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Psychopathology Flashcards

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1
Q

What is statistical deviation?

A

-Having a less common characteristic than most of the population, using statistic and averages to define abnormality.

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2
Q

What is normal distribution?

A

-Uses a bell curve to see where person fits, human characteristics are normally distributed with most clustering in middle and only a minority at extremes.

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3
Q

What is intellectual disability disorder?

A

-2% people score below 70 on IQ test, so are “abnormal”= and receive a diagnosis of psychological disorder.

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4
Q

What is the average IQ?

A
  • Average=100.

- Most range from 85 to 115.

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5
Q

What are the strengths of statistical deviation?

A
  • Real life application=diagnosing IDD.

- Useful part of clinical assessment=measure of symptom severity.

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6
Q

What are the weaknesses of statistical deviation?

A
  • Not everyone benefits from being labelled.
  • Doesn’t take desirability into account.
  • Unusual characteristics can be positive and don’t need treatment.
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7
Q

What is deviation from social norms?

A

-Person’s behaviour is abnormal if it violates the unwritten rules about what is acceptable in a particular group.

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8
Q

What are the two types of rules?

A
  • Explicit; breaking the law=criminal

- Implicit; conventional, unwritten rules=deviant.

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9
Q

What is a person’s behaviour like if they deviate from social norms?

A
  • Make others feel threatened.
  • Incomprehensible to others.
  • May be labelled as a psychopath.
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10
Q

What is antisocial personality disorder?

A
  • Psychopath=impulsive, aggressive and irresponsible.

- Person doesn’t conform to moral standards.

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11
Q

How can mental illness be diagnosed?

A
  • Psychologists made up DSM to assess whether someone is mentally ill.
  • 1968;DSM used homosexuality as psychiatric disorder.
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12
Q

What is drapetomania?

A
  • Dr Samuel Cartwright believed slaves who tried to flee were mentally ill.
  • Cure was to whip them, and cut toes.
  • This was done to keep slaves for the economy.
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13
Q

What are the strengths of deviation from social norms?

A
  • Real-life application; diagnosing APD.

- Useful definition; identify mental illness because we can learn what we expect from people.

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14
Q

What are the weaknesses of deviation from social norms?

A
  • Risk of abusing human rights=drapetomania.
  • Social norms change over time.
  • Social norms change within cultures
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15
Q

What is failure to function adequately?

A
  • Unable to cope with demand of life.

- People are abnormal when they can’t perform tasks like hygiene.

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16
Q

When is someone failing to function adequately?

A
  • Rosenhan and Seligman proposed signs;
  • Maladaptiveness.
  • Experience severe distress.
  • Can’t maintain eye contact.
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17
Q

What is a GAF?

A

-Global assessment of functioning scale, the criteria needed to assess whether someone is functioning adequately.

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18
Q

What is the Rosenhan study?

A
  • Concluded psychiatrists can’t tell difference between sane and insane people.
  • PP told fake name and symptoms to gain access to hospital then stopped them.
  • None were detected, and admitted with schizophrenia.
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19
Q

What are the strengths of failure to function adequately?

A
  • Easy to judge objectively (not influenced)=use lists of behaviours.
  • Includes subjective experiences of individual.
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20
Q

What are the weaknesses of failure to function adequately?

A
  • May not be objectively judged.
  • Difficult to decide whether someone is failing to function or just deviating from social norms.
  • Different cultures have different norms.
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21
Q

What is deviation from ideal mental health?

A

-Ignores the issue of what makes a person abnormal and focuses on what makes them normal.

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22
Q

What is Jahoda’s criteria?

A
  • Jahoda proposed criteria for optimal living;
  • Positive self-attitude. -Resistance to stress. -Accurate perception of reality. -Individual autonomy. -Self-actualisation. -Environmental mastery.
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23
Q

What are the strengths of deviation from ideal mental health?

A
  • Very comprehensive and covers a broad range of criteria.
  • Focuses on positives and what is normal.
  • Range of factors in criteria=good tool.
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24
Q

What’s the weaknesses of deviation from ideal mental health?

