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Psychopathology Flashcards

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1
Q

Describe the shape of normal distribution on a graph, and where would you find statistical infrequencies?

A
  • Bell shaped curve
  • Symmetrical
  • Most scores = middle
  • Extreme ends - abnormal
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2
Q

What are the 4 definitions of abnormality?

A
  • Statistical infrequency
  • Deviation from social norms
  • Failure to function adequately
  • Deviation from ideal mental health
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3
Q

Strengths and weaknesses of “statistical infrequency” as a definition of abnormality

A

+ Objective - not influenced by personal feelings or opinions
- Some abnormal behaviour is desirable, therefore not needing psychological treatment
- Misses/excludes some disorders which are not statistically rare, eg. in 2019 rates of depression were around 10%. Should not be used on its own for diagnosis

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4
Q

What is meant by “Deviation from social norms”

A

Behaviour that is NOT considered to be socially acceptable is abnormal

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5
Q

Strengths and weaknesses of “deviation from social norms” as a definition of abnormality

A

+ Flexible, what is considered to be abnormal adapts to what societal norms are, and not by a strict number like statistical infrequency
+ In some cases, behaviour that deviates from social norms may also be illegal or pose a threat to society. Can facilitate intervention and treatment for individuals who pose a risk to themselves or others
- Less objectivity than deviation from social norms
- Social norms differ from culture to culture, creating a cultural bias through ethnocentrism

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6
Q

What is ethnocentrism?

A

Where one culture is used as the standard by which other cultures are judged.

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7
Q

What is meant by “failure to function adequately”?

A

Someone is unable to cope with the demands of everyday life.
Rosenhan and Seligman (1989) came up with the 7 categories used to show someone is unable to function

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8
Q

Strengths and weaknesses of “failure to function adequately” as a definition of abnormality

A

+ Takes into account subjective experiences, what some other explanations fail to do, gives context to peoples symptoms and help make a judgement on diagnosis.
- Many forms of abnormality do not stop people from functioning, some criminals commit crimes and feel no stress or anxiety, so these people would go undiagnosed according to this definition.

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9
Q

What is meant by “deviation from mental health”?

A

Behaviour is abnormal when there is the lack of healthy (ideal) characteristics.
Once we understand what good mental health looks like, we can diagnose the deviations. Similar to temperatures/blood pressure in physical health
Marie Jahoda (1958) came up with the 6 criterial points for ideal mental health (A SPEAR)

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10
Q

What were the 6 criteria for ideal mental health, suggested by Marie Jahoda

A

A - Accurate perception of reality (realistic view of the world and themselves)
S - Self actualisation (fulfilling their potential, experiencing personal growth)
P - Positive attitude to ones self (high self-esteem and a strong sense of identify)
E - Environmental mastery (meet the varying demands of day to day life)
A - Autonomy (Being independent, self reliant and make personal decisions)
R - Resisting stress (Having effective coping strategies and being able to cope with everyday anxiety provoking situations)

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11
Q

Strengths and weaknesses of “deviation from ideal mental health” as a definition of abnormality

A
  • Unrealistically high standard, not many of us will be able to maintain all criteria for extended periods of time
  • Ethnocentric, criteria based on western, individualistic culture compared to elsewhere such as collectivist countries who focus on group identity and achievement
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12
Q

Behavioural characteristics of phobias :

A
  • Panic, involving sweating, crying, screaming and freezing
  • Avoidance, person will go to great lengths to avoid the stimulus they are afraid of
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13
Q

Emotional characteristics of phobias:

A
  • Anxiety, means that when the person is in contact with the stimulus, they are unable to relax or have any positive emotions from the experience
  • Fear, intense feeling as result of the bodies fight or flight response
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14
Q

Cognitive characteristics of phobias:

A
  • Irrational beliefs, unreasonable and not logical.
  • Selective attention, internal mental process where the person focuses on the stimulus to the point when it interferes with cognitive abilities for other tasks
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15
Q

Behavioural characteristics of depression:

A
  • Lack of energy and pleasure, leading to lack of engagement
  • Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour
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16
Q

Emotional characteristics of depression:

A
  • Depressed lowered mood, continuous and prolonged low mood and sadness
  • Lowered self esteem or self worth, even to the point of hating themselves
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17
Q

Cognitive characteristics of depression:

A
  • Inability to concentrate, including struggling to make decisions about things they would typically find quite simple
  • Negative thoughts/dwelling on the negative, thoughts emphasise and dwell on the negatives, and fail to acknowledge and focus on the positives
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18
Q

What is OCD?

