Week 2 - Psychopathology Flashcards
(21 cards)
2 definitions of psychopathology
- Scientific study of mental disorders
- Behavioural or cognitive manifestations
Abnormality indicators
No clear boundary, context and culture dependent.
- Distress - for person/others, can be normal
- Deviancy (statistical/social) - can be normal
- Dangerousness - for person/others, can be adaptive (protection)
- Dysfunction - interferes with wellbeing, KEY indicator
Role of culture
Large role in determining abnormality.
Culture also shapes clinical presentation (physical depression symptoms in China, social anxiety embarrassing others in Japan)
Culture caveat
Groups have been labelled ‘abnormal’ to justify control.
Culture influences which treatments are accepted (thus science should still take precedence to culture)
What is stigma?
Ignorance, prejudice, discriminatory responses.
Language and labels especially dangerous.
Affects self-esteem and help seeking.
Mental health literacy may lead to overpathologising and framing disorders as unchangeable
Types of stigma
- Personal or public
- Self-stigma
- Perceived stigma
Pre-Enlightenment views
Hippocrates - imbalance of four humours
Early Chinese Medicine - yin and yang (wind in bodies)
Middle Ages - supernatural, use prayer and holy water
Renaissance - scientific questioning, asylums, blood-letting, frightening people
Enlightenment views
Mental hygiene period - moral treatment, based on reason and science.
Phillipe Pinel - removed chains, kindness
William Tuke - York Retreat where patients could live/work
Dorothea Dix - extended care to stats hospitals in US
Movement grew too fast though, overcrowding and staff shortages, people questioned efficacy of treatment.
Perspectives changed again with scientific advances.
Psychoanalytic perspective
Freud - id (pleasure), ego (reality) and superego (internalised rules).
Unconscious expressed through dreams/fantasies.
Unresolved conflicts lead to psychopathology (psychoanalysis can resolve these conflicts).
Evolution of psychoanalytic perspective
Freud heavily criticised, however ideas were influential.
- Object Relations theory - childhood affects adult personality, internalised interactions lead to conflicts
- Interpersonal Perspective - cultural/social forces instead of inner instincts, lead to interpersonal therapy (not better)
- Attachment Theory - early attachment foundation, quality parental care important, led to schema therapy (ibid.)
The psychodynamic influence
- childhood shapes adult personality
- unconscious influences on behaviour
- cause of behaviour not always clear
Behavioural perspective
Reaction to unscientific psychoanalysis.
Focuses only on observable behaviour (learning central)
Practical importance - shows how to extinguish unhealthy behaviour
Classical conditioning
NS + US (already has UR) creates a CR to the now CS.
Can be learnt directly or vicariously.
Can generalise to similar things
Operant conditioning
Association between stimulus/cue (DS) and response (R)
Positive reinforcement - desirable stimulus added
Negative reinforcement - undesirable stimulus removed
Positive punishment - undesirable stimulus added
Negative punishment - desirable stimulus removed.
Cognitive-behavioural perspective
Distorted thoughts and information processing > maladaptive emotions and behaviour
Self-efficacy (Bandura) - belief one can achieve goals
Cognitive distortions (Ellis & Beck) - thought patterns in PP, rational emotive therapy and cognitive therapy
Attentional bias - perception affected by thoughts (not this simple though)
Dominant school of thought now - led to CBT, DBT, MBT, ACT
Biological perspective
Genetic vulnerabilities (almost always polygenic)
Gene-environment interactions (diathesis-stress model) explains development, not maintenance
Neural plasticity - brain changes with experience
NT imbalance
Glutamate - excitatory, learning/memory, too much in schizophrenia
GABA - inhibitory, low in anxiety
Serotonin - inhibitory, information processing/mood, low in depression
Dopamine - reward, attention, learning, memory, too much with poor impulse control
Norepinephrine - role in emergency situations
Hormonal imbalance
Endocrine system puts hormones into bloodstream
HPA malfunction in some disorders (system that controls stress) - hypothalamus > anterior pituitary > adrenal cortex > cortisol release
Temperament
Reactivity and way of self-regulating
Relates to personality in adulthood
Social perspective
Exposure to neg. life events increases vulnerability
Multidimensional model
No single cause of psychopathology
Developmental - biological - behavioural - emotional/cognitive - social
