The document discusses three main definitions of abnormality: deviating from social norms, deviating from ideal mental health, and failure to function. It then examines strengths and weaknesses of each definition. Next, it explores biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, and cognitive approaches to understanding psychopathology. For each approach, it outlines relevant theories, examples, and strengths and weaknesses. Finally, it discusses biological therapies for psychopathology including drugs like anti-anxiety medications, antidepressants, and antipsychotics as well as electroconvulsive therapy.

1. T H E T H R E E D E F I N I T I O N S O F
A B N O R M A L I T Y
Psychological
abnormality

2. Definitions
Deviating
from social
norms
Deviating from
ideal mental
health
Failure to
function
Strengths Distinction between
desirable and
undesirable
behaviour. Social
roles are considered
as helpful to living
together
Behaving not according
to what is desirable, but
what is according to a
mental health prone
attitudes is a positive
way to recognise
normality from
abnormality
The person in need has
the first saying,
perspective of an
individuals
experiencing
abnormality becomes
the judge of personal
behaviour
Weaknesses •Susceptible to
abuse
•Cultural relativism
•Deviance is related
to context and
degree
•Eccentric and
abnormal
•Changes in time
•Who can achieve this
•Cultural relativism
•Changes over time
•Subjective criteria
•Difficulty of self-
actualizing, not everyone
achieves their full
potential
•Not the whole picture-
just determining the
extent of a persons
problems
•Cultural relativism
•Exceptions to the rule
– Everyone is different,
doesn't meant their
abnormal
Description Expected way of
behaving in society
Marie Jahoda:
1) Personal growth
2) Reality perception
3) Autonomy
4) Integration
5) Self-attitudes
6) Environment
mastery
Unable to cope with
everyday life

3. A B N O R M A L I T Y I S C A U S E D B Y
P S Y C H I C A L F A C T O R S
Biological approaches
to psychopathology

4. Biological approaches to
psychopathology
Genetics
 Some people are genetically at risk of developing a mental
disorder
 There is strong evidence relating to mental disorders such as
bipolar, depression and schizophrenia
 Schizophrenia; a first degree relative e.g- son or daughter, of
someone suffering the disorder has a 10% chance of also
developing it whereas the general population only have a 1%
chance
 Gottesman – meta analysis of 40 twin studies, found a
concordance rate for schizophrenia of 48% in monozygotic twins
and a 17% in dizygotic twins
 Heston –did an adoption study. Used 47 adopted children who's
mothers had schizophrenia and 50 adopted children who's
mothers did not have it. 5 children from the first group also got
schizophrenia whereas 0 children from the second group got it.
Neurotransmitters
Dopamine
 Too much of this causes schizophrenia and an imbalance of levels
in the neurotransmitter can explain the onset of schizophrenia

5. Biological approaches to
psychopathology
Serotonin
 Too little of this can cause depression and an imbalance of these
can explain the mental disorder of depression
Noradrenaline
 Too little of this neurotransmitter is linked to anxiety disorders
such as phobias and an imbalance of noradrenaline can cause the
onset of phobias
Infection
 Bacteria viruses can cause physical and psychological conditions
such as syphilis and influenza virus
 Syphilis bacteria causes STI’s which causes general paresis:
forgetfulness, mental deterioration and delusions
 Influenza virus in pregnant women, this exposes the foetus to the
virus which then lies in the child's brain causing schizophrenia
 Infection explains psychopathology (mental disorders) as a result
of syphilis or influenza

6. Biological approaches to
psychopathology
Strengths
 Techniques have shown that there are biological component's
 Research shows there could be a genetic link
 Drugs can work as treatment options
 It is scientific
Weaknesses
 Reductionist
 Genetics don’t provide a complete explanation
 Drugs don’t work for everyone
 Focuses on curing symptoms not the actual cause

7. M E N T A L D I S O R D E R I S A R E S U L T
O F P S Y C H O L O G I C A L R A T H E R
T H A N P H Y S I C A L
The psychodynamic
approach
Psychopathology