A
  • Sets unrealistically high standards=few can achieve full criteria so all seen as abnormal.
  • Some ideas are culture bound.
  • Difficulty of self-actualisation.
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25
Q

What is a phobia?

A

-An irrational fear of an object or situation.

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26
Q

What is behavioural, emotional and cognitive?

A
  • Behavioural; ways in which people act.
  • Emotional; ways in which people feel.
  • Cognitive; refers to the process of thinking.
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27
Q

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

A
  • Panic.
  • Endurance.
  • Avoidance.
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28
Q

What is panic?

A

-Phobic panics in response to phobia, includes crying, screaming and running away.

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29
Q

What is endurance?

A

-Phobic remains in presence of phobia but continues to experience high levels of anxiety.

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30
Q

What is avoidance?

A

-Phobic goes to a lot of effort to avoid the phobic stimulus, makes everyday life hard.

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31
Q

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

A
  • Anxiety.
  • Arachnophobia (example).
  • Unreasonable emotional response.
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32
Q

What is anxiety?

A

-Unpleasant state of high arousal, prevents sufferer from relaxing.

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33
Q

What is arachnophobia?

A

-Fear of spiders, so person’s anxiety levels will increase when in a place associated with this phobia.

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34
Q

What are unreasonable emotional responses?

A

-Response is irrational in relation to the phobic stimulus.

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35
Q

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

A
  • Selective attention.
  • Irrational beliefs.
  • Cognitive distortions.
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36
Q

What is selective attention?

A

-If phobic sees stimulus it’s hard to look away, very helpful if phobia is dangerous but unhelpful if it’s irrational.

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37
Q

What are irrational beliefs?

A

-Phobic has irrational thoughts about the phobia.

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38
Q

What are cognitive distortions?

A

-Phobic’s perception of phobia will be exaggerated and distorted, e.g. may see snakes as alien like.

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39
Q

What is the two-process model?

A
  • States phobia is acquired and maintained by conditioning.

- Mowrer suggested the model.

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40
Q

How can classical conditioning treat phobias?

A

-Learning to associate something of which we initially have no fear with something that triggers fear.

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41
Q

How can operant conditioning treat phobias?

A

-Phobias maintained by operant conditioning, when we avoid phobia we avoid fear and reinforces avoidance behaviour and phobia is maintained.

42
Q

What is the Little Albert experiment?

A

-Watson created phobia in 9-month old baby, shown rat (NS) then began to make loud bang (US) with rat, over time this created fear when rat shown (CS) which produced CR.

43
Q

What are the strengths of the two-process model?

A
  • Therapy based on two process model and successful at treating phobias.
  • Model was a big step forward as it went beyond classical conditioning.
44
Q

What are the weaknesses of the two-process model?

A
  • Ethical issues=using child in lab.
  • Artificial environment.
  • Small sample=lacks validity.
45
Q

What is systematic desensitisation?

A
  • Therapy to gradually reduce phobic anxiety, extinguishes fear by replacing it with relaxation.
  • Cannot feel fear and relaxation at the same time.
46
Q

What are the three processes of systematic desensitisation?

A
  • Anxiety hierarchy.
  • Relaxation.
  • Exposure.
47
Q

What is the anxiety hierarchy?

A
  • List related to phobic stimulus, so therapist may show pictures from least to most scary.
  • Client moves to next stage when fully relaxed.
48
Q

What is relaxation?

A

-Therapist teaches patient to relax as deeply as possible, e.g. breathing techniques or imagining phobic stimulus.

49
Q

What is exposure?

A

-Patient is exposed to phobic stimulus whilst in a relaxed state.

50
Q

What are the strengths of systematic desensitisation?

A
  • Research shows it’s effective in treatment.
  • Appropriate for diverse range of patients.
  • Acceptable by patients=low refusal rate.
51
Q

What are the weaknesses of systematic desensitisation?

A
  • May take patient a long time to fully relax when in therapy sessions.
  • Symptom substitution=one phobia disappears another may appear.
52
Q

What is flooding?

