Psychopathology Flashcards
Strength of “failure to function adequately”
- Easily measurable
Limitation of “failure to function adequately”
- Not everyone with a mental health disorder is unable to function
Strength of “Deviation from ideal mental health”
- Allows the patient to set goals and see ideal mental health as an achievable target
Weakness of “Deviation from ideal mental health”
- Many of Jahoda’s 6 criteria seem unachievable for many people without them being abnormal - particularly “self-actualisation” and “environmental mastery”
Evidence for the two-process model of phobia creation? Classical
Little Albert - bang of metal rod associated with white rat, produced fear response
Evidence for the two-process model of phobia creation? Operant and classical
Barlow + Durand - 50% of people with a phobia of driving said it begun after a traumatic event, with many of these people still avoiding driving (supporting operant conditioning of avoidance)
Strengths of flooding
- Cost-effective treatment, only one session is required. - Research support, Kaplan and Tolin found that after one session 65% of ppts didn’t experience the phobia again 4 years later
Weaknesses of flooding
Could be seen to be unethical, especially when it doesn’t work. Kaplan + Tolin 35% of ppts’ phobia returned within 4 years or wasn’t cured. Potential for greater harm, strengthened phobia, breakdown
Strengths of systematic desensitization
- Öst’s study revealed 90% of ppts repoorted their phobia not having returned 4 years, higher than the 65% in Kaplan and Tolin’s flooding study
Weaknesses of systematic desensitisation
- More expensive to carry out than flooding as required multiple sessions
- May not work as well for social phobias and agoraphobias
Emotional symptoms of depression
Low mood, loss of pleasure
Cognitive symptoms of depression
Irrational negative beliefs, difficulty concentrating
Behavioural symptoms of depression
Social withdrawal, change in sleep patterns, change in appetite
Criteria to be diagnosed with depression
5 or more symptoms, including at least one emotional, for 2+ weeks
Defintion of manic depression
Depressive and manic episodes, each lasting a week or more
Ellis ABC model
A - activating event. B - belief about causes of A. C - consequences of these beliefs
Beck’s negative triad
Irrational negative beliefs about the self, world and future
Support for negative cognitive biases in depression
Koster et al. study, control of non-depressed compared with depressed people shown a distractor word before quickly indicating where a shape appeared on a screen. They all took roughly the same time for positive/neutral words but negative words took depressed group longer
Evidence against cognitive explanations for depression: Alloy
Alloy and Abramson asked patients what they thought the level of contingency between them pressing a button and whether is controlled a flashing light - finding depressed patients estimated more accurately - “sadder but wiser” hypothesis
Evidence against cognitive explanations for depression: Biological
McGuffin et al. found in MZ twins concordance rate was 46%, however in DZ twins it was 20%, sugesting a genetic influence
Theory behind CBT
Identify negative beliefs, challenge them, test their hypothesis, evaluate the evidence behind in
Strength of CBT
Study support from Cuijpers et al. shows ppts experienced significant improvement in symptoms over control group
Limitations to CBT
- May not be suitable for everyone, there are individual differences in depression and this is also reflected in Cuijper’s study. - Biological treatments involving SSRIs have been found to be effective and the seratonin explanation has been supported by research
Which two genes are implicated in OCD?
The COMT gene which controls production of dopamine - a variation of this gene which has lower activity and produces more dopamine has been linked to OCD (Tulek et al.) The SERT gene, which controls transport of seratonin and creates lower levels of it, has also been implicated, and Ozaki et al. found a mutation of the SERT gene in 2 unrelated families where 6/7 family members had OCD
