Psychopathlogy

Beck-focus on negative things rather than positive.Negative triad.Negative view of yourself, the world,the future.

1)practical application with CBT because we can identify and challenge negative thoughts.Translates well into successful therapy.2)biologically deterministic- doesnt consider neurotransmitters and genes.role of serotonin.

Ellis-acitvating event,belief,consequence. irrational beliefs affect our behaviour and emotional state.

1)believes its the persons cognitive distortions to blame. doesnt take into consideration other factors like family or past experiences.2)doesnt consider the type of depression or expalin the anger that comes from it.

Statistical Infrequency= If you fall around the avergae on a graph you are on the normal distribution which means you are statistically frequent. If you sre above or below this you are statistically infrequent whch mean you are abnormal. eg. high IQ or low IQ means you're abnormal.

a03= 1) just because you fall out of the normal distribution, it isn't always a bad thing. High IQ is seen as being a good thing and doesn't necessarily mean you're abnormal. 2) RLA= idf you are tested and have a low IQ, we can work on it and improve it so the person can reach the normal distribution and can help in school.

Deviation from Social Norms= Society has a shared set of norms and values and if you go against these you are abnormal. eg people with OCD are seen as abormal because they aren't following what is seen as normal to other people

a03= 1) social norms are subjective and chnage over time. Hard to see what is abnormal when for example being homosexual was seen as abnoormal but now it isn't. 2) can be used to justify the removal of unwanted people from society.

Beck-focus on negative things rather than positive.Negative triad.Negative view of yourself, the world,the future.

1)practical application with CBT because we can identify and challenge negative thoughts.Translates well into successful therapy.2)biologically deterministic- doesnt consider neurotransmitters and genes.role of serotonin.

Ellis-acitvating event,belief,consequence. irrational beliefs affect our behaviour and emotional state.

1)believes its the persons cognitive distortions to blame. doesnt take into consideration other factors like family or past experiences.2)doesnt consider the type of depression or expalin the anger that comes from it.

Beck-focus on negative things rather than positive.Negative triad.Negative view of yourself, the world,the future.

1)practical application with CBT because we can identify and challenge negative thoughts.Translates well into successful therapy.2)biologically deterministic- doesnt consider neurotransmitters and genes.role of serotonin.

Ellis-acitvating event,belief,consequence. irrational beliefs affect our behaviour and emotional state.

1)believes its the persons cognitive distortions to blame. doesnt take into consideration other factors like family or past experiences.2)doesnt consider the type of depression or expalin the anger that comes from it.

Deviation from Ideal Mental Health= Jahoda had a criteria of six things you had to meet in order to be normal. Positive self attitide, self actualisation, resistance to stress, perosnal autonomy, accurate perception of reality and adaptation to environment. If these weren't met you were seen as abnormal. Can explain anorexia.

a03=1) seeing if you tick boxes in a checklist isn't a good way of checking if someone devaites from ideal mental health. Ticking boxes like its a physical illness isn't accurate as mental health iis a lot more complicated than that. 2) Not everyone can resist stress especially if they work in a stressful job but that doesnt always mean that they are abnormal. It is aldo hard to judge the criteria for example how much does a person have to resist stress in order to be seen as abnormal?

Failure to function adequatley= Can't keep up with the demands of day to day life.Can experience extreme distress, irrational behaviour and don't respect personal space. Can explain depression

a03=1) Is too similar to deviation from social norms. Not respecting personal space goes against norms a values. 2) you can experinece exteme distress when going through something traumatic like someone dying but can last a short time. Not long enough to consider them abnormal.

Irrational fear of an object or situation.

Behavioural characteristics1):Panic- may cry, scream or runaway when phobic stimlus present 2) Avoidance- Try avoid stimlus unless trying to get over the fear and can affect everyday life 3) Endurance- sufferer in presence of phobic stimous but experinces high levels of anxiety(sometimes unavoidable)

Emotional characteristics = anxiety when feared stimlus is present which is excessive and unreasonable and are out of proportion to the danger posed.

Cognitive Characteristics= 1) selective attention to the phobic stimulus= focusing only on the phobic stimlus can be advantageous with something that poses a threat but with phobias it is irrational. 2) irrational beliefs= hold irrational beliefs about phobic stimulus. 3)Cognitive distortions= distorted perceptions of the feared stimlus

Classical Conditioning = learning via association.When we fear something(unconditioned stimulus) we respond with fear(unconditioned response). When we pair the uncontioned stimullus with something we don't fear(neutral stimulus) it become associated with the unconditioned stimulus and both create a response of fear. the neautral stimulus now becomes a contioned stimulus with a conditioned response of fear.

a03- little albert(research support) - paired loud bang with rats and now afraid of rats. Unethical because he wasn't protected from harm 2) Lab experiment- low ecological validity can't see whether people would even get this much exposure to a neutral stimulus and a unconcontioned stimuls this much

Operant Conditioning= leaning through reinforcement.Negative reinforcement: individual will avoid the phobic stimlus which will result in positive consequences. The person won't feel anxious and will continure to avoid it.

a03- Ignores cognitive explanations. Might be irrational thinking instead of phobias as a reault of learning. 2) ignores evolution - might avoid something because in the past it's been dangeroous for us. We are less scared of cars than we of snakes because cars are new and we are not biologicallly prepeared to learn fear responses from them.