A

-Exposing phobic to phobia but without gradual build up, involves immediate exposure to frightening situation.

53
Q

How does flooding work?

A

-Client will be extremely fearful at first but cannot maintain high level of arousal and panic so fear will subside.

54
Q

What are the strengths of flooding?

A

-Highly effective=patients free of their phobia fast therefore cheaper.

55
Q

What are the weaknesses of flooding?

A
  • Symptom substitution.
  • Unpleasant experience and may be a risk to health.
  • Treatment can be traumatic for some.
56
Q

What is OCD?

A

-Serious anxiety-related condition where person experiences intrusive and obsessive thoughts, followed by urges and compulsions.

57
Q

What are examples of compulsions?

A
  • Behavioural.

- Washing, checking, hoarding.

58
Q

What are examples of obsessions?

A

Emotional.

-Need for symmetry, fear of contamination.

59
Q

What are the behavioural characteristics of OCD?

A
  • Compulsions are repetitive.
  • Compulsions reduce anxiety.
  • Avoidance.
60
Q

What are the emotional characteristics of OCD?

A
  • Anxiety and distress.
  • Guilt and disgust.
  • Accompanying depression.
61
Q

What are the cognitive characteristics of OCD?

A
  • Obsessive thoughts.
  • Cognitive strategies to deal with obsessions.
  • Insight into excessive anxiety.
62
Q

What is the genetic explanation to OCD?

A
  • Genes involved in individual vulnerability to OCD.
  • Lewis (1936) suggests OCD runs in family and passed on by genetic vulnerability.
  • Stress-diathesis model.
63
Q

What are candidate genes?

A
  • Create vulnerability for OCD.

- Some are involved in regulating serotonin system.

64
Q

Why is OCD polygenic?

A
  • Not caused by one gene but several.

- Taylor (2013)=found 230 different genes.

65
Q

What are the different types of OCD?

A

-Different genes cause OCD in different people due to genetic variations.

66
Q

What are the strengths of genetic explanations?

A
  • Support evidence=twin studies, 68% IT shared OCD compared to 31% N-IT twins.
  • Lewis (1936)=37% of OCD patients had parents with OCD.
67
Q

What are the weaknesses of genetic explanations?

A
  • Too many candidate genes=can’t pin down which cause what.
  • Environmental risk factor=genes aren’t only factor causing OCD.
  • Twin studies flawed=raised in same environment.
68
Q

What are neural explanations?

A

-Genes associated with OCD affect levels of key neurotransmitters and structures of brain.

69
Q

What is the role of serotonin?

A
  • Regulate mood.

- If low levels of serotonin=transmission of mood-relevant info can’t take place.

70
Q

What is the decision-making system?

A

-Some OCD caused by impaired decision making=abnormal functioning of lateral frontal lobes of brain.

71
Q

What are the strengths of neural explanations?

A

-Some supporting evidence; some antidepressants work on serotonin system=effective and show serotonin plays a part in OCD.

72
Q

What are the weaknesses of neural explanations?

A
  • Serotonin-OCD may be co-morbidity with depression.

- Not clear what neural mechanisms are involved.

73
Q

What is drug therapy?

A

-Increase/decrease levels of neurotransmitters in the brain to increase/decrease their activity.

74
Q

What are SSRIs?

A
  • Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors=antidepressant drugs to reduce OCD symptoms.
  • Increase levels of serotonin.
75
Q

How do SSRI’s work?

A
  • SSRIs block the reabsorption (reuptake) of serotonin in the brain, making more serotonin available.
  • By synaptic transmission.
76
Q

What is combining SSRI’s with other treatments?

A
  • Drugs often used with CBT.

- Reduce patient’s emotional symptoms-can engage more in CBT.

77
Q

What are alternatives to SSRI’s?

A
  • Used when SSRI’s aren’t effective after 3 months.
  • Tricyclics=e.g. clomipramine=same effect as SSRI’s.
  • SNRI’s= reserve for those who don’t respond to SSRI’s.
78
Q

What are the strengths of drug therapy?

