Clinical Psychology

Clinical Psychology

1. Key studies

   • Rosenhan (Classic)
   • Carlsson
   • POTS - Paediatric OCD Treatment Study

2. Key Question

   • How has the perception of mental health and the treatment of mental illness changed over time?

3. Diagnosis

   • 4Ds
     • Distress
       • Their subjective view much upset the behaviour is causing
     • Dysfunction
       • Interruption or distraction of everyday life
     • Deviation
       • How rare is this against ‘norms’?
     • Danger
       • Are they putting themselves or others at risk?
     • (Duration)
       • (Added to help eliminate false positives caused by assessing transient behaviours e.g. substance-induced, grief etc.
     • Initial Diagnosis
     • Can be used by non-specialists
     • Detection
     • X entirely subjective
     • Reductionism
   • Classification Systems
   • Reliability
     • Patient
       • Memory
       • Denial
       • Guilt
       • Embarassment
       • Symptoms e.g. manipulation, disorganised thoughts...
       • Ward (1964) found that diagnostic inconsistency is due to inconsistency in patient self-reports
     • Clinician
       • Background training
       • Which ‘Approach’
       • Cultural differences (US/UK differences found by Cooper et al (1972)
       • Inter-rater reliabilty
     • Manual
       • Classification manuals are a consistent measuring tool, now cross referenced.
       • Should lead to same disagnosis with any clinician
         • May still be invalid.... consistently measuring the wrong thing....
     • (On last year’s paper)
   • Validity
     • Concurrent
       • ICDand DSM cross referenced
     • Aetiological
       • Testing positive for a known cause for the MI e.g. in a blood test, brain scan, family history...
         • Not available for all MI
     • Predictive
       • Responding as expected to treatment
       • MI develops as predicted by diagnosis
     • Comorbidity
     • Manuals updated

4. Schizophrenia

   • Features
     • 1% of population
     • Earlier, longer for males
     • Late teens-mid 30s
   • Explanations
     • Dopamine hypothesis (bio)
       • High dopamine levels cause SZ symptoms
       • Overactive doperminergic neurones
       • D2 receptors linked to guiding attention
     • Glutamate hypothesis (bio)
     • Genetics (bio)
     • Social causation (non-bio)
   • Treatments
     • Chemotherapy - antipsychotics (bio)
     • ACT Assertive Community Therapy (non-bio)
   • Symptoms
     • Positive (T1)
       • Hallucinations
         • Auditory
         • Some visual
       • Delusions
         • Grandiose
         • Persecutory
         • Referential
       • Thought Disorders
         • Disorganised thoughts
         • Speech disorders
           • Neologisms (made up words
           • Echolalia (repetition)
           • Disratable speech
       • Abnormal motor behaviour
         • Fidgeting
         • Catatonia (waxy/resistant/extreme)
     • Negative (T2)
       • Avolition
       • Flattened affect
       • Social withdrawal

5. OCD

   • Symptoms and Features
   • Explanations
     • ‘Worry circuit’ (bio)
     • Cognitive (non-bio)
   • Treatments
     • CBT
       • Exposure and Response Prevention Treatment
     • Chemotherapy

6. Research Methods

   • Case studies
   • HCPC
   • Longitudinal research
   • Cross-sectional research
   • Cross-cultural
   • Meta-analysis
   • Secondary data
   • Interviews
   • Content analysis
   • Thematic analysis
   • Grounded theory

7. Diagnose, Treat, Explain

8. Statistical Norms

   • Social Norms