Psychopathology and Modern approaches toward psychopathology

1. Modern Approaches to Psychology.
Presented by –Waleed Zia
Reg No # 3561/Fll/Bs Eng/

2. Modern Approaches to Psychology
Presented by—Waleed Zia
REG No 3561/FLL/Bs Eng/S23
 Modern approaches to psychology tend to poist that mental illness has a physical orign. A German
psychiatrist Wilhelm Griesinger argued that brain pathology was the cause of all mental disorder.
 Example: Phinease Gage was a young railworker, one day while working unfortunately a iron bar
penetrated in his head ,luckily he was alive ,but it was noticeable that his behavior got cganged towards other,
he show no respect to others and also became irreverent.

3. • Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic theory;
 Freud’s Contributation ;
He was a well known scientist .His psychodynamic
theory posits that human behavior is influenced by ‘unconscious thoughts,
desires ,memories’. He studied so called hysterical disorder , a bizzare illness
that cause well of Victorian women to lose felling in specific parts of the body,
led him conclude that there was an unconscious intrapsychical orign to mental
illness .Evidence for his claim was derived from the fact that, under hyponis --
when patient are not conscious hysterical symptoms could be induced.

4. • Behaviorism:
 In the first half of twentieth century, a very different psychological
explanation for mental disorders developed. Unlike psychoanalysis,
behaviorism was concerned with the study of empirically observable
behavior and uninterested in hypothetical psychodynamic conflicts.
Furthermore, behaviorism in its purest and more radical form denied the
existance of any internal mental processes.
 A famous quote of John Watson is , “Give me a dozen healthy infants , well
informed and I will bring them up I’ll guarantee to take any one and make him specialist in any
field, regardless of his abilities ,vocations , and genetics.

5. • Cognitive Revolution;
 With the decay of behaviourism , a new reign of research emerged in the
1960s and 1970s that attempted to understand the internal mental processes
so emphatically ignored and denied by behaviorist.
Cognitive Psychology :
A branch of psychology that focus on studying
mental processes such as “ thinking , reasoning , problem solving and memory”.
 The contribution of the cognitive approach to psychology has been not
only theoretical but also clinical . A good example is “Ellis’s rational emotive
therapy, which conceptualizes illness as the result as the result of irrational
negative beliefs about oneself and the world.” These beliefs tend to be
unrealistic, absolute and self defeating.
 The role of therapist is therefore to enable changes in the patient’s beliefs ,
introducing a more realistics outlook on the world.

6. • Biological Approaches:
 Technological advances in the past 50 years have caused an unprecedented increase in
research into the biological causes of psychopathology .
Biological approaches can be divided into:
1. Neuroanatomy
2. Neurophysiology
The most common biological studies in psychopathology investigates the
biochemical correlates of mental illness , notably the role of neurotransmitters. Imbalance in
several of the at least 100 types of neurotransmitter are known to be associated with
psychological disorders. Example Serotonin effects emotion and impulse regulation , such as
level of aggression.
 Endocrine system can also effect mental behavior . Example ; Adrenocorticortrophic
hormone (ACTH) plays a vital role in determining level of stress .