A
  • Obsessive compulsive disorder
  • Obsessions - unwanted distressing thoughts leading to anxiety
  • Anxiety leading to compulsions (repetitive behaviour to help take away anxiety)
  • Compulsions lead to temporary relief
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19
Q

Behavioural characteristics of OCD:

A
  • Compulsions (repetitive behaviour) in order to provide temporary relief from any anxiety they may have.
  • Reduced social activity. Due to anxiety, they can have problems engaging in normal relationships
20
Q

Emotional characteristics of OCD:

A
  • Intense anxiety or distress due to the obsessions
  • Depression caused by the intense anxiety, causing lower mood and loss of pleasure in everyday activities because they are interrupted by obsessive thoughts
21
Q

Cognitive characteristics of OCD:

A
  • Obsessive persistent thoughts, an unwanted, distressing thought, image or urge repeatedly enters your mind
  • Understand the irrationality, OCD suffers know that the thoughts they are having are very unlikely and irrational but are still unable to control them
22
Q

Who proposed the two process model?

A
  • Hobart Mowrer
23
Q

What does the two process model suggest?

A
  • Phobias are acquired through classical conditioning
  • They are then maintained through operant conditioning, avoidance being a defining behavioural characteristics. Escaping the fear and anxiety, pleasant experience strengthens fear of behaviour. Every time we avoid stimulus, we maintain the phobia.
24
Q

Supporting evidence for the two process model:

A
  • Watson and Raynor (1920) - Little Albert
  • Repeated pairing with unpleasant noises (unconditioned stimulus) and white rat (neutral stimulus)
  • Causing the white rat to become a conditioned stimulus
25
Q

Strengths and weaknesses of the two process model:

A

+ Practical application in the treatment of phobias, through systematic desensitisation, using behaviourist techniques such as classical conditioning, in almost a reverse way.
- Doesn’t take into account biological explanations that may be involved, biological preparedness, making us genetically pre exposed to learn an association with something that is highly fearful, developing a phobia due to specific variation in our DNA
- Behavioural explanation alone account for the development of all phobias
- Doesn’t take into account the role of cognitive factors, some of which proposed by Beck involving irrational beliefs, making the behaviourist approach over simplified

26
Q

What is systematic desensitisation

A

Based on classical conditioning.
- Association between CS and CR needs to be modified through counter conditioning to change the CR from fear, to an opposite response: relaxation.
- Works through reciprocal inhibition, based on the idea that two opposite emotions cannot coexist
- System or plan/process to go through

27
Q

What is the process of systematic desensitisation

A

Step 1 - Relaxation - person is told to deeply relax via breathing exercises or visualisation tasks. To reduce activity of sympathetic nervous system, which stimulates fight or flight, and instead stimulate the parasympathetic system
Step 2 - Anxiety hierarchy - Patient and therapist work together to produce one. Arranged list of scenarios about feared stimulus from least intense to the most intense
Step 3 - Gradual exposure. Patient exposed to feared stimulus over a number of sessions and eventually respond with relaxation

28
Q

What is flooding?

A
  • Stark contrast to systematic desensitisation, directly and suddenly exposing patient to the stimulus, at the highest level of anxiety.
  • No effort used to reduce anxiety
  • If they cant avoid the situation, they realise the stimulus isn’t as bad as they thought, causing the anxiety to subside
  • Based on extinction. Trying to remove any association they have made
29
Q

Supporting evidence for systematic desensitisation and for flooding?

A

Lang and Lazovik - SD
- 11 sessions
- Relaxation = hypnosis
- Ratings of fear reduced and effect lasted 6 months later

Rothbaum et al - Flooding
- VRET and standard exposure
- 8 sessions
- Real flight after treatment
- Lower anxiety level and effects lasted 6 months later

30
Q

Strengths and limitations of SD and flooding?

A

+ Less traumatic, positive and pleasant experience
+ Patient is in control, resultedly allowing more people to access the process
+ Lower drop out rates
- This approach disregards short term treatments such as biological drugs that can provide temporary relief by decreasing the physiological response. And would be more beneficial, and less time consuming for a phobia that is rarely encountered

  • Ethical issues, can cause great degree of emotional harm
  • Could not actually treat the phobia, but reinforce it
    + Less expensive, less sessions and time
31
Q

What is Beck’s cognitive triad theory for depression?

A

1- Negative self-schemas develop during childhood possible received through criticism and rejection they have received from critical people in their life
2 - Cognitive biases develop as they become adults, which is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern: “Over-generalising” or “Catastrophising”
3 - Negative triad : self + world + future

32
Q

What is Ellis’ ABC model?

