psychopathlogy

Deviation from social norms: Behavior that violates social rules is considered abnormal
Failure to function adequately: This abnormality is the failure to cope with the demands of day to day life
Statistical infrequency: Behavior that deviates from the norm or the average
Deviation from ideal mental health: is the failure to meet the criteria for psychological well being

+ Real life applications in diagnosing mental illness, useful in clinical assessments when diagnosing mental illness
+ takes into accunt the desirability of the behaviour
- social norms specific to culture, not applicable to everyone
- social norms not constant - some express individualism and not break norms

Rosenhan and Seligman suggested features: observer discomfort, unpredicatbility, irrationality, maladptiveness, personal suffering and distress
+ acknowldges opinions and felingns of the patient like personal distress
- abnormality not associated with functionality, depressed people have perfect lives
- might be a choice, to not work doesnt mean cant function
- not objective to abnormality, the set of criteria is subjective to what is considered functioning

less frequently a behavior occurs in people, the more likely it is to be abnormal, based on the mathematical principle of normal distribution
+ Real life applications + objective
- does not take into account the desirability of the behavior. - era dependent - culture relativity

Jahoda: Positive attitude towards self, Self actualisation, Resistance to stress, Autonomy, Accurate perception of reality, Environmental mastery
+ detailed criteria that covers most aspects of mental health
+ Approach has value and is positive, doesnt look at whats wrong
- ideas rooted in a western view, autonomy ans SA not in other cultures
- difficult to meet all criteria, then everyone is abnormal?

an irrational fearful anxiety response to a specific object or situation
shows presistent fear, psychological symptoms of relentessness and distress, irrationality, physical symptoms, nausea, avoid the object situation

Specific phobia: sufferers anxious in the presence of the object or the situation
Social phobia: sufferers experience appropriate anxiety in social situations
Agoraphobia: sufferers anxious when they are in a situation that they cannot easily leave

Two model theory: acquired - classical conditioning maintained - operant conditioning
CC: asssociation between neutral stimulus and unconditional stimulus to prduce response
associating a neutral stimulus with a fear response. Watson and Ryner: conditioned little albert to a fear of white rat
wite rat - NS, NS paired with unconditional stimulus (loud noise)

OC: learning through consequences such as reward and punishment.
reduction in anxiety due to escape - rewarding. anxiety reduction - negative reinforcement (removal of unpleasasnt stimulus). readily acquire phobias to some objects more than others. Seligman: beefeicial for survival of our ancestors, biologically prepared to react anxiously to things than threatened our ancestors, also exlains why no clear conditioning event leads to phobias

presented with various stimulus fear relevant images (spiders) and irrelevant (flowers)
paired with brief electric shock, measured anxiety levells when shown photos again without electric shocks. fewer es needed for fear relevant , learnt response for irrelevant stimuli dissappears, relevant presisted. natural tendency to fear some things than others.

- subjected to a stressful experience
- None of the ps had phobic reactions, may have produced new phobia
- eventho consent taken, the costs of the procedure outweighs the benefits

- supporting study watson and rayner (little alberts, fear is learnt by association)
- supporting study bandura and rosenthal (developed fear by looking at confederate react to electric shock vicarious classical conditioning)
- supporting evidence dinardo et al (60% of people with a fear of dogs could relate the fear to a particular frightening experience) and Munjack half of the people with a driving phobia related their phobia to frightening or traumatic experience in a car

- Not all people develop phobia due to an identifiable fearful incident - DiNardo, in the control group (no phobia of dogs) a similar proportion of ps had experienced a fearful incident with a dog but had not developed a phobia and Munjack half of the ps in the control group did not have a phobia despite having a frightening or traumatic experience
- doesnt explain why we have pobias of things that we have never experienced
- conditioning doesnt always explain phobias, snakes explained by seligmans theory of biological preparedness

Aim of behavioral therapy - to remove the conditioned association between the fear and the situation/object
Therapies: systematic desensitizationby working through an anxiety hierarchy in a relaxed state
flooding therapy: where a person is inescapably exposed to the object of their phobia.

by joseph wolpe. Hierarchy of fear, based on principle cant be in relaxation and fear - reciprocal inhibitin. 1. teach relaxation techniques 2. once in relaxation, therapist develops hierachy of fear 3. think about the incidients starting from the bottom may use in vivo desenssitization or covert desensitization 4. move up in each session while remainng in state of relaxation, association between stimulus and response extinguished

