Download Abnormal Psychology LECTURE 1 - Introduction What is abnormal

Abnormal Psychology
LECTURE 1 - Introduction
What is abnormal psychology?
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Study of description, cause and treatment of ‘abnormal’ behaviour
What is abnormal?
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Hard to define (does not have one necessary or sufficient characteristic)
Continuum
Reflects cultural values and social norms
Models of abnormality
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Supernatural
Sociocultural (i.e. poverty)
Biological/medical model
 19th/20th century – thought mental illness caused by germs
 Today=dominant model in psychiatry – assumes psychological disorders can be
diagnosed similarly to physical illness e.g. structural brain
abnormalities=schizophrenia and neurochemical imbalances=depression
 Believes best treated with medication/surgery etc.
 Criticisms:
- Need to avoid extreme reductionism (some complex psychological
phenomena may be impossible to explain at the neural/molecular level)
- Need to avoid over extrapolation from animal research
- Need to avoid assuming causation from treatment (i.e. depression caused by
serotonin imbalance antidepressants)
- Need to avoid separating/categorising mental illness like one does with
physical illness – sometimes illnesses can co-occur
Psychological (i.e. beliefs)
(SSBP)
LECTURE 2 – Models of Abnormal Psychology
Psychological models
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Psychoanalytic
 Maladjustment results from unresolved conflicts:
 Treatment=insight
Humanistic
 Maladjustment results from
 Environment imposes with conditions of worth
 Own needs/emotions are blocked
 Self-actualisation blocked
 Treatment=empathy, unconditional positive regard
Behavioural i.e. classical and operant conditioning
 Maladjustment results from learning history (i.e. past experiences)
 Treatment=new learning
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 Critique=doesn’t consider cognitive learning – learning without experience
(visualisation)
Cognitive-behavioural
 Currently the dominant model in psychology
 What we think influences what we feel and do
 Maladjustment results from:
 Interpretation of experiences (making them consistent with your core
negative beliefs)
 Cognitive biases (selective attention, catastrophizing – i.e. interpreting events
negatively)
 Negative automatic thoughts
 Treatment=cognitive restructuring
Classification and diagnosis
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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
 DSM 1 and 2 rely on the psychoanalytic model
 3,4,5 rely on medical model (no assumptions about cause esp. unconscious cause
(unlike psychoanalytic model)
 DSM 5:
 Encourages assessment of severity (not only presence or symptoms of
disorders)
LECTURE 3 – Anxiety Disorders
What is anxiety?
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An activated response to a perceived threat
Three interrelated anxiety systems – physical, cognitive and behavioural
Normal and abnormal anxiety are not different
DSM’s differ in what causes anxiety but the experience of anxiety is the same
Physical system
 Sympathetic nervous system – flight/fight response e.g. sweating, increased heart rate
etc
Cognitive system
 Perception of threat – attention focuses on perceived threat
Behavioural system
 Escape/avoid, aggression, freezing
DSM
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New chapter added to DSM 5 related to trauma experience
New chapter added – OCD
DSM 5 – panic disorder and agoraphobia got separated (fear of public open spaces)
Separation anxiety disorder got moved from childhood disorders to adult disorders
Selective mutism added (inability to speak in front of strangers)
Cognitive theory of Panic Disorder (PD)
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3.