A

Emphasis on rationality.
A - Activating event.
B - Beliefs : how they are interpreting the activating event, are the thoughts rational or irrational?
C - Consequences : are the consequences of the thoughts resulting in unhealthy emotions, and thus symptoms such as lowered mood or low self esteem

33
Q

Supporting evidence for the cognitive explanation for depression

A

Tagnavi et al (2006)
29 clinically depressed patients compared to 34 normal controls
Depressed people scored higher in irrational beliefs, supporting Ellis’ ABC model
Replication of western research carried out in Iran, giving additional validity to the ABC model as it has the potential to apply across cultures

34
Q

Application of the ABC model:

A
  • Used in CBT
  • ABCDE, now including disputing and effects
  • Challenges irrational thoughts and turning into rational thoughts
  • Combined with a coping strategy to help people improve
35
Q

2 weakness of ABC model for depression

A

Blames the patient and ignores the situation.
The focus is on peoples internal thoughts, meaning the cause of the depression is the person themselves, potentially making things worse.
Doesn’t take into account situational factors.

Biological explanation, SSRIs increase serotonin levels and help peoples symptoms, cognitive explanation over simplifies it, and ignores biological processes.

36
Q

What is CBT?

A

A talking therapy which can help manage problems by changing the way you think and feel

37
Q

How does Beck’s cognitive triad theory help in CBT?

A
  • Thought catching. Negative views of the self, world and future can be identified and noted using for example a thought diary
  • Patient as scientist. The patient generates hypothesis to test how accurate their irrational thoughts are. Evidence is provided for and against irrational beliefs
  • Behavioural activation. Set specific tasks to help change their behaviour
38
Q

What is Ellis’ version of CBT?

A

REBT
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy
- Includes logical disputing with the therapist
- Empirical disputing - Is there any evidence?
- Pragmatic disputing - How practical and helpful are these beliefs?

39
Q

Strengths and Weaknesses of CBT

A

March et al
- Takes 34 weeks for improvement rates to almost match that of drug treatment
- Not many people motivated and commitment to stick to a treatment for that long = higher drop out rate

+ No side effects as apposed to drug treatment
+ Don’t have to experience withdrawal symptoms once treated
+ CBD is more empowering because treatment is active and the patient is involved, with a sense of control over their depression

40
Q

Explain the genetic explanation for OCD

A
  • DNA a person has inherited gives them a genetic predisposition to develop and have a vulnerability OCD
41
Q

What are the two genes associated with OCD?

A
  • COMT gene is mutated and is less effective at regulating dopamine levels
  • SERT gene is mutated and lead to a decrease in serotonin
42
Q

What is the supporting evidence for genetics in OCD?

A
  • Twin studies by Nestadt et al (2010)
  • Concordance rates for OCD is higher in mono (68%) than dizygotic twins (31%)
  • However as its not 100%, its not purely genetic and other factors must influence the development of OCD (environmental factors)
43
Q

What are the 2 neural explanations for OCD?

A
  • People have differing levels of neurotransmitters for dopamine and serotonin
  • Low serotonin = higher anxiety and more likely to develop OCD
  • Cordate nucleus regulates transmissions between the thalamus and the Orbito-frontal cortex.
  • OFC sends worries about environment to the thalamus, normally filtered or supressed by the cordate nucleus.
  • Faulty caudate nucleus causes the thalamus to be alerted by the worry quite strongly and confirms the worry back to the OFC. Causing obsessions about the worry.
43
Q

What is an SSRI?

A
  • Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors
43
Q

Weaknesses of the biological explanation for OCD

A
  • Biological explanation alone is not sufficient enough to explain OCD
  • Ignores role of the environment unlike the diathesis stress model which mentions that the genetic predisposition only causes OCD when triggered by environmental factors
  • Cromer et al discovered that over 50% of the OCD patients in their sample had a traumatic event in their past
  • Criticised for being deterministic
44
Q

How do SSRIs work?

A
  • Synaptic transmission via the synapse by sending chemical messages via neurotransmitters
  • SSRI’s inhibit the reuptake to the presynaptic terminal, meaning more serotonin neurotransmitters in the synapse, so more chance of them being received by the post synaptic receptor sites
45
Q

Evaluations for drug therapy for OCD

A

+ Proved to be effective by Soomro et al, SSRIs were more effective at reducing OCD symptoms than a placebo
+ Cheaper, less commitment and quicker compared to cognitive treatments.
+ Less engagement in treatment, less demands for patient
- Often treating symptoms, not the cause. Broader factors such as prior traumatic events may be ignored, treatment is limited and temporary form of treatment
- Serotonin depletion after treatment in the long term can lead to adverse side effects in the withdrawals.
- CBT is more empowering in contrast azs patients are active in the process and challenging and changing their thoughts

Psychology (9 decks)

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