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Psychology > Psychopathology AO1 > Flashcards

Psychopathology AO1 Flashcards

1
Q

What are the 4 different definitions of abnormality?

A

Deviation from social norms

Failure to function adequately

Statistical infrequency

Deviation from ideal mental health

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2
Q

What is a summary of deviation from social norms?

A

Abnormal behaviour is that which goes against/contravenes unwritten rules/expectations in a given society/culture

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3
Q

What are the two categories of social norms?

A

Implicit norms

Explicit laws

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4
Q

What is an example of an explicit law?

A

One must wear clothes in public places

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5
Q

What is an example of an implicit norm?

A

Don’t talk loud in a library

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6
Q

What does deviation from social norms say happens if someone does deviate or break social norms?

A

This is a way to identify them as abnormal

Potentially in need of a psychiatric diagnosis

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7
Q

What is an example of abnormality?

A

Anti-social personality disorder –> Absence of pro-social internal standards, failure to conform to culturally normative behaviours and do not conform to moral standards

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8
Q

What is a summary of failure to function adequately?

A

Abnormal behaviour is that which causes person distress/anguish or an inability to cope with everyday life/maladaptiveness

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9
Q

Who came up with the signs associated with failure to function adequately?

A

Rosenhan and Seligman

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10
Q

What are the 5 signs used to determine whether someone is not coping?

A

Suffering

Maladaptiveness

Observer discomfort

Unpredictability

Irrationality

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11
Q

What is maladaptiveness?

A

Behaviours stopping individuals from achieving life goals, both socially and occupationally

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12
Q

What is a relevant example for failure to function adequately?

A

Schizophrenia –> one or more major areas of functioning such as work, relationships or self care are below level achieved prior to onset
Symptoms–> hallucinations, delusions, difficulty with speech and apathy

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13
Q

What is a summary of statistical infrequency?

A

Abnormal behaviour is that which is rare, uncommon and anomalous

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14
Q

Which graph does the statistical infrequency definition use?

A

The normal distribution curve

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15
Q

How is the normal distribution curve used?

A

95% of population fall within 2 standard deviations of mean (middle region, normal)

Any individual whose score is more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean is considered abnormal –> both extremes, top 2.5% and bottom 2.5%, statistically infrequent

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16
Q

What is an example of the use of the normal distribution curve and statistical infrequency?

A

IQ –> only 2% of people have a score below 70, very unusual/abnormal, would receive diagnosis of ‘intellectual disability disorder’

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17
Q

What is a summary of deviation from ideal mental health?

A

Abnormality is that which fails to meet prescribed criteria for psychological normality/wellbeing

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18
Q

Who conducted research into signs of good mental health?

A

Marie Jahoda

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19
Q

What are Jahoda’s characteristics of ideal mental health?

A

Positive attitudes towards self

Self-actualisation of one’s potential

Resistance to stress

Personal autonomy

Accurate perception of reality

Adapting to the environment

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20
Q

What is a relevant example of deviation from ideal mental health?

A

Depression –> sufferer is likely to have a negative view of themselves, will not be resistant to stressful situations, may not accurately perceive reality

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21
Q

What are all phobias characterised by?

A

Excessive fear

Anxiety

Triggered by an object, place or situation

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22
Q

How is a phobia officially diagnosed?

A

When extent of the fear is out of proportion to any real danger presented by phobic stimulus

Must result in a disability –> preventing person from living a normal life or doing normal things

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23
Q

What are the 3 categories of phobia recognised in the DSM?

A

Specific phobia

Social anxiety (social phobia)

Agoraphobia

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24
Q

What is specific phobia?

A

A phobia of an object or a situation

E.g. animal, body part, injection, flying

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25
Q

What is social anxiety?

A

Phobia of a social situation e.g. public speaking, using a public toilet

About 7% suffer with social phobia

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26
Q

What is agoraphobia?

A

Phobia of being outside or in a public place

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27
Q

What are the behavioural categories of phobias?

A

Avoidance

Panic

Endurance

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28
Q

What is avoidance?

A

When the sufferer goes to a lot of effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus, can make it hard to go about daily life

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29
Q

What is panic?

A

Phobic person may panic in repsonse to the presence of phobic stimulus e.g. crying, screaming, running away

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30
Q

What is endurance?

A

Sufferer reamains in presence of phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety

May be unavoidable e.g. flying

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31
Q

What are emotional characteristics of phobias?

A

Fear

Anxiety

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32
Q

What is fear?

