Psychopathology Flashcards
Statistical infrequency
Behaviour or thinking that is numerically uncommon / rare. 2 or more standard deviations from the mean
Deviation from social norms
Behaviour that violates / breaks the rules and accepted standards of behaviour in a community or group. These can be implicit (implied) or explicit (laws) and vary between places and over time.
Failure to function adequately
Behaviour or thinking which means someone is unable to cope with the demands of day-to-day life
Deviation from idea mental health
When someone’s thinking or behaviour does not meet the criteria needed for optimism psychological/mental well being. The fewer criteria met, the greater the abnormality. Jahoda identified a number of criteria (try to remember the mnemonic S P E A R S).
Self actualisation
Fulfilling one’s potential. Each person is driven to grow and achieve this. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Personal autonomy
The ability to make choices regarding the direction of one’s life. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Environmental mastery
Being able to adapt to new situations and thrive. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Accurate perception of reality
accurate view of the world and of themselves. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Resistance to stress
Being able to handle difficult times and distressing situations, without becoming overwhelmed. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Self esteem
Having a positive attitude towards oneself. One of Jahoda’s criteria for ideal mental health
Phobia
An anxiety disorder characterised by excessive fear of an object or situation out of proportion to the threat.
Depression
A mental disorder characterised by low mood and low energy levels
OCD
A condition characterised by reoccurring and intrusive thoughts that cause anxiety and repetitive, rigid actions that temporarily reduce anxiety.
Behavioural characteristics
Ways in which people act
Emotional characteristics
Ways in which people feel
Cognitive characteristics
Process of thinking
OCD characteristics
Depression characteristics
Phobia characteristics
Two process model
Suggested by Mowrer, whereby classical conditioning helps to develop a phobia and operant conditioning helps to maintain it
Classical conditioning
Learning by association. Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together
Operant conditioning
A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences, e.g. rewards and punishments
Systematic desesirisatiom
A behavioural therapy designed to reduce an unwanted response, such as anxiety, to a stimulus. It involves a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to the stimulus, teaching the patient to relax, and then exposing them to phobic situations.
Relaxation techniques
In systematic desensitisation patients learn techniques to help them remain and become calm when faced with phobic stimuli, such as progressive muscle relaxation or meditation
Anxiety hierarchy
A list of situations involving the phobic stimulus from least to most scary, created by the patient and therapist together.
Counter conditioning
The process that underpins systematic desensitisation - replacing a stimulus-response association with a new, more positive, learned response
Reciprocal inhibition
The theory that two conflicting emotions (e.g. fear and relaxation) cannot co-exist at the same time.
Flooding
A behavioural therapy in which a phobic patient is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered by that stimulus. This takes place across a small number of long therapy sessions
Exposure
Therapies which prevent the avoidance of the phobic stimulus by putting the patient in a situation where they encounter the phobic stimulus.
Extinction
Conditioned stimuli aren’t permanent unless they are occasionally paired with the UCS. In phobias this doesn’t happen when the phobic encounters the phobic stimulus for an extended time so the learnt response will go be unlearnt.
Exposure
Patients cannot maintain high levels of fear for prolonged periods of time. When facing a phobic stimulus eventually they become too tired to maintain high levels of anxiety and fear.
Cognitive approach
Focused on how our internal mental processes affect behaviour
Negative self schema
Beck said depressives interpret information about themselves in a negative way. Schema is a ‘package’ of information based on experience, used to interpret the world.
Negative triad
Beck proposed that there were three kinds of negative thinking that contributed to becoming depressed: negative views of the world, the future and the self. Such negative views make them more vulnerable to depression
ABC model
Ellis proposed that depression occurs when an activating event (A) triggers an irrational belief (B) which in turn produces a consequence (C), i.e. an emotional response like depression. The key to this process in the irrational belief
Irrational thoughts
Ellis said these are beliefs that are likely to interfere with a person’s happiness. Such dysfunctional thoughts lead to mental disorders such as depression
Cognitive behaviour therapy CBT
A method for treating mental disorders based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques, such as challenging negative thoughts.
