as having issues with temporal validity.
Systematic desensitisation: briefly
- designed to reduce an unwanted response, such as anxiety to stimulus
- involves:
- creating a fear hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to the phobic stimulus
- teaching the patient to relax
- exposure to phobic situations
- the patient works their way through the hierarchy whilst maintaining relaxation
- the treatment has worked when the patient has acquired a new, relaxed response to the phobic stimulus: counterconditioning
- cannot feel relaxed and afraid at the same time so one emotion prevents the other: reciprocal inhibition
Systematic desensitisation: The Anxiety/Fear Hierarchy
- put together by the patient and the therapist
- list of situations related to the phobic stimulus
- ranked in order of least to most frightening
e. g. an arachnophobic:
- seeing a picture of a small spider = low on the hierarchy
- holding a tarantula = top on the hierarchy
Flooding: briefly
- immediate and extreme exposure to the phobic stimulus
- in order to reduce anxiety triggered by that stimulus
- a small number of long sessions
Flooding: explained fully
- no gradual build-up
- immediate exposure to most extreme situation
- without option of avoidance patient learns quickly that the phobic object is harmless
- in classical conditioning terms this is called extinction
- conditioned stimulus no longer produces fear response
- can achieve relaxation through exhaustion by own fear response
e.g. an arachnophobic would have tarantulas crawl over them