A

Immediate and extremely unpleasant response experienced when phobic stimulus is encountered or thought about

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33
Q

What is anxiety?

A

Unpleasant state of high arousal

Prevents sufferer relaxing, makes it difficult to experience any positive emotion

Can be long term

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34
Q

What are cognitive characteristics of phobias?

A

Irrational beliefs

Cognitive distortions

Selective attention/fixation

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35
Q

What are irrational beliefs?

A

Increase pressure on sufferer

E.g. ‘I must always sound intelligent’

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36
Q

What is cognitive distortions?

A

Phobic’s perceptions of phobic stimulus may be distorted

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37
Q

What is selective attention/fixation?

A

When sufferer sees phobic stimulus and finds it difficult to look away from it

Keeping attention on it gives person best chance of reacting quickly to a threat –> not useful when fear is irrational

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38
Q

What is the behavioural explanation of phobias?

A

The Two-Process Model/Learning Theory

Phobias are acquired by classical conditioning and maintained due to operant conditioning

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39
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

States that a person’s actions are result of a stimulus and response link which has become habit due to association

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40
Q

What is classical conditioning in terms of phobias?

A

Claims that person has become fearful of a stimulus as they have learnt to associate with a negative feeling or other negative stimulus at some point in the past

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41
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

Shaping of behaviour through consequences

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42
Q

What is operant conditioning in terms of phobias?

A

Phobias maintained as they are negatively reinforced

Individual avoids a situation which may involve the phobic stimulus –> results in no fear (desirable)

Avoidance behaviour repeated and phobia maintained

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43
Q

What is a behavioural treatment of phobias?

A

Systematic desensitisation

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44
Q

What is systematic desensitisation?

A

Based on behaviourist assumption that abnormality has been learned through association or reinforcement so can be unlearned on same principles

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45
Q

What is counterconditioning?

A

Learning a new response of relaxation to feared stimulus

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46
Q

What is reciprocal inhibition?

A

If sufferer can relax in presence of phobic stimulus then they will be cured

Impossible to be afraid and relaxed at same time –> one emotion prevents other

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47
Q

What are the three steps of systematic desensitisation?

A

The fear hierarchy

Relaxation

Exposure

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48
Q

What is the fear hierarchy step?

A

Hierarchy put together by patient and therapist, list of situations relating to phobic stimulus that provoke anxiety

Move from least to most frightening

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49
Q

What is the relaxation step?

A

Therapist teaches patient to relax as deeply as possible by imagining themselves in relaxing situations or learning breathing or meditation techniques or drugs e.g. Valium

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50
Q

What is the exposure step?

A

Patient is exposed to first phobic stimulus whilst in relaxed state

Takes place across several sessions and move up hierarchy

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51
Q

When is systematic desensitisation deemed successful?

A

When patient can stay relaxed in situations high up on their anxiety hierarchy

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52
Q

What is the other behavioural treatment of phobias?

A

Flooding

53
Q

What is flooding?

A

Involves immediate exposure to a very frightening situation

Stops phobic responses very quickly

Sessions usually longer than SD sessions

54
Q

How does flooding work?

A

Patient quickly learns phobic stimulus is harmless as there is no option for avoidance behaviour

Learned response is extinguished when conditioned stimulus is encountered without uncondtioned stimulus

55
Q

What is depression?

A

Characterised by changes in mood

Divided into bipolar and unipolar

56
Q

What is required for someone to be given a depression diagnosis?

A

Display at least 5 symptoms, every day, for at least two weeks

57
Q

What do patients with bipolar also have?

A

High moods (mania)
May experience increased energy, euphoria, insomnia and impulsive behaviours

58
Q

What do patients with unipolar have?

A

Only experience low mood for long periods of time, not related to external circumstances

59
Q

What are behavioural characteristics of depression?

A

Disruption to sleep and eating behaviour (insomnia or hypersomnia, weight loss or gain)

Aggression and self harm (verbally/physically aggressive, suicidal thoughts)

Activity levels (withdrawal from work, education, social life)

60
Q

What are emotional characteristics of depression?

A

Anger

Lowered mood (hopelessness, worthlessness)

Lowered self-esteem (sense of self-loathing)

61
Q

What are cognitive characteristics of depression?

A

Focussing on the negative (bias towards recalling unhappy events rather than happy ones)

Poor concentration (hard to make decisions)

Absolutist thinking

62
Q

What are the cognitive explanations of depression?

A

Beck’s negative triad

Elllis’ ABC model

63
Q

What did Beck believe about depression?

