Models of Abnormality

Annotations:

• > The understanding of abnormality depends on the beliefs that dominate in a culture. >Some disorders are statistically very frequent, but still classified as abnormal (e.g. depression)

1. Cognitive Approach

   Annotations:

   • BASIC ASSUMPTIONS: >Psychological disorders are caused by faulty or irrational thoughts and perceptions. >Negative schemata, or core beliefs, when activated can lead to negative maladaptive automatic thoughts. >It is the way you think about the problem rather than the problem itself which causes the mental disorder. >Individuals can overcome mental disorders by learning to use more appropriate cognitions.
   • >Caused by the perception of the situation rather than the situation itself. >We have saved files somewhere in our brain whereby when we learn something we associate them with each other.
   • COGNITIVE BIAS: Minimisation=MInimising success in life e.g. attributing good exam results to luck. Maximisation=Maximising the importance of trivial failures. Thinking you're stupid if you fail to complete a sudoku. Selective Abstraction= Focusing on only the negative side of life and ignoring the wider picture. All or nothing thinking=A tendency to see life in terms of black and white and ignoring the middle ground; you are a success or a failure rather than good at some things and not so good at others.
   1. Beck's Cognitive Triad

      Annotations:

      • THREE FORMS OF NEGATIVE THOUGHTS THAT CAN LEAD TO DEPRESSION: >Negative views about the world~ "Everybody hates me because I am worthless." Negative views about the future~ "I'll never be good at anything because everyone hates me." Negative views about oneself~ "I am worthless"
      • ~>Internal=blaming yourself ("I'm not smart") ~>External=blaming something else ("test was unfair") ~>Specific=less likely to feel depressed("failed 1 test only") ~>Global=more likely to feel depressed("I always fail my test") ~>Stable= All the time/constant ~>Unstable=Not all the time. Not ALWAYS doing bad.
   2. Ellis's ABC model

      Annotations:

      • Suggests that (A) an action is affected by (B) and individual's beliefs which results in (C) a consequence.
      • A= Activating event B= Beliefs about that event (rational or irrational) C= Consequent and emotions and behaviours.
   3. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

      Annotations:

      • The aim is to change irrational and dysfunctional thinking. >It is a way of talking about how you think about yourself, the world and other people. >It can help people change how the think ( Cognitive) and what they do ( Behaaviour).
      1. Becks cognitive therapy

         Annotations:

         • The therapist helps the client to identify particularly negative thoughts. >The therapist challenges the negative thoughts by suggesting positive incidence= TESTING >The Behavioural component is in setting small achievable goals to boost self effectiveness. The FOCUS is in cognitive restructuring (changing patterns of thought)
      2. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT)

         Annotations:

         • The goal is to help people change their irrational beliefs into rational beliefs. The therapist helps patient dispute the negative thoughts until they are able to think rational  by themselves and can dispute without help of anyone.
2. Psychodynamic Approach

   Annotations:

   • KEY ASSUMPTION: Abnormal behaviour results from unconscious conflicts in the individual. EXPLANATION: >Experiences in our earlier years can affects our emotions, attitudes and behaviour without us being aware that it is happening. >We are not aware because when we start acting up( anxiety) we use defence mechanisms to protect our Ego against this anxiety. "Somtimes a cigar is just a cigar"
   1. Defence Mechanisms
      1. Repression

         Annotations:

         • The Ego refuses to allow impulses from the ID to enter into conscious awareness. It does this to protect itself from traumatic experiences or painful experiences in childhood
         • >It pushes them back to the surface. >Happens in most cases of child abuse.        ~They may not remember but it does influence the way they act, think, etc.
      2. Denial

         Annotations:

         • Extreme form of self-protection where a person refuses to accept that a particular event has happened.
         • > A terminal cancer patient refusing to accept they are dying. >A person refusing that someone dear in their life has died.
      3. Displacement

         Annotations:

         • Redirecting unacceptable desires and impulses on to a relatively safe target
         • >Hatred towards mother (unacceptable in society) is displaced on to a brother or sister.
      4. Projection

         Annotations:

         • Attributing your own unacceptable desires and impulses onto someone else (In other words, blaming someone else)
         • >Getting married to worst parent so that you work out the things that your ID couldn't because you were a child. >It is in the unconscious so you don't really choose.
      5. Psychoanalytic Therapy

         Annotations:

         • >Many mental disorders are caused by unconscious factors and repressed material. >Main aim of therapies is to uncover this repressed material. >Once uncovered, they are able to release the power it has over their behaviour (e.g.causing their mental illness). This is called catharsis. >Catharsis= The patient speaks out whatever is on their mind and therapist is there to help them.
         1. Free association

