Psychopathology Flashcards
what is the deviation from social norms definition of abnormality?
Abnormality is a violation of acceptable patterns of behaviour
which are the implicit (common expectations) or explicit (enforced by law) norms set by society
What are the evaluation points for deviating from social norms?
Cultural relativism- Behavior cannot be judged unless it is viewed in the context of the society/culture it originates from
As social norms are not universal to all cultures
Limitation: Cannot distinguish between eccentric and pathologically abnormal behavior, just because someone acts outside of social norms does not determine if they have a mental disorder or not
What is the ICD or DUSM
book in America/ Europe used to determine symptoms of all mental disorders
Outline statistical infrequency as an explanation to abnormality
A certain trait lies very far away from the measures of central tendency
so is statistically abnormal
evaluation of statistical infrequency
Quantitive data: so allows us to make standardised procedures with no ambiguous differences
Desirability: Having an extreme of certain trait may be desirable and so not considered abnormal e.g. High IQ
Outline what failure to function adequately is
Is being unable to live a normal life and present correct behaviour to society
evaluate a failure to function adequately
Could be some people choose to live a different lifestyle that doesn’t meet how society expects them to function
Some people may be distressed but not suffering from failing to function so is very subjective
Outline a deviation from ideal mental health
Outlines what a normal mental health should be so abnormality is an absence of this
it outlined by the PAPERS anagram
What is PAPERS
P- positive self view
A- Accurate view of reality
P- personal autonomy
E- Environmental mastery
R- resistance to stress
S- Self Actualisation
Evaluate deviations from ideal mental health
The criteria is subjective are cannot be operationalised(e.g. you can’t define someone’s view of themselves)
Has a holistic approach as it focuses on a wide range of psychological elements
what are the 3 types of phobias?
specific phobia - extreme anxiety to a particular object
Social phobia - experience extreme anxiety when thinking or being in social situations
Agoraphobia- Anxious when in situations they cannot leave
What are behavioral characteristics of phobias
Panic avoidance/ endurance
freezing/ running away
what are emotional characteristics of phobias
Excessive fear or anxiety that is disporptionate to the danger at hand
what are cognitive characteristics of phobias
Selective attention, irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions
Describe mawer’s two process behavioral model
Phobia’s are gained through classical conditioning
Learned to associate the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned response
until it becomes the conditioned stimulus = the conditioned response
they are maintained by operant conditioning
Avoidance of the phobia reduces anxiety which is rewarding leading to negative reinforcement
OR social learning theory in which a child may copy an adults response in order to get attention as it it rewarding.
Strengths of the behavioral approach at explaining phobia’s
The treatment of systematic desensitization are based on reversal of classical conditioning by teaching them to associate relaxation with the phobia
And this done by flooding as it wants to extinct learned fear responses
Watson’s and Raynor’s (Little Albert) - the child did gain a phobia through conditioned association
Limitations of the behaviorist two process model
Ni Dardo- Only 60% of their sample who had a phobia of dogs could recall a frightful experience which had caused it. So classical conditioning cannot explain all phobia’s
LINK
to diathesis stress model which dictates that some people have a genetic vulnerability for developing phobias which can only be manifested by a frightful event
Seligman- evolutionary developed to have learned association between life threatening stimuli and anxiety LINKS to Ohman et al people needed fewer electric shocks to condition a response to fear relevant stimuli then fear irrelevant stimuli
Describe systematic desensitization
Is counter conditioning treatment to phobias
Patient is in a state of relaxation (muscle stimulation or breathing) and fear from phobia simultaneously (reciprocal inhibition)
Work together to go through desensitation hierarchy either with in vivo or covert stimuli until they no longer have a fear response
Describe flooding
Exposed to phobia immediately until fear response disappears
as the fear response reduces so will the anxiety associated with the phobia
however session cannot end until a reduction in anxiety as it may reinforce the phobia
A03 of phobia treatments
Strengths: Supporting evidence from McGrath found 75% of patients respond with systematic desensiation. Success relies with contact with phobia comapared to CBT therapy
Easy to use as CBT requires a lot of mental energy from the patient to want to understand their behavior
Limitations - Patients have to be highly motivated to take part as it involves their phobia
Case study of little Hans- Unless the real cause of anxiety is dealt with then symptoms of Phobia will remain as anxiety was projected onto a horse.
Describe what is needed in order to be depressed
According to DSM- 5 of the following symptoms everyday for a minimum of 2 weeks.
Behavioral symptoms-Loss of energy
social impairment
weight changes (5% increase of decrease in a month)
Emotional symptoms- Annedonia
feelings of guilt or worthlessness
Cognitive symptoms - Delusions
Suicidal thoughts
what is reactive depression vs endogenous depression?
Reactive depression- Caused after experiencing a stressful event such as a death
Endogenous - from within the person such as hormonal imbalances
Describe Beck’s negative triad?
Only works under the assumption that the depression is caused by irrational thoughts and distorted thoughts and beliefs.
A disorder of thoughts causes the negative triad
Negative view of the self
leads to negative view of future
leads to negative view of the world
According to Beck where do disorders in thoughts come from?