A

Depressed individuals thinklike they do as their thinking is biased towards negative interpretations of themsleves, the world and the future

Negative info processing occurs automatically in dperessed people due to a negative self schema

64
Q

What is Beck’s negative triad?

A

Negative views about world

Negative view about oneself

Negative views about future

65
Q

What did Beck say about the ‘self-schema’?

A

Developed in childhood

Become negative if child experiences negative things –> e.g. criticism from parents and peers

Will expect to fail, feel responsible for misfortune, undervalue themselves due to schema

66
Q

What are some of the common cognitive bias experienced by depressed people?

A

All or none thinking (classify into one of two extreme categories)

Arbitary inferences (negative conclusions without evidence)

Overgeneralisation (incorrect conclusion from little evidence)

Catastrophising (normal event seen as disaster)

Selective abstraction (person only pays attention to certain feautres of event and ignores other features)

Excessive responsibility

67
Q

What did Ellis suggest about depression?

A

Good mental health is result of rational thinking

So poor mental health is result of irrational thoughts

68
Q

What did Ellis define irrational thoughts as?

A

Any thoughts that interfere with us being happy and free of pain

69
Q

What did Ellis use his ABC model for?

A

To explain how irrational thoughts affect our behaviour and emotional state

70
Q

What does the A, B and C stand for?

A

A= Activating event

B= Beliefs

C= Consequences

71
Q

What does activating event mean?

A

When irrational thoughts are triggered by external events

We get depressed when we experience negative events and these trigger irrational beliefs

72
Q

What does beliefs mean?

A

Range of irrational beliefs

E.g. mustaboatory thinking is centred on unacheivable assumptions, must be true for individual to be happy

73
Q

What does consequences mean?

A

When an activating event triggers irrational beliefs there will be emotional and behavioural consequences

74
Q

What is the cognitive treatment of depression?

A

CBT

75
Q

What is CBT?

A

Umbrella term for number of different therapies

Central idea = to challenge and restructure maladaptive ways of thinking into adaptive, rational ones

76
Q

What is the aim of CBT?

A

Aims to challenge and replace irrational and dysfunctional thoughts with rational ones

77
Q

What are the general steps of CBT?

A

Therapist to build a strong, trusting relationship with patient so that they feel comfortable in therapy

Identify goals with patient, make plan to achieve them

Some use techniques from Beck’s cognitive therapy or from Ellis’s rational emotive behaviour therapy

78
Q

What is Beck’s CBT technique for challenging irrational thoughts?

A

Reality testing

Identify automatic thoughts about world, self and future (negative triad)

Challenge thoughts by helping patient to test reality of negative beliefs

E.g. set homework, ‘patient as scientist’

79
Q

What is Ellis’ CBT technique for challenging irrational thoughts?

A

Rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT)

Extends the ABC model to ABCDE model

80
Q

What does the D and E stand for in ABCDE model?

A

D = dispute

E = effect

81
Q

What is central technique of REBT?

A

To identify and dispute irrational thoughts

e.g. empirical argument (disputing whether there is evidence to support negative beliefs) or logical argument (disputing whether negative thought logically follows from facts)W

82
Q

What does the A mean in Ellis’ REBT technique?

A

A= activating event, therapist engages with patient in identifying sources of depression for individual

83
Q

What does the B mean in Ellis’ REBT technique?

A

B= beliefs, patient and therapist work through irrational thoughts and therapist identifies them

84
Q

What does the C mean in Ellis’ REBT technique?

A

C= consequence, patients record negative behaviours/consequences that follow beliefs

85
Q

What does the D mean in Ellis’ REBT technique?

A

D= dispute, vigorous argument by therapist, aims to show irrationality of beliefs, logical or empirical argument

86
Q

What does the E mean in Ellis’ REBT technique?

A

E= effect, restructure belief into a rational one to create effect of lowered depression levels

87
Q

What does OCD stand for?

A

Obsessive Complusive Disorder
Most people with OCD have obsessions and compulsions

88
Q

What are obsessions?

A

Reoccurring and persistent

Always unpleasant but vary from person to person

89
Q

What are compulsions?

A

Repetitive behaviours e.g. hand washing, counting, tidying up

Normally performed in attempt to manage anxiety produced by obsessions

90
Q

What is trichotillomania?

A

Compulsive hair pulling

91
Q

What is excoriation disorder?

A

Compulsive skin picking

92
Q

What are behavioural characteristics of OCD?

A

Compulsions

Avoidance

93
Q

What are emotional characteristics of OCD?

A

Guilt and disgust

Accompanying depression

Anxiety and distress

94
Q

What is guilt and disgust?

