Difficult Psych topics

What are three behavioural characteristics of OCD?

Repeating compulsions, reducing irrational anxiety through compulsions, and avoidance behaviours for triggering situations.

What are three emotional characteristics of OCD?

Anxiety, depression, and guilt

What are three cognitive characteristics of OCD?

obsessive recurring thoughts, abnormal coping strategies, understanding irrationality

What are the key parts of the genetic explanation of OCD?

There are many candidate genes, making the disorder polygenic. Each person can have a different number and set of these, meaning it is aetiologically heterogenous.

What are the key parts of the neural explanation of OCD?

The main neurochemical explanation revolves around a lack of serotonin. This means that mood regulation is impaired, and weakens the ability to create satisfaction after completing a task. Furthermore, impaired decision making may also be a factor, caused by abnormal frontal lobe development.

What is a limitation of the biological explanation for OCD?

The existence of environmental risk factors. As traumatic past events can spark the disorder, a purely biological explanation is likely too simplistic, and a diathesis-stress model is more appropriate.

What is a strength of the biological explanation for OCD?

As SSRIs are significantly more effective than a placebo, we can infer that there is at least some influence on the disorder from a lack of serotonin. (However, treatment-causation fallacy…)

What is a weakness of the biological treatment for OCD?

SSRIs have side effects - indigestion, dry and sore eyes etc. This means that people may eventually become too uncomfortable and stop taking the medication as often as they should, reducing its effectiveness.

What is a strength of the biological treatment for OCD?

It has strong research support - Soomro et al. reviewed a collection of studies comparing the function of SSRIs compared to a placebo, and found that the real drugs were significantly effective for around 70% of people. However, using a combination therapy was found to be useful for the other 30%, suggesting that other approaches may also be important.

What are three behavioural characteristics of depression?

Social withdrawal, sleep disruption, and aggression.

What are three emotional characteristics of depression?

extremely low mood, anger, and lowered self-esteem.

What are three cognitive characteristics of depression?

Poor concentration, focusing on the negatives, and seeing life as overly clear-cut.

What are the two main features of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

Beck’s Negative Triad, and Ellis’s ABC Model.

What is Beck’s negative triad?

This focuses on three main cognitive vulnerabilities, which are: Faulty information processing, negative self schema, and a set of dysfunctional, overly negative views about themselves, the future and the world.

What is Ellis’s ABC model?

This focuses on the process of irrational thoughts impacting behaviour, using the acronym ABC.

A - activating event (external factor)

B - beliefs (in the need for success)

C - consequences (emotional and behavioural)

What is a strength of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

It allows us to target those who are most vulnerable, and take steps to ensure that they are showing healthy thought processing.

What is a weakness of the cognitive approach to explaining depression?

It does not provide a full explanation - “endogenous” depression does not appear to stem from any life events, and so cannot be explained by Ellis’s model.

How is Beck’s negative triad used in CBT to treat depression?

Patients are encouraged to seek out and identify their automatic negative thoughts about the future/self/world, so that they can be challenged. They can also record enjoyable events, so that the therapist can then use them to contradict these negative beliefs.

How is Ellis’s ABC model used in CBT to treat depression?

Therapists will expand the model to ABCDE, including Dispute and Effect. This will involve using logic and evidence to argue with the clients irrational assumptions, in order to break their negative cognitive processes.

What is one strength of CBT for treating depression?

It has strong research support - that can also be used to argue against the use of medication. March et al. found that 81% of adolescents on each treatment showed improvement in symptoms, and it went up to 86% when using a combination.

What is a weakness of CBT for treating depression?

It has limited application in some patients. Those who also have learning disabilities, or extremely severe cases of depression, may not be able to engage in a rational talking therapy.

What are the two values used when calculating significance for the sign test?

The critical value (found in a table) and the calculated value (determined from the study results)

How do you find the value of S from a set of results during the sign test?

Sort each result into either a positive or negative change, and discard any with no change. S is the number of the sign that occurs the least often.

What does the nervous system use to transmit information?

Electrical and chemical signals

What two parts is the nervous system divided into?

The central and peripheral nervous system.

What is the central nervous system?

It contains the brain and spinal cord, and is responsible for controlling and processing nerve information from the peripheral, e.g. reflex actions.

What is the peripheral nervous system?

The outer layer of nerves, split into the Autonomic and Somatic systems. The autonomic system handles soft tissue and vital function, while the somatic system handles hard tissue and muscle movement.

What is the “master gland” of the endocrine system?

The pituitary gland, which is located in the brain, and controls the release of hormones into the bloodstream from all glands across the body.

What are the main glands that secret hormones through the body?

Pituitary (or master), Thyroid (produces thyroxine, which controls metabolism), Adrenal (produces adrenaline, triggering fight or flight), Pineal (produces melatonin, which regulates sleep/wake), and Ovaries/Testes (reproduction and sex-based development).

What two states can the autonomic nervous system be in?

A sympathetic state, where the body is physiologically aroused because of a stressful situation, or parasympathetic, which is the natural resting state.