Empirical dispute
Ellis used vigorous argument to challenge irrational thoughts including seeking evidence for a persons thoughts then challenging this evidence.
Logical dispute
Ellis used vigorous argument to challenge irrational thoughts including questioning the logic of a persons thoughts (do they make sense) then challenging this.
Biological approach
A perspective that emphasises the importance of physical processes in the body, such as genetic inheritance and neural function
Genetic explanations
A way of explaining a characteristic based on inherited traits through DNA
Candidate genes
Candidate genes are specific genes that give a predisposition to a condition
Polygenic
When there are several alleles involved in the development of a trait, where the presence of each one increases the chances of the trait a little bit more
Aetiologically heterogeneous
One group of genes cause a condition in some people, different groups of genes cause it in others. Also different genes might cause different types of OCD, e.g. hoarding.
Neural explanations
The view that physical and psychological characteristics (e.g. OCD and schizophrenia) are determined by the behaviour of the nervous system, in particular the brain as well as individual neurons as well as the function of neurotransmitters.
Drug therapy
Treatment involving medication, i.e. chemicals that have a particular effect on the functioning of the brain or some other body system. In the case of psychological disorders such drugs usually affect neurotransmitter levels
Serotonin
An inhibitory neurotransmitter thought to be linked with OCD - its chances of diffusion are increased by SSRIs
SSRIs
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They stop serotonin being reabsorbed into the presynaptic nerve, so that it has another chance to diffuse into the receptors on the post synaptic nerve.
Fluoxetine
n example of an SSRI with a typical dose of between 20 and 60mg
Tricyclics
An older type of antidepressant than SSRIs that work In a similar way but with more side effects e.g. clomipramine
Rosenhan and Seligman
Characteristics/ signs a person isn’t coping; observer discomfort, personal distress, maladaptive behaviour
Mowrer
Came up with the two-way process in explaining phobias, involving both classical conditioning for phobia initiation and operant conditioning for phobia maintenance.
Watson and raynor
Little Albert study
Choy et al
Compared treatments for phobias. Systematic and flooding both effective, but flooding slightly better.
Gilroy et al
Tested systematic desensitisation – three sessions, followed up three and 33 months later. Effective.
Beck
Developed the Negative Triad theory of depression, which states that sufferers have a negative view of themselves, the world and the future
Ellis
Developed the ABC model for explaining depression, with A = activating event, B = belief about that event, and C = the consequence of that belief.
March et al
Compared the efficacy of CBT, antidepressants, and a combination. CBT and antidepressants both had an 81% success rate, whilst a combination had 86% success
Elkin
Found that CBT was significantly less effective for people who have high levels of irrational beliefs
Nestadt
Found that those who were first-degree relatives of sufferers of OCD were 5x more likely to develop the condition than the general population
Strength of statistical infrequenc
Definition used in clinical practice, e.g. Intellectual disability disorder. IQ of <70
Negs of statistical infrequency
Not always bad thing eg high IQ
Social stigma from label, people could be living happy fulfilled life
Strengths of deviation from social norms
antisocial personality disorder uses failure to conform to culturally accepted behaviour for diagnosis. This shows the criterion has usefulness in psychiatry.
Negs of deviation from social norms
Normsareculturallyrelative–Welabelothersaccordingto the standards of our cultural group e.g. hearing voices a norm in some cultures, labelled abnormal in UK . So, the definition is less useful for diagnosis for those who move between cultures.
Strengths of real world application
Considers the patient’s perspective – whilst difficult to measure distress it acknowledges the patient’s experience is important and usefully gives a threshold for when to provide help.
Negs of failure to function adequately
It is hard to say if someone isn’t coping or just deviating form social norms. E.g. not having a job may be an alternative lifestyle choice, not a sign of FtFA.