Putting the phobic person in a situation where they would be forced to face their phobia, inescapable exposure lasts until the fear response disappears, no option of avoidance, get exausted and worn out so relax, imp to not end session before reductiom in anxiety or may reinforce the phobia instead. involves presenting feared object - in vivo exposure of in vitro expsure (implosin therapy)

+ effective when know the source of phobia but not when dont knw the source
+ supportive studies, choy et al, social phobia and agrophobia treated with exposure. SD and f effective for subtypes of phobias
+ willis and edwards compare sd, imploision therapy and control, sd showed best outcme
+ sd not stressful, unlike f, lower refusal rate and drop out rate + gilroy et al

- requires exposure, causes anxiety, needs to be motivated and committed
- need to be carried out by trained therapist with medical supervision, shipley and boudewyns found that flooding produces serious side effects.
- less effective for scial phobias, more congitive responses than behavioural
- time consuming - not for all phobias as ohman says for things that have evolutionary prpose

a complex disorder affecting a person mentally, emotionally and physically, characcterised by low mood, making the sufferer unable to function normally.
behavioural, congitive and emotional symptoms

d is a disorder of thought rather thaan mood, unhappy experiences develop negative self schemas, self critical ways of thinking leads to faulty logic and flawed interpretation of events (errors of logic cognitive distortions or biases) have absolutists thinkng and catastrophising things. use negative self schema to interpret everything about themselves in a negative way (generalisation) negative views of self, future, the world

overgeneralisation - make general conclusions based on single events
personaisation - negative feelings of others attributed to something about you
minimisation - underplaying positive events
magnification exaggerating negative events
selective abstraction: focus on negatives, ignore positives.

3 types of self schema in individuals vulnerable to depression
sociotrophic schemas: see themselves at failing at relationships, interpersonal r and attachemnts
autonomous schemas: personal achievement/social rank , failing to achieve goals in life/work
self critical schemas: persons perceptions of their shortcomings

emotional problems and associated maladaptive behaviour is the result to irrational thinking.
not the life event but how we thnik about it / beliefsleads to depression, happiness can be blocked, the raction can be rational or irrational (rise to depression) - ABC model
Activating event - beliefs - consequence

a treatement which focuses on identifying negative beliefs andd altering dysfunctional behaviours. (by Beck)
identify and alter negative beliefs and expectations, use techniues like: behavioural activation, graded hw assignments, thought catching, cognitive restrcturing, problem solving.

based on ABC, developed rational emotive behaviour therapy.
goal - challenge irrational beliegs into rational ones. not easy because ppl cling on to beliefs (musturbatory thinking) - three musts: must do well and win approaval, others must treat me kindly, life must be easy. REBT tackle mustabatory irrational thoughts, acept thers..irrational changed to rational being removed from an unhealthy reaction ABC reverse

+ Lloyd and Lishman: depressed people have negative thinking, stimulus words given asked to recal pleasant/ unpleasant experiences, low level depressed ppl recall pleasant exp faster than deeper d, time increases with severity
+ Hamen and Krantz: errors in logic (d ppl pron to this acc to cognitive theories), diagnosed depressed people make more errors in logic in their interpretations than non-depressed participants.
+ cognitive theories beneficial, more research stimulated, allows treatements and explanations
- neurochemistry research, depression because of low serotonin and negative thoughts result of depression. dont know if negative thoughts cause of d of symptom

+ effectiveness of CBT, RObinson, psych therapies equal to drug therapy
+ Cbt is as effective as medication in reducing symptoms in the acute phase, superior to drug therapy in treating residual symptoms
+ appropriate for all ages and types of d, flexibl treatement, telephone, NICE approves interactve software programmes 2 programmes supported by NHS
+ reaches the root of the problem

- depends on the skill of the therapist, kyuken and tsivrikos found out outcome of cbt varies with complexitity and comorbdidity, competent therapist = better patient outcomes
- not appropriate for everyne, unmovitvated, lazy people. simon et al cbt not good for people with rigid attitudes
- robinson: not more effective than placebo in removing symptom

- christensen et al looks at effectiveness on online cbt form on MDD (moodgym)
ps assigned to mood gym, blue pages and control condition
- outcome measured using clinical deression scale and dysfunctional thoughts qstnrs
- moodgym equal to face to face cbt and drug therapy in effectiveness
- mood gym cost and time effectiveness.