            Annotations:

            • The patient is encouraged to speak their mind no matter how irrelevant or inappropriate the context may be. Doing this will help the patient speak out what is in the unconscious. This will release the power it had over their behaviour- hence a "talking cure".
            • >EGO will attempt to censor what is said, but the free thinking allowes previously unconscious thoughts to slip through
         2. Dream analysis

            Annotations:

            • The symbolic imagery of dreams is a reflection of unconscious material. IN dreams, there are manifest contents which beneath it lies the latent contents. With this, therapists are able to identify things in the unconscious that are making the patient act in a specific way.
            • Manifest content= Obvious content Latent content= Beneath the manifest content lies actual meaning
         3. Analysis of transference

            Annotations:

            • The therapist remains a blank slate and paatient responds to therapist in ways that he responded to other important figures in life. >Doing this, alongside with careful observation, will help analysts gain insight into childhood origin of repressed conflicts; thus helping the patient
3. Behavioural Approach

   Annotations:

   • This approach focuses on the behaviour of the individual. Behaviourists believed that abnormal behaviour was learned the same way as normal  behaviour -by classical and operant conditioning.
   1. Classical conditioning

      Annotations:

      • >This is learning by association. You learn to associate one thing to another. >Leads to abnormal behaviour because you will associate what you fear to anything that is involved with that fear. So for example, a child is afraid of spiders then one day he was in a lift and saw a spider. This will lead him to fear lifts because he is associating it with the spider.
      • LITTLE ALBERT >Findings suggest that he learned to associate the rat with the noise that he hated. So inhis mind he knew that the rat comes with noise so he became afraid of both. He was afraid of the furry things too because he associated them with the rat which is also furry.
   2. Operant conditioning

      Annotations:

      • It is learning by consequences. So if you do something that will produce something else, you will keep expecting for the same thing to happen over and over again.
      • Positive Reinforcement= Increases likelihood of behaviours to happen again because of the pleasant consequence.
      • Negative Reinforcement= Takes away the unpleasant side effects. E.g. geting drunk to forget problems.
      • Punishment= Anything that would reduce a behaviour by using unpleasant consequences when behaviour happens.
   3. Behavioural Therapy

      Annotations:

      • >Aim is to remove the association between fear and the object/situation
      1. Systematic Desensitisation

         Annotations:

         • A counterconditioning technique which aims to unlearn a fear in small graduated steps.
         • Counter Conditioning: Replacing fear response with an alternitve and harmless response. Functional analysis: Construct a hierarchy of fearful situations Relaxation training: The client is then trained in methods of relaxation
      2. Flooding

         Annotations:

         • Aim to remove the learned association between the stimulus and response.
      3. Aversion Therapy

         Annotations:

         • Focus on removal of an undesirable association. >Attempts to remove unwanted or maladaptive behaviours by linking them to unpleasant or painful experiences.
         • Token economy: Increasing desired behaviour by positive reinforcement.
4. Biological Approach

   Annotations:

   • Focuses on biological functioning and how this can cause abnormal behaviour. >It's known as the ilness model or medical model as it assumes that behavioural abnormalities are caused by faulty biological functioning and so sees it as a mental illness.
   1. Genetics

      Annotations:

      • Individuals may inherit a predisposition to certain illnesses. These are carried on genes, through DNA, which pass from one generation to the next. PREDISPOSITION= Increased vulnerability to a particular disease based on genetic factors
      • ~>If a disorder is caused genetically then we would expect individuals who are closely related to be more likely to have it. ~> CONCORDANCE RATE= Measures how often two individuals who are closely related have the same disorder.
      • GOTTESMAN & SHIELDS >Examined records of 57% schizophrenics -MZ- 42% concordance rate for schizophrenia -DZ-9% concordance rate for schizophrenia We can't  say that genes cause schizophrenia because it is a predisposition
   2. Biochemistry

      Annotations:

      • The brain relies on various chemicals to help it communicate= NEUROTRANSMITTERS >Perhaps an imbalance in these chemicals can lead to psychological disorders.
      • Dopamine (excessive) = Schizophrenia Serotonin (high levels) = Bi-polar Serotonin (too little) = OCD GABA (too little) = Anxiety and its dosorders
   3. Biological Treatment

      Annotations:

      • If the problem is caused by a physical problem then we require a physical procedure to put it right.
      • Anti-depressants= Depression Anti-anxiety= Panic disorders Anti-psychotics= Hallucinations and psychatic episodes