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Feel bodily sensations
Misinterpret body sensations
Anxiety
Increased body sensations
(cyclic procedure which keeps increasing)
LECTURE 4 – Anxiety and other related disorders
DSM 5
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Separation anxiety disorder
Selective Mutism
Specific Phobia
 Causes=classical conditioning (however not only cause as sometimes conditioning
not sufficient to cause phobia)
Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
 People with phobias realise their fears are disproportionate to the reality of the
situation but they feel helpless to deal with these fears
Panic Disorder
Agoraphobia
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
 Diagnosis=General worry about at least 2 things, 3-6 symptoms e.g. restlessness,
irritability etc. and 6 months duration
Trauma and stress related disorders e.g. Post-traumatic stress disorder
 Very specific
 Traumas caused by human action are more likely to cause PTSD than natural
disasters
 Direct experience of traumatic event, hearing that traumatic event happened to close
family member, repeated/extreme exposure to descriptions of events e.g. police
exposed to details of child sexual abuse
 Diagnosis:
1. Intrusion symptoms e.g. memories (at least 1)
2. Avoidance of reminders of traumatic event (at least 1)
3. Negative changes in mood i.e., fear, anger (at least 2)
4. Changes in arousal (at least 2) e.g. poor concentration, sleep disturbance
 Treatment:
a. Aim to reduce biased thoughts (i.e. how likely bad event will happen)
b. Cognitive techniques – thought diaries and thought challenging
c. Behavioural techniques – exposure to feared objects and stimuli
LECTURE 5 – Eating Disorders
Changes to DSM 5
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EDNOS – (eating disorders not otherwise specified) became recognised as individual
categorisation
Binge eating is now a recognised disorder
Anorexia Nervosa
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Weight less than 85% expected
Mortality rate 5-10% over 10 year period
Biological Causes of AN and BN
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Family and twin studies show genetic link but hard to separate environment and genetics
Neurotransmitter disturbances – don’t know if serotonin imbalance is causing eating disorder
or eating disorder is causing neural imbalance
Cognitive Behavioural Theory
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People more likely to get eating disorder if have core low self-esteem, perfectionism, stress
intolerance, interpersonal difficulties (i.e. low social support)
Proposed Psycho-Social Causes
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Family factors
 Higher parental criticism, control and conflict
 Low parental empathy/support
 Model parental eating/eating concerns
LECTURE 6 – Depression
Unipolar vs Bipolar
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Unipolar = fluctuation between normal and depressed moods
Bipolar = fluctuations between manic and depressed moods
Major depressive disorder
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One or more major depressive episodes
To be clinically depressed depressive episode needs to last 2 weeks
Each episode of depression increases chance for another episode
Need to have at least 5 symptoms and must have depressed mood most of day nearly every
day and markedly diminished pleasure in activities
Dysthymic Disorder
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Persistently depressed mood that continues for at least 2 years
Double depression – both MDD and Dysthymia
Renamed persistent depressive disorder in DSM V
Biological Theories
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Low levels of noradrenalin and or serotonin and excess cortisol in response to stress
Psychological Theories
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Schema theory=pre-existing negative schemas = activated by stress
Learned helplessness
Ruminative response styles (focus on one’s stress)
Interpersonal factors (i.e. relationships)
Biological Treatments
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Drug treatments – SSRI’s/SSNRI’s (Selective Serotonergic/Norepinephrine Reuptake
Inhibitors respectively) – specifically block reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine
respectively
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) – apply brief electric current to brain
Psychological Treatments
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Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – aims to develop more realistic view of world
Psychological treatments have lower relapse rates than biological treatments
Other:
Somatoform Disorders – disorders which have no known biological cause
Dissociative Disorders – breakdown of normal personality resulting in alterations in memory or
identity
1 in 10 Australians will have a depressive episode at least once in their lifetime
Cognitive Process
LECTURE 1 – Introduction
What is cognitive psychology?
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Study of mental processes – attempts to explain how people do things (not what is the best
way etc.)
Historical forerunners
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Behaviourism rejected all mental structures describing all behaviours as complex stimulus
response associations
Computer metaphor and the information processing approach
1. Encoding: Forming memory code i.e. entering data through a computer
2. Storage: Maintaining encoded information in memory over time i.e. saving data in hard disk
3. Retrieval: recovering information through memory stores e.g. displaying data on monitor
Mental Chronometry
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Methods for measuring the speed and organisation of mental processes
E.g. put rats in maze and found that even before food introduced, rats create cognitive map of
maze (learning occurs before food is introduced – disproved no learning, no reward theory)
Compare behaviour in two tasks that differ in only one mental process e.g. simple vs choice
reaction time (simple=press button to any light, choice=press button only to red light)
Choice reaction time – simple reaction time = estimate of stimulus evaluation time
In experiment where participants were asked to memorise a series of words, and then asked if
a particular word was in that series, found that either:
a. People may search for items in parallel (all together) or serially (one by one)