Come from negative preconceived ideas in childhood which leads to a negative schema and thus have errors of logical cognitive distortions
What is Ellis’s ABC model?
A- Is the activating event which triggers the irrational belief
B- Beliefs such as always needing to be perfect (Musturbation) and failing triggers depression
C- Consquences Having undesirable emotions and beliefs when something doesn’t go right.
what are Beck’s errors of logic cognitive distortions
Overgeneralization- ‘this always happens to me’
Personalization-‘he doesn’t like me bc of xyz’
Minimization-‘I didn’t deserve that good grade’
Magnification-‘I couldn’t do that skill I’m so bad at everything’
Selective Abstraction-‘Despite everything that went well in an interview you focus on what went wrong’
Outline one way a psychologist might treat depression by challenging irrational thoughts
Empirical disputing part of the ABCDE ELLIs’s model (dispute and effect)
A reinforcement of positive beliefs e.g nobody thinks they are worthless
Give 2 strengths to the explanation of depression
Strengths:
Hammen and kratz- found evidence that supports the cognitive errors in logic, Gave FEMALE participants a text about people in a negative situation. Those with depression had more errors in their interpretation then the control group
The treatment for depression is supported by the explanation, as it challanges the negative thinking
supports Beck’s negative triad- empirical disputing
give 2 limitations to the explanation of depression
In endogenous depression - depression is caused by an insufficiency in secretion. Lacks validity as the cognitive approach is not sufficient
Alloy and abrahmsom- Depressed peoples thoughts are not irrational only seem irrational as they found depressed people gave more accurate estimates of the likelihood of a disaster then control
Explain the biological treatment of depression
Drug therapy- Main usage is through SSRI’s
Block the reuptake of serotonin to help with negative thoughts and low depressed mood
A03 of biological treatment of depression
SSRI’S support the those with endogenous depression
can work alongside CBT therapy, they only work after a few weeks but may have side effects which put people off from having them
support those with comorbidity as they help other disorder symptoms e.g OCD
Reductionist to see depression as a hormonal imbalance?
explain the cognitive approach to treating depression
Beck’s cognitive therapy- identify negative thoughts about themselves, world or future, it then sets out to test the reality of these thoughts to disprove irrational self-beliefs
ELLIS- REBT - dispute irrational thoughts through empirical disputing and logical disputing such as identifying the patients claim of life being unfair as utopianism in order to break the link between life and depression
A03 of treatment to depression strengths:
March- found in a study of 327 adolescents 81% of them had improved by CBT therapy - seen as very prevalent in the NHS system
Cbt is more ethical- sets up the person with positive beliefs to retain a positive mental health for the long term.
Limitations to treatment of depression
CBT is an active process that requires the person to want to understand and negate their belief’s also dependent on a good therapist patient relationship
goes against Beck’s idea of coming from preconceived ideas from childhood, CBT only focuses on the future
Behavioural explanations of OCD
Hindered everyday functioning
social impairment
behaviours are repetitive
Emotional symptoms
Extreme anxiety
cognitive symptoms
recurrent thoughts
realisation of inappropriateness
Attentional bias/selective attention to the causation
A01of OCD
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety-related disorder characterized by persistent, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours or mental acts (compulsions) performed to reduce anxiety.
what is the genetic explanation of OCD consist of?
Twin/family studies- Nedstat et al found family members have a 11.7% chance of having OCD compared to controls
Miguel et al - On monozygotic twins found they were 53-87% more likely to gain OCD.
- Candidate genes COMT gene - controls production of dopamine ,one allele of COMT is more common in OCD patients then without
SERT- gene - affects the transport of serotonin - Idea of OCD being a polygenic disorder and aetiologically heterozygous- caused by different combinations of genes
What is the neural explanation of OCD?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety-related disorder characterized by persistent, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours or mental acts (compulsions) performed to reduce anxiety.
what does the neural explanation consist of?
2.Abnormal brain circuits
3.Supporting evidence from brain imaging and SSRI’ s
explain how the brain structures support the neural explanation of OCD
- worry circuit consists of the basal ganglia, orbitofrontal cortex and the thalamus
if the OFC is overactive it is passed back creating a loop of overactive thoughts and thus receptive compulsions in order to break this loop
frontal cortex is needed to make logical decisions
2.the caudate nucleus which helps to filter out unnecessary thoughts is impaired in OCD
what is the biochemical explanation of OCD?
serotonin has a role in preventing repetition of tasks , a lack of it leads to a loss in the mechanism that inhibits task repetition
SERT gene is too overactive causing less serotonin to be present in the synapses
A03 of the biochemical explanation of OCD
the treatment of OCD supports this explanation as SSRI’S increase the amount of serotonin in between synapses by slowing down the transmission of the post synapse neuron
thoron et al- found higher serotonin metabolite in the spinal fluid of those with OCD, after treatment it decreased.
A03 of the neural explanation of OCD
Max et al- found that surgery separates the basal ganglia and the OFC stopped the symptoms of OCD giving support to the worry circuit
PET Scans- consistently found abnormalities in the basal ganglia and OFC