Involves subjective judgement
Pos of deviation from ideal mental health
Covers a broad range of criteria so most reasons why someone would access mental health services. It provides a useful checklist for clinicians to assess others and against we can asses ourselves
Negs of deviation from ideal mental health
Unrealistically high expectations – few people actually meet all johodas checklist
Strength of behavioural explanations for phobias
Application to therapy – phobia can be treated by preventing avoidance, e.g. Systematic desensitisation is effective for spiders (Gilroy et al.). Therefore the explanation is useful and likely accurate.
✓People can often remember a traumatic event. Particularly agoraphobics (Sue et al.) This shows how phobias result from bad experiences (conditioning).
Key study for behavioural explanations for phobias
Little Albert (Watson and Rayner) Procedure – Association of white rats (NS) with loud
bang (UCS). Metal bar hit when presented with rat. Findings - White rats became a CS leading to fear (CR). Generalised to similar stimuli, e.g. white hairy objects.
Negs of behavioural explanations for phobias
Sometimes phobias develop with no trauma.
Not all bad experiences lead to phobias. Di Nardo et al Dogs:
Biological explanation for OCD:genetic strengths
Supporting evidence for the role of genes. Twin studies e.g. Nestadt et al. found high concordance rate of 68% for MZ twins and lower for DZ twins 31%.
Negs of biological explaanrion for OCD: genetic
Environmental risk is also important as OCD often follows trauma. Cromer et al. found 54% of OCD suffers reported traumatic life events (TLE). Many who had the worse symptoms had multiple TLEs. A diathesis- stress may be better explanation.
× There are too many candidate genes implicated in OCD to have predictive value. If we can’t use this knowledge to predict who will develop OCD as many genes are involved, the explanation is of limited usefulness. Though, it may help in developin
Pos of biological explanation for OCD: neural explanations
Application. Explanation has led to effective treatments. Antidepressants reduce OCD by increasing serotonin levels. 17 studies showed SSRIs more effective than placebos (Soomro et al.). Also supports the neural explanation
Negs of neural explanation for OCD biological
Serotonin OCD link may just be because patients are depressed. Patients with OCD often have depression (two illnesses at once is co-morbidity). Level of serotonin found in patients may relate to their depression and not their OCD.
× Correlation doesn’t mean causation. As likely that OCD causes the abnormal functioning in brain areas rather than other way around, or a third factor causes both
Biological treatment for OCD drug therapies positives
Research support. Review of 17 studies showed SSRIs more effective than placebos (Soomro et al.)
✓Drugs are cheaper and non-disruptive to patients compared to alternatives e.g. CBT takes between 5-20 sessions and is expensive to the NHS.
Negs of biological treatments for OCD:drug therapies
Drugs have side effects, e.g. indigestion, blurred vision and loss of sex drive which may effect whether treatment continues.
× OCD often follows trauma (Cromer et al.). As half of OCD patients had traumatic life events, it suggests an environmental cause, so questions use of biological treatments.
What are some irrational beliefs Ellis proposed
Musterbation, Utopianism
Strengths of cognitive explanation for depression
Good supporting evidence for the role of cognitions: Grazioli and Terry assessed 65 pregnant women for cognitive vulnerabilities. Those with faulty thoughts were more likely to develop post- natal depression later. Shows causation.
✓ R.W.A. Forms the basis of CBT (talking therapy). Therapist can challenge negative triad and patient can test it. Evidence shows CBT is effective -81% (March et al.). As changing thought processes is effective, it supports the role of thoughts in depression
Negs of cognitive explanation for depression
Explains reactive depression but depression doesn’t always follow an event. Also, can’t explain symptoms like hallucinations. Matters as only a partial explanation
× Ignores other explanations. E.g. Biological. We know that SSRIs which increase serotonin help depression which implies there is a role for the neurotransmitter.