A

Irrational guilt or disgust which may be directed against something external e.g. minor moral issues, dirt or self

95
Q

What is accompanying depression?

A

Mood and lack of enjoyment in activities

96
Q

What are cognitive characteristics of OCD?

A

Obsessive thoughts

Cognitive strategies to deal with obsessions

Insight into excessive anxiety

97
Q

What are cognitive stategies to deal with obsessions?

A

E.g. praying, meditating, motivational self-talk

Help manage anxiety

Make person appear abnormal, distract them from everyday tasks

98
Q

What is insight into excessive anxiety?

A

Sufferers of OCD are aware their obsessions and compulsions are not rational but they still experience catastrophic thoughts about worst case scenario

Hypervigilant, keep attention focused on potential hazards

99
Q

What are the biological explanations of OCD?

A

Role of serotonin

Decision making systems

Genetic explanation

100
Q

What is a nerotransmitter?

A

Responsible for relaying information from one neuron to another

101
Q

What are main neurotransmitters associated with OCD?

A

Serotonin

Dopamine

102
Q

What is the role of serotonin?

A

To help regulate mood

103
Q

What happens if someone has low levels of serotonin?

A

Normal transmission of mood relevant information does not take place so mood and other mental processes can be affetced

104
Q

How are low levels of serotonin related to OCD?

A

As some antidepressants that increase serotonin levels are effective in reducing OCD symptoms

Suggests serotonin system is involved in OCD

105
Q

How is OCD related to the decision making systems?

A

Abnormal functioning of the frontal lobe of brain

106
Q

What is the frontal lobe?

A

Front part of brain, responsible for logical thinking and decision making

107
Q

What is the orbitofrontal cortex?

A

Region which converts sensory information into thoughts and actions

108
Q

What have PET scans found about activity in brains of OCD patients?

A

Higher activity in orbitofrontal cortext in patients with OCD

Suggestion that the heightened activity in this area increases need to respond to sensory information and prevents patients from stopping the behaviours

Results in compulsions

109
Q

What is genetic explanation for OCD?

A

If neurotransmitters such as serotonin are faulty in OCD sufferers then this could be result of mutated genes

Explanation focuses on trying to find specific candidate genes which are implicated in OCD

110
Q

How many genes are believed to be involved in OCD?

A

Up to 230

Polygenic condition

111
Q

What are candidate genes?

A

Genes which create vulnerability for OCD

112
Q

What could the different candidate genes be involved in?

A

Regulating development of serotonin system

Action of dopamine

113
Q

What is the SERT (5-HTT) gene?

A

Affects transport of serotonin, creating lower levels of serotonin

Mutation of this gene can result in OCD

114
Q

What is the COMT gene?

A

Regulates dopamine

Variation which leads to higher levels of dopamine is more common in those with OCD

115
Q

What is the biological treatment of OCD?

A

Drug therapy

116
Q

What is drug therapy?

A

Reduces/controls symptoms to allow for some degree of functioning

Not a cure

117
Q

How does drug therapy work with OCD?

A

Drugs work in various ways to increase level of serotonin in brain

118
Q

What are agonists?

A

Drugs that increase the effect of neurotransmitters

119
Q

What is the standard medical treatment used to tackle OCD symptoms?

A

SSRIs

120
Q

What does SSRI stand for?

A

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor

121
Q

What do SSRIs do and how do they work?

A

Work on the serotonin system in the brain to increase the amount of serotonin being communicated

Prevent re-uptake of serotonin by blocking re-uptake channels

Allows receptor sites to absorb more serotonin so it stays in synapse for longer

122
Q

What are alternatives to SSRIs?

A

Anti-anxiety drugs

Trycyclics

123
Q

Why are anti-anxiety drugs used for OCD?

A

To reduce anxiety or stress which may arise with sufferers obsessive thoughts which can cause high levels of anxiety

124
Q

What is an example of an anti-anxiety drug?

A

Benzodiazepines (Bz)

125
Q

How do Bzs work?

A

Increase levels of GABA which is the body’s natural form of stress relief

Makes person feel relaxed by slowing down other nerve activity

126
Q

What are trycyclics?

A

Older type of anti-depressant

127
Q

How do trycyclics work?

A

Block channel which reabsorbs serotonin and noradrenaline once it is fired

More of these neurotransmitters left in synapse so activity is prolonged

128
Q

Why should trycyclics be used carefully?

A

More severe side effects than SSRIs

Generally kept for patients who do not respond to SSRIs

129
Q
A

Psychology (13 decks)

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