8. The psychodynamic approach
Psychopathology
Conscious thoughts
 Conscious – Something you can think about where you are fully aware
of everything around us
 Preconscious - Something that we have stored in our memories that is
about something in the past and can bring back to the conscious mind
 Unconscious – A place in our mind where we store shameful
experiences, sexual desires, fears and violent motives, we do not have
access to this mind. Issues form childhood can be stored in the
unconscious mind. We do not have access to the mind. Access comes
in the form of dreams or slip of the tongue. The unconscious mind
could lead to distress because the person does not understand why it
is that they think this way
Freud's personality theory
ID
 Pleasure principal, present at birth
 Wants everything now
 Money, food and sex
 No morals
Superego
 The conscience which as morals
 Develops at the age 5
Ego
 Develops at the age of 3
 Decides between ID or the superego
 Reality principle

9. The psychodynamic approach
Psychopathology
Cause of abnormality
 In childhood, the ego is not developed enough to deal with
traumas so these events re repressed
 In order to balance the demands it employs a defence
mechanisms to protect themselves such as denial, projection,
regression or repression
Strengths
 The psychodynamic model reminds us that experiences in
childhood can effect us throughout our lives
 No need for medication
Weaknesses
 Cannot scientifically test it, its just a theory
 Evidence is through a therapist which causes bias and
misinterpretation
 Retrospective data, looking back on data
 Lack of evidence
 Sexism, Freud focused his research on men or boys

10. A L L M A L A D A P T I V E B E H A V I O U R
I S A C Q U I R E D I N T H E S A M E W A Y
The behavioural
approach to
psychopathology

11. The behavioural approach to
psychopathology
Abnormal behaviour is learnt through conditioning or social
learning, for example, classical and operant conditioning
 Classical conditioning; unconditioned stimulus has an
unconditioned response. When the conditioned stimulus is
combined with an unconditioned stimulus, it creates and
unconditioned response. Therefore the conditioned stimulus
becomes the conditioned response.
 Operant conditioning is where you learn through reinforcement,
this could be through a reward and being rewarded for doing
something good, right or well and/or through a punishment, for
punishing behaviour which is not good or right.
Social learning theory
 Imitation of role models and reinforcement can also lead to
abnormal behaviour
 Modelling – coping the behaviour of role models
 Attention; noticing the behaviour
 Retention; remembering the behaviour
 Motor reproduction; it has to be psychically possible
 Motivation; has to be a reason why they want to copy

12. The behavioural approach to
psychopathology
Albert Bondura – bobo doll
 Studying the effects of observation of a model on subsequent
behaviour
 It was suggested that watching aggressive behaviour might diffuse the
inner aggression of the watcher
 After the child watched the adult play around hitting the doll, the child
copied and did similar things
Variations:
1) Aggression was rewarded (Vicarious reinforcement)
2) Aggression was punished (Vicarious punishment)
3) Adult neither rewarded nor punished (No reinforcement)
 The results found that when the child was rewarded behaviour was
most likely to be copied
 When it was punished, behaviour was least likely to be copied
Strengths
 Behaviour approaches when combined with cognitive approach have
proved to be effective in treating clients with phobias and neurotic
disorders (OCD)
Weaknesses
 Only behaviour is considered, the thoughts and feelings f cognition are
not taken into account
 Symptoms not cause, limited view (reductionist)

13. A B N O R M A L I T Y I S C A U S E D Y
F A U L T Y T H I N K I N G
Cognitive approach to
psychopathology

14. Cognitive approach to
psychopathology
Ellis’ ABC model:
 A – activating events
 B – beliefs are affected
 C – consequences of the thoughts
 These result in rational and irrational beliefs
 The cognitive model assumes that thinking expectations and attitudes
result in mental illness
Becks cognitive triad:
 Having a negative view of the self
 Having a negative view of the world
 Having a negative view of the future
Strengths:
 Concentrates on current thought processes which means a patients
remembers in more detail
 Cognitive and behavioural therapies when mixed together have a high
success rate
Weaknesses:
 Focusing only on a persons cognition may be too narrow
 Situational factors
 Consequence not cause
 Not all irrational beliefs are actually irrational