A
  • Drugs are cost-effective and non-disruptive=don’t have to engage in CBT.
  • Effective at tackling symptoms=70% declined.
79
Q

What are the weaknesses of drug therapy?

A
  • Unreliable evidence for drug treatments=research is biased for drug companies.
  • Side effects= blurred vision, loss of sex drive.
  • OCD may follow trauma.
80
Q

What are the behavioural characteristics of depression?

A
  • Activity levels lowered.
  • Disrupted sleeping and eating.
  • Aggression and self harm.
81
Q

What are the emotional characteristics of depression?

A
  • Lowered mood.
  • Anger.
  • Lowered self-esteem.
82
Q

What are the cognitive characteristics of depression?

A
  • Poor concentration.
  • Negativity.
  • Absolutist thinking (only worst case scenarios).
83
Q

What are the two cognitive approaches to explaining depression?

A
  • Beck’s cognitive theory.

- Ellis’ ABC model.

84
Q

What is Beck’s cognitive theory?

A
  • Cognitive approach to explain why some are more vulnerable to depression.
  • Three parts to cognitive vulnerability; -FAULTY INFO PROCESSING, NEGATIVE SELF-SCHEMAS and NEGATIVE TRIAD.
85
Q

What is faulty information processing?

A

-When depressed we focus on negative aspects and blow small problems out of proportion, e.g. won £1 million but last week someone won £10 million, they would focus on that rather than their prize.

86
Q

What are negative self-schemas?

A
  • Self-schema; package of beliefs about ourselves.

- Negative self-schema;interpret all info about ourselves negatively.

87
Q

What is the negative triad?

A
  • 3 types of negative automatic thinking.
    1) Negative view of the world.
    2) Negative view of the future.
    3) Negative view of self.
88
Q

What are the strengths of Beck’s theory?

A
  • Supporting evidence=depression is associated with negative triad Terry (2000) and 65 pregnant women.
  • Practical application of CBT=can be used to treat depression.
89
Q

What are the weaknesses of Beck’s theory?

A
  • Doesn’t explain all aspects of depression=anger and hallucinations.
  • Cognitive primacy=other theories see emotion as cause of depression.
90
Q

What is Ellis’ ABC model?

A 
-Stated that bad mental health is result of irrational thoughts and depression occurs due to;
Activating event (A) which triggers irrational beliefs (B) and produce a consequence (C).
91
Q

What is the A in the ABC model?

A
  • Activating event.

- Can be a negative event like failing a test.

92
Q

What is the B in the ABC model?

A
  • Beliefs.

- Identified a range of beliefs,

93
Q

What is the C in the ABC model?

A
  • Consequences.

- As a result of irrational beliefs.

94
Q

What are the strengths of the ABC model?

A
  • Practical application in CBT=reduce depression by challenging beliefs.
  • Supporting evidence=studies with children show if no attachment to parent then more vulnerable.
95
Q

What are the weaknesses of the ABC model?

A
  • Partial explanation=only apply to some kinds of depression.
  • Doesn’t explain all aspects of depression=e.g. anger or hallucinations.
96
Q

What is cognitive behaviour therapy?

A
  • Start with assessment of patient’s problems, goals are set.
  • Identify irrational thoughts.
  • Change irrational thoughts to effective behaviour.
97
Q

What is Beck’s cognitive therapy?

A
  • Negative triad identified + thoughts challenged.

- Aim to help test reality of patient negative beliefs and set homework, e.g. note down positive event.

98
Q

What is Ellis’ REBT?

A
  • Rational emotional behaviour therapy.
  • Dispute and Effect (D&E) added to ABC model.
  • Dispute=argument, effect=the change.
99
Q

What are the strengths of CBT?

A
  • Effective=March (2007) shows CBT is as effective as antidepressants.
  • Inexpensive=patients can attend regularly and no side effects.
100
Q

What are the weaknesses of CBT?

A
  • May not work for severe cases.
  • Committed approach is required for CBT to work.
  • Success may be due to patient-therapist relationship not CBT.

Psychopathology (Psychology) (1 decks)

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