Abnormal Psych

• Statistical Infrequency
• Violation of Norms
• Personal Distress
• Disability/Dysfunction
• Unexpectedness

1.Cycles of persecution, neglect and humanitarianism in the treatment of the mentally ill have occurred irrespective of the helping agency.

2.Periods in which people who exhibited psychologically disordered behaviour were persecuted and treated cruelly have often alternated with periods of humanitarian reform and care for suffering people.

3.Just as we now look back on what were once accepted treatments with revulsion, future generations may regard some of our more recent and current practices as cruel and inhumane.

4.Recent reforms may easily be reversed during adverse economic, political, and social conditions.

• 1.Medical/Biological
• 2.Psychodynamic
• 3.Humanistic/Existential Paradigms
• 4.Behavioural
• 5.Cognitive
• 6.Integrative

Behaviour Genetics: study of individual differences in behaviour that are attributable in part to differences in genetic makeup

Molecular Genetics: attempts to specify the particular gene or genes involved and the precise functions of those genes

Neuroscience & Biochemistry in the Nervous System: role of neurotransmitters

Restore Chemical-Biological Imbalance

• 1.Bleeding, Leeches
• 2.ECT
• 3.Psychopharmacology
• 4.Bright-Light Therapy and Magnetic Stimulation
• Caveat: Reductionism

mind is divided into three principal parts:

• Id
• operates on the pleasure principle
• seeks immediate gratification via reflex activity and primary process thinking

• Ego
• operates on the reality principle - mediates between the instinctual demands of the id and the demands of reality through secondary process, or logical planning
• develops defense mechanisms to control unacceptable id impulses

• Superego
• carrier of society's moral values as interpreted by one's parents
• introject (unconsciously incorporate) our parents’ values
• internal forces dynamic and their interaction gives shape to the person’s thoughts, behaviours and feelings 3 parts of personality often in conflict

• free association
• dream analysis
• latent content
• tranference
• counter-transference
• interpretation

• oral
• anal
• phallic
• latency
• genital

Repression – block anxiety-provoking feelings from conscious awareness and push into unconscious

• Displacement – channelling impulse toward another, safer person
• Denial – refuse to accept true source of anxiety

Reaction formation – converting one feeling, such as hate, into its opposite, love

Sublimation – redirect socially unacceptable impulses into acceptable ones

Rationalization – reinterpret undesirable feelings/behaviours in terms that make them appear acceptable

Projection – attribute undesirable traits to other people or objections

Regression - retreating into the behavioural patterns of an earlier age

to help patients understand unconscious factors that drive and control behaviour

• free will and personal choice
• responsibility

• self-actualization
• unconditioned positive regard
• empathy
• genuineness

• anxiety is inevitable
• authenticity
• self-disclosure
• examine what provides a sense of meaning in life
• emphasizes uniqueness of individual

no proof that people are inherently good

• Contingency Management
• Token Economy
• Time-Outs
• Response Shaping
• Extinction
• Systematic Desensitization, Flooding, Exposure
• Aversion Therapy
• Assertiveness Training
• Biofeedback

Goal to change clients’ thinking processes through cognitive restructuring in order to influence their emotions and behaviour

considers interaction of biological, psychological, and environmental factors

predisposing factors can be biological or psychological

mental disorder is triggered when a current stressor interacts with previously established diatheses

biological, psychological, and social factors are conceptualized as different levels of analysis or subsystems that interact to effect human cognition and behaviour

• 1. Categories vs. Dimensions
• Categorical: yes or no decision – is it present or absent?
• Dimensional: continuous dimensions; emphasis on “how much”
• advantage of dimensional: can make subtle distinctions that would be otherwise lost

• 2. Monothetic vs. Polythetic Classes
• monothetic: small number of necessary and sufficient characteristics polythetic: set of criteria which are neither necessary nor sufficient – each person must possess a minimum number of these criteria, no one central feature that all members share

• inclusion criteria
• exclusion criteria: can rule out the category if certain conditions prevail
• duration of problem also important

Axis I: Clinical disorders, including major mental disorders, and learning disorders

Axis II: Personality disorders and mental retardation (although developmental disorders, such as Autism, were coded on Axis II in the previous edition, these disorders are now included on Axis I)

Axis III: Acute medical conditions and physical disorders

Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental factors contributing to the disorder

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning or Children's Global Assessment Scale for children and teens under the age of 18

Face: items seem to make sense

Content: extent to which a measure samples the domain of interest

Criterion: degree of association between a test and a known criterion. Can be either concurrent or predictive

Construct: evidence that test measures what it should as shown in its pattern of relationships with other relevant and irrelevant measures. Includes convergent validity and discriminant validity

Phase 1: Alarm Reaction - ANS activated by stress

Phase 2: Resistance - damage occurs or organism adapts to stress

Phase 3: Exhaustion - organism dies or suffers irreversible damage