Psychopathology Flashcards
What is failure to function adequately?
Unable to cope with ordinary demand s of day to day living like getting out bed and having a shower.
What is deviation from social norms?
Behaviour that is different from the accepted standards of behaviour in a community or society.
What is statistical infrequency?
When an individual has a less common characteristic for example being more depressed or less intelligent from the rest of the population
What is deviation from ideal mental health?
Not meet set criteria for good mental health
What are the behavioural characteristic for a phobia?
Panic
Avoidance , reinforcement
Endurance
What are the cognitive characteristic for a phobia?
Irrational beliefs
Cognitive distortions
Selective attention to the phobic stimuli
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
Anxiety
Fear
Emotional response is unreasonable
what is a strength of statistical infrequency?
statistical infrequency is useful it is used by clinical practice, both as part of formal diagnosis and as a way to asses the severity of an individuals symptoms. for example a diagnosis of intellectual disability disorder requires an iq of below 70. an example of statistical infrequency used is the beck depression inventory a score of 30+ top 5 % respondents is widely interpreted as indicating severe depression. this shows that the value of statistical infrequency criteria is useful in diagnostic and assessment processes.
what is a limitation of statistical infrequency ?
aa limitation is that infrequent characteristics can be positive as well as negative for every person that has an iq below 70 there is a person with an iq above 130. yet we would not think someone as abnormal for having a high iq. same as if someone with a very low depression score on the bdi as abnormal. these examples show that being unusual or at one end of a psychological spectrum does not necessarily make someone abnormal. this means that although statistical infrequency can form part of assessment and diagnosis it is never sufficient as the sole basis for defining abnormality.
what is a strength of deviation from social norms?
it is also useful as it has real world applications it is also used in clinical practice. for example the key defining characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is the failure to conform to culturally acceptable ethical behaviour ie recklessness, aggression violating the rights of others and deceitfulness . these signs of the disorder are all deviation from social norms. such norms pay part in the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder where the term strange is used to characterise the thinking behaviour and appearance of people with the disorder. this suggests that the deviation from social norms criteria has value in psychiatry.
what is a limitation of deviation from social norms?
is the variability between social norms in different cultures and even different situations.
a person from one cultural group may label someone from another group as abnormal using their standards rather then the persons standards. for example the experience of hearing voices is the norm in some cultures as its seen as a message from their ancestors but would be seen as abnormality in most of uk, also even within one cultural context social norms differ from one situation to another. aggressive and deceitful behaviour is the context of family life is more socially acceptable than in context of corporate deal making. this means that its difficult to judge deviation from social norms across different situations and cultures.
what’s a behavioural characteristics of depression?
activity levels