Systematic desensitisation-gradually reduce phobic anxiety by making the sufferer try relax when in presence of the phobic stimulus (new response is learned - counterconditioning). Patient and therapist create an anxiety hierarchy of what they fear most eg holding spider=high anxiety but looking at a pic of one= low. Gradually work through each step while being told to relax which tries to reduce the fear. Move up the hierarchy once they learn how to relax and treatment is succesful once they've done all of them being relaxed

a03- 1)doesn't have the amount of trauma as flloding does so people prefer it.that means there are low attriition rates so people will be unlikely to drop out and carry out the therapy. 2) treats the symptoms but doesnt deal with the underlying cause meaning the fear hasn't really gone.

Flooding-immediate exposure to patients to their phobic stimlus without the build up of an anxiety hierarchy. no oppurtunity to escape so they have to face phobic stimulus. It's important that patient gives informed consent as it can be traumatic

a03-1) really traumatic so some don't see it out until the end. high drop out rates so money annd time can be wasted. 2) not effective for all types of phobis like social phobias which have more cognitive aspects like thinking unpleasant thoughts about the social situation. this type of phobia may benefit from cognitive therapies which will challenge the irrational thoughts.

Behavioural characteristics-1) activity level-reduce levels of energy(severe cases can't get out of bed)2" distruption to eating&sleeping-experience reduced sleep or increased need for sleep and apetite increases or decreases 3)agression&self harm-can become agressive and may cut themselves

Emotional characteristics-1)lowered mood-feel worthless and empty2)anger-frequently experience anger and can lead to agressive behaviour3)lowered self-esteem- sufferers have reported low self esteem

cognitive characteristics-1)poor concentration-unable to stick with a task2)pay more attention to negative aspects and black and white thinking

Beck(CBT) - identify negative thoughts and these get challenged. Homework is set 'thought catching' which is a diary of thoughts of the client which identifies the thoughts that the client has. these thoughts are challenged by setting tasks.

a03-people may need antidepresants before starting therapy as they can't concentrate which is a limitaion as it can't the sole treatment of depression.2) it might be the therapist-client relationship that is effective instead.having someone to talk to may have inputed in their treatment.

Ellis rational emotive behaviour therapy(REBT)- extends ABC model to ABCDE with d for dispute and e for effect. negative thoughts challenged with confrontation and replace their negative thoughts. eg why do you think that? whats the evidence?helps client see realistic perspective

ao3-1) giving drugs is cheaper 2) deals with the issue and can be long lasting

Behavioural characteristics- 1)compulsions are repetitive-feel like they need to repeat behaviour2)compulsions reduce anxiety= repeat to reduce anxiet caused my obsessions3)avoidance=keeping away from things that cause anxiety

Emotional characteristics-1)anxiety&distress=urge to repeat behaaviour causes stress2)accompanying depression=anxiety can come with low mood&compulsive behaviour brings temporary relief3)guilt&disgust=invlolves irrational guilt or disgust at things like dirt

Cognitive characteristics-1)obsessive thoughts=recurring thoughts that are unpleasant eg feeling dirty all the time2)

Genetic explanation-Lewis found that 37% of OCD patients had parents with it and 21% had siblings that had OCD suggesting that OCS vulnerability is passed on. Vulnerability for OCD comes from candidate genes.OCD is polygenic which means that many genes are involved. Taylor said that up to 230 different genes may be involved in OCD. One group of genes may cause OCD in one person but anothr group of genes may have caused OCD in another person.

a03-research support-nestadt et al=reviewd twin studies&found that 68%of identical twins shared OCD opposed to 31% of non identical which suggests genetic influence2) BUT hard to seperate nature and nurture because raised in same environment so reductionist.

Neural explanation - role of serotonin=mood regulator & neurotransmitters responsible for sending messages from one neuron the next.If low levels normal transmission of mood relevant info doesn't take place which can affect mental processes.decision making systems=OCD seem to be associated withh impaired decision making which can be associated with abnormal funtioning of the frontal lobe which is responsible for logical thinking and decision making.

a03-supporting evidence= giving anti depressants have been effective in reducing OCD symptoms which suggests that the serotonin suystem is involved in OCD. 2) OCD may have contributed to the decrease of serotonin instead.

Drug therapy- SSRI's increase the level of serotonin in the synpase by blocking re-absorption of serotonin the the re-synaptic neuron so stimulate the post synaptic neuron. Drugs are often used alongside CBT because they can reduce emotional symptoms and can engage more effictivley in CBT.If SSRI'S don't work other drugs can be used eg trcyclics- same as SSRI'S but have mor severe side effects SNRI'S-increase serotonin aswell as other neurotransmitters

a03-cost effective- cheaper to produce than therapy& saves NHS money2) can have side effexts such as loss of sex drive, blurred vision&indigestion but are usually temporary. more stronger drugs can have side effects like weight gain and tremors so might stop taking the drug.

Beck-focus on negative things rather than positive.Negative triad.Negative view of yourself, the world,the future.

1)practical application with CBT because we can identify and challenge negative thoughts.Translates well into successful therapy.2)biologically deterministic- doesnt consider neurotransmitters and genes.role of serotonin.

Ellis-acitvating event,belief,consequence. irrational beliefs affect our behaviour and emotional state.

1)believes its the persons cognitive distortions to blame. doesnt take into consideration other factors like family or past experiences.2)doesnt consider the type of depression or expalin the anger that comes from it.