Evaluation cues for psychopathology

Evaluation: Definition of abnormality: statistical and frequency and deviation from social norms

Statistical infrequency
Strength- real world application in formal diagnosis and as a way to assess the severity of an individual symptoms
Limitation - unusual characteristics can be positive - high IQ - answer sufficient as a sole basis for defining abnormality
Deviation from social norms
Strength - real world application - used in clinical practice in diagnosing antisocial personality disorder and schizotypal personality disorder
Limitation - cultural and situational relativism-e.g. hearing voices is normal in some cultures (messages from ancestors) but seen as abnormal in the UK
Limitation - using deviation from social norms to find someone as abnormal encourages human rights abuse. historically diagnosis like nymphomania has been used to control women or diagnosis like drapetomonia were a way to control slaves and avoid debate.

Evaluation: deviation of abnormality: failure to function adequately and deviation from ideal mental health

FFA
Strength: represents a threshold for help
Limitation: discrimination and social control
Limitation: failure to function can be normal e.g. bereavement
Deviation from ideal mental health
Strength: a comprehensive definition-criteria for distinguishing mental health from illness
Limitation: may be culture bound-located in the context of USA and Western Europe. in particular concept of self actualisation

dismissed as self-indulgent in much of the world. What defines success in our work in social and love life is very different in different cultures.
Limitation: Extremely high standards

Evaluation: behavioural approach to explain in phobias

Strength - real world application in exposure therapies-identifying a means of treating phobias
Limitation-cognitive aspects of phobias-irrational beliefs is a favourite condition which is the two process model does not offer an adequate explanation for. So limited explanation
Strength - link between bad experiences and phobias - little Albert study and fear of dental treatment study (De Jongh et al)
Limitation-counterpoint- not all phobias appear following a bad experience
Limitation - learning and evolution-although behavioural models such as the two process model provide credible individual explanations

Evaluation: the behavioural approach to treating phobias

Strength - evidence of effectiveness-study of people who had SD for spider phobia
Strength - suitable for people with learning difficulties-cognitive therapy requires high-level rational thought-SD provides an appropriate treatment without traumatic experience or confusion
Strength - cost-effective - flooding can work in as little as one session in opposed to 10 sessions of SD
Limitation - traumatic- Schumacher et al found out participants and therapists rated flooding as more stressful than SD. dropout rates are also higher.
Limitation - symptom substitution - only masks symptoms and do not tackle underlying causes . E.g. Persons reported case of women with phobia of death treated using flooding

fear of death declined but fear of being criticised got worse.

Evaluation: the cognitive approach to explaining depression

Becks negative triad
Strength - research support - cognitive vulnerabilities more common in depressed people but preceeded depression as well

confirmed in perspective study by Cohen et al
Strength - real world application - screening and treatment for depression - cohen et al concluded assessing cognitive vulnerability allows psychologists to screen young people identifying those are most at risk of developing depression in the future and monitoring them. Understanding cognitive vulnerability can also be applied in CBT.
ABC model
Strength - real world application in the psychological treatment of depression -REBT-vigourously arguing over depressed person can their irrational beliefs about themselves
Limitation - reactive and endogenous depression -Only explains reactive depression not indigenous depression. Many cases of depression are not traceable to life events or ' activating events'

Evaluation - the cognitive approach to treating depression

Strength - evidence for effectiveness - 327 depressed adolescence after 36 weeks

81% of the CBT group and antidepressant group were significantly improved and 86% of the combination group
Limitation - suitability for diverse clients-CBT is not suitable for clients with learning difficulties

some depression can be so severe clients cannot motivate themselves engage with cognitive work of CBT
Strength - counterpoint - contradictory studies argue CBT can be suitable for people with learning difficulties and severe depression
Limitation - relapse rate
Limitation - client preference

Evaluation- The biological approach to explaining OCD

Genetic explanation
Strength - research support - strong genetic basis of OCD through supporting twin studies and family studies
Limitation - environmental risk factors - OCD is not entirely genetic and origin. It seems to be environmental factors which trigger or increase risk of development OCD. Cromer et al found over half the OCD clients in the sample had experienced a traumatic event in the past.
Neural explanation
Strength - research support - antidepressants that work purely on serotonin are effective in reducing OCD symptoms suggesting serotonin may be involved in the ICD. OCD symptoms form part of conditions that are known to be biological in origin such as Parkinson's disease.
Limitation - no unique neural system - serotonin OCD link may not be unique to OCD

Evaluation - the biological approach to treat OCD

Strength - evidence of effectiveness - 17 studies review to compare accessories to placebos - symptoms reduce for 70% of people taking SSRI's. Other 30% can be treated by taking alternative drugs or a combination of drugs and psychotherapy.
Counterpoint - limitation drug treatments are not the most effective - systematic review of outcome studies - cognitive and behavioural therapy is more effective than SSRI's in treatment of OCD
Strength - cost-effective and non-distruptive - cheap compared to psychological treatments because thousands of tablets can be manufactured in time it takes to conduct one session and a non-distruptive to people's lives as you don't need to attend sessions.
Limitation - series side effects - indigestion