Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Psychopathology (Phobias (Behavioural Characteristics (Panic (Range of…

- - - - Acquisition By Classical Conditioning
        
        Watson and Rayner (1920)
        
        Created phobia in 9 month old 'Little Albert'. Rat was presented to him, loud noise by his ear. Albert became frightened of the rat.
        
        Generalised to similar objects , distress still observed
      - Maintenance by Operant Conditioning
        
        Responses by CC tend to decline over time, phobias do not without treatment
        
        Negative Reinforcement - avoids the unpleasant situation. Avoids the fear and anxiety but reinforces the avoidant behaviour
      - Good Explanatory Behaviour
        
        Showed how phobias are maintained over time, changed therapy , shows need to be exposed to stimulus
      - Alternative a Explanation for Avoidance
        
        Avoidance could also be motivated by positive feelings of safety. Problem as two-process is about reducing anxiety
      - Incomplete Explanation of Phobias
        
        Bounton (2007) points out that evolutionary factors may have an important role to play
        
        Seligman (1971) stated that we easily acquire phobias that may have been beneficial in our evolutionary history e.g. snakes
  - - - Range of behaviours, crying, screaming or running away
    - - Go to a lot of effort to avoid their phobic stimulus
    - - Remains in proximity to stimulus but experiences great deals of anxiety
  - - - Diverse range of patients e.g. those with learning difficulties
      - More effective than relaxation alone after 33 months (Gilroy et al)
      - Exposure
        
        Exposed to stimulus whilst relaxed at each stage of heirachy
      - Relaxation
        
        Reciprocal inhibition, breathing techniques and imagery
      - Anxiety Heirachy
        
        List of situations ranked by how much anxiety they produce
      - Patients prefer SD to flooding so drop out is lower
    - - Less effective for complex phobias like social phobias
      - More effective than SD and quicker, therefore cheaper (Ougrin)
      - Patients must give informed consent to and be prepared for flooding
      - Works by extinction of the conditioned fear response
      - Expose patients to a frightening situation without build-up
      - Drop out rate is high so ineffective
  - - - High arousal, possibly long term
    - - Go beyond what is deemed reasonable
  - - - Hard to look away once seen
    - - May hold irrational beliefs in relation to the phobia
    - - Perception of phobic stimulus may be distorted
- - - - Faulty information processing, attending to the negative aspects
      - Negative information ourselves is accessed whenever we encounter a self-relevant situation
      - Negative triad - negative views of the world, the future and the self
      - Solid support for idea that certain cognitions make us vulnerable to depression (Clark and Beck)
      - Negative thoughts can be identified and challenged by a therapist
      - Cannot explain extremes of anger or hallucinations and delusions
    - - A negative life event that triggers a response
      - Beliefs that lead us to over-react to the activating event
      - Depression results when we over-react to negative life events
      - Some cases of depression follow life events but not all
      - Irrational thoughts can be identified and challenged by a therapist
      - Cannot explain extremes of anger or hallucinations and delusions
  - - - Beck's CT - aims to identify negative thoughts and challenge them, including through testing them
      - Ellis's REBT - aims to identify and challenge irrational beliefs by argument
      - Behavioural Activation - Includes techniques from CT and REBT but also behavioural techniques
      - Significantly more effective than no treatment (Culipers et al)
      - Not effective when patients are too depressed to engage with therapy
      - All therapies fairly similar (Luborsky et al)
  - - - Reduced levels of energy, withdraw from work, education and social life
    - - Reduced sleep, premature waking increased need for sleep. weight loss or weight gain
    - - Often irritable, can be verbally or physically aggressive, sometimes against themselves
  - - - Describe themselves as 'worthless' or 'empty'
    - - Frequently experience anger, sometimes extreme. Can be directed at themselves or others
    - - Reduced self-esteem, may be as extreme as self-loathing
  - - - Unable to stick to a task, interfere with an individuals work
    - - Inclined to pay more attention to negative aspects of a situation
    - - 'Black and white thinking' either all good or all bad
- - - - Serotonin - low levels of serotonin linked to OCD
      - Decision-Making Systems - frontal lobes and parahippocampal gyrus may be malfunctioning
      - Antidepressants that work on the serotonin system alleviate OCD (Nestadt et al)
      - All the neural systems associated with OCD are only involved in some cases
      - Neural abnormalities may be the result of OCD not the cause
    - - Twin studies show OCD is influenced by genes (Nestadt et al.)
      - Candidate Genes - genes that may be involved in producing symptoms, e.g. 5HT1-D beta
      - OCD is Polygenic - different combinations of up to 230 genetic variations
      - Different Types of OCD - different combinations of genes may cause different kinds of OCD
      - So many genes means little predictive value
      - OCD is associated with trauma, so it is clearly not entirely genetic
  - - - Powerful anxiety that accompanies both obsession and compulsions
    - - Compulsive behaviour can bring some relief from anxiety and accompanying depression
    - - Irrational guilt or disgust at something internal or external
  - - - SSRIs - antidepressants that increase levels of serotonin at the synapse
      - Combine SSRIs with other dugs or CBT
      - Clomipramine (acts on serotonin plus other systems) or SNRIs (noradrenaline)
      - SSRIs are superior to placebos in treating OCD (Soomro et al)
      - Compared to psychological treatments drugs are cheaper and non-disruptive
      - Indigestion, blurred vision and loss of sex drive, worse of Clomipramine
  - - - Compelled to repeat a behaviour
      - Reduce anxiety by completing compulsions
    - - Avoid situations that would trigger anxiety
- - - - Good mental health if: no symptoms or distress, rational, self actualise, realistic view, good self esteem, independant, work love and enjoy