Evaluative points

Statistical infrequency

• Implies mental health disorders are rare however depression affects 25% of people

• Might disregard desirable characteristics - having an IQ of over 130, labelling them as abnormal can have negative effects, reducing the number of people striving for a high IQ

• Application - leads to diagnosis eg. IQ under 70

Faliure to function adequately

• Allows for easy diagnosis of individuals by other people, easy to spot

• ethnocentric

• OCD - despite the same psychological and behavioural symptoms, each person would be diagnosed differently as one may have obsessive rituals which prevent them from keeping up with work whereas another person may have the same obsessive rituals but find time to manage their work

• Subjective

Deviation from social norms - every society has social norms that it maintains through laws, guidelines or societal pressure. It is the idea of how we ‘ought’ to act.

• Ethnocentric

• Useful - can lead to diagnosis

• Generalisability - considers what is socially acceptable at eg. different ages or genders

• Definition may lead to wrongful diagnosis - those who do not conform to social norms may not have a mental health issue

JAHODA - Deviation from ideal mental health - defines physical illness by looking at the absence of certain signs in physical health

PRAISE:

Positive attitude towards self

Resistance to stress

Accurate perceptions of reality

Independence & self-reliance

Self-actualisation – believing to have personal growth

Environmental mastery – adaptability

• Usefulness - can lead to individuals getting help

• Subjective and vague criteria

• Ethnocentric - western culture focused

• Andocentric - based off of male characteristics, studies done to show females are likely to never be classed abnormal

Behaviourist explanation for phobias (two process model)

• Supporting research - Little Albert

• Usefulness - 75% of patients with phobias respond to systematic desensitisation

• Alternate explanation - Seligmans theory of the innate fear of snakes (biological)

• Opposing research: Barlow & Durand (1995) reported that 50% of people with a phobia for driving could remember a specific incident that had triggered their fear, again supporting the theory that phobias are learned. However, about 50% of people with phobias cannot recall a specific event that triggered the fear.

Behaviourist treatment of phobias (based on classical conditioning)

Systematic desensitisation:

• McGrath et al (1990) reported that 75% of patients with phobias respond to systematic desensitisation

• Usefulness - Systematic desensitisation is a slow process, taking on average 6-8 sessions. This may not be useful in treating phobias to a large number of individuals. It requires a trained professional and a number of hours, therefore it is time consuming and costly.

→ Attrition rates high

Flooding:

• Ethical - traumatic experience - could reinforce the phobia

• Application - isn’t suitable for social phobias

• Alternative treatment - Biological approach of SSRIs have been used to effectively reduce social anxiety and social avoidance phobias

Cognitive explanations for depression - cognitive triad + ABC

Beck’s cognitive triad when life is based upon negative schemas eg. self blame schema, negative triad - negative views on world, future, self which cause faulty information processing

• Supporting evidence - Lewinson et al assessed teenagers with no existing history of depression and measured their level of negative thinking.  A year later those scoring highest for negative thinking were the ones most likely to be diagnosed with major depression.

• Useful application - CBT

Both:

• Alternative explanation - Gottesman found that 67.5% of children with both parents with a mental health disorder had developed one themselves by the age of 52

• Free will - suggests people have full control of their thinking, may imply it is the persons fault if they have depression, socially sensitive explanations

CBT - uses triad, ‘scientist’, homework, cognitive reconstructing

Behavioural activation - encouraging the person to do small doses of activities they love, reinforcing positive mood and reminding them of value in life

• Hollistic approach - tackles cognitive and behavioural elements

• Usefulness - March et al study with antidepressants and CBT, 36 weeks

• Individual differences - attending weekly sessions may not be suitable for everyone, does require a level of intellect to be able to challenge negative thoughts so may not help suicidal or extremely unmotivated patients even though they are the ones who need the help the most

• Alternative biological explanation - Gottesman

Genetic explanations of OCD

• Supporting research - improves validity: if one twin has OCD, 68% chance the other one will have it

• Useful application - SSRIs

• Nature/Nurture - It is impossible to separate nature from nurture, therefore they will both play a role in some shape or form. Cromer et al (2007) reported that about half of OCD patients could recall a specific, traumatic, event that may have triggered their OCD.  Again this supports the idea that OCD is a result of a combination of nature and nurture.

Neural explanation of OCD

Inhibitory Neurotransmitters: If the neurons receptors receive more inhibitory neurotransmitters in comparison to excitatory, then the neuron is unlikely to fire an electrical impulse.

Serotonin is involved in the regulation of mood, it makes you calmer and more focused. Low levels of serotonin prevents the transmission of mood-related messages at the synapse. This is thought to be linked to anxiety and stress in OCD sufferers.

Excitatory Neurotransmitter: If there are more excitatory neurotransmitters in comparison to inhibitory, then the neuron will fire an electrical impulse down the axon of the neuron.

Dopamine an excitatory neurotransmitter and is a feel good chemical related to pleasure and reward systems. The increased dopamine is thought to be linked to compulsive behaviours in OCD sufferers.

On top of this, low serotonin has been linked to OCD, therefore, they do not have the right amount of the inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps them to help stabilize their mood and calm them down. If the sum of all the neurotransmitters are always in favour of dopamine, then they are constantly experiencing the effects of the dopamine, but are unable to feel the stabilizing effect of the serotonin.

+worry circuit: Orbifrontal cortex, Thalamus, Caudate Nucleus

Evaluation of neural explanation of OCD

• Useful - SSRIs - Soomro et al (2009) in a meta-analysis of 17 studies, found SSRI’s to be more effective in reducing symptoms of OCD, than placebo. 70% people felt a decrease in OCD symptoms however some of them were only slight changes

• Nature/Nurture - It is impossible to separate nature from nurture, therefore they will both play a role in some shape or form. Cromer et al (2007) reported that about half of OCD patients could recall a specific, traumatic, event that may have triggered their OCD.  Again this supports the idea that OCD is a result of a combination of nature and nurture.

Biological treatments of OCD

• Usefulness: Soomro et al (2009) in a meta-analysis of 17 studies, found SSRIs to be more effective than placebo.  They do reduce the symptoms of OCD.  However, they don’t work for everyone.  30% of patients reported no improvement and in the 70% who did, sometimes the improvements were slight.

• Drugs are cheap

• Effects aren’t long term - must keep taking → Vicious cycle of going off the pill due to no more symptoms then having to go back on