15. D R U G S A N D E C T
Biological therapies

16. Biological therapies
Drugs:
Anti-anxiety drugs (BZ’s)
 Reduce tension and anxiety
 Enhance action of GABA -> reduction of brain activity -> calm
 Side effects can include: drowsiness, fatigue and weight gain
Anti-depressive drugs
 Increase levels of serotonin
 SSRI (e.g. Prozac) interferes with re-absorption of serotonin
 Side effects can include: dizziness, dry mouth and nausea]
Anti-psychotic drugs (Neuoleptics)
 Decrease in the production of neurotransmitter dopamine
 Relieves hallucinations
 Close supervision is needed
 Side effects can include: Weight gain, constipation, dizziness and
nausea
Evaluation of drugs
Strengths:
 Effectiveness – WHO reported that relapse rates after one year of
using placebo drugs for schizophrenic patients was 55%
 Ease of use – chemotherapy requires little effort of the user

17. Biological therapies
Weaknesses:
 Placebo effects – Patients who receive placebos found it almost as
effective as those receiving the real drug
 Tackles symptom rather than problem
 Side effects – SSRI’s cause anxiety , sexual dysfunction, insomnia,
nausea etc.
 Addiction – BZ’s should be limited to only taking them for 4
weeks because they become very addictive
ECT – Electroconvulsive therapy
 This therapy is used when drugs fail to treat depressive disorders
 22,000 peoples receive this treatment per year
 Patient is given a muscle relaxant as a 110mv shock in passed
through the brain causing a seizure
 The therapy increases a neurotransmitter which increases a
patients mood
 The therapy can cause brain damage or substantial memory loss
 Usually given 3 times a week and the patient will require 3-15
treatments

18. Biological therapies
Evaluation of ECT
Strengths:
 Effective treatment for depression
 Can be life saving to patients who are suicidal
 60%-70% 0f patients improve after therapy
Weaknesses:
 84% of patients relapse after 6 months
 Huge side effects including: Impaired memory, cardiovascular
changes, irregular heartbeat, headaches and anxiety
 When a placebo ECT was done and was compared with a real
ECT. The results were that those who did the placebo ECT
recovered almost as well as the patients from the real one

19. P S Y C H O A N A L Y S I S , S D
( S Y S T E M A T I C D E S E N S I T I S A T I O N
A N D R E B T ( R A T I O N A L - E M O T I V E
T H E R A P Y )
Psychological therapies

20. Psychological therapies
Psychoanalysis
Free association:
 A client is asked to express anything which comes into mind
which could extend back to childhood
 The therapist will only interfere occasionally perhaps to
encourage some reflection on a particular experience
 The therapist will then try to interpret what the client has said
and try to draw conclusions
 Freud believes that these associations are determined by
unconscious factors which analysis tries to uncover
Dream analysis:
 Freud felt that during dreams are the barrier into the unconscious
mind
 The therapist will analyse the patients dream and might be able
to identify significant conflicts repressed into the unconscious
mind
 The meaning of the dream can only be revealed by therapist
interpretation
 The therapist and client will then analyse the dream together
resolving the source of the anxieties

21. Psychological therapies
Evaluation of psychoanalysis
Strengths:
 Effectiveness – 80% of patients benefit from psychoanalysis
compared to 65% of electric therapies
 Length – The longer the treatment, the more beneficial patients
found it and psychoanalysis can last years
Weaknesses:
 False memories – Some therapists are not helping patients to
recover repressed memories but are planting ‘False memories’
 Appropriateness - Fails to appreciate the differences between
individuals

22. Psychological therapies
Systematic desensitisation
 Used to treat phobias
 Extinguishes undesirable behaviour by replacing it with a more desirable
one; relaxation
 The client will work out a hierarchy of fear from least to most frightening
about their phobia
 The client works through each stage of the hierarchy starting with the least
frightening, becoming relaxed with that stage and then moving up
Example of spiders:
 Think about spider
 See a picture of a spider
 Be in the same room as a glass tank with a spider in
 Sit next to the tank with lid shut
 Sit next to the tank with lid open
 Put hand in the tank
 Hold the spider
Strengths:
 Appropriateness – quick and require little effort
 Effectiveness – successful for a range of anxiety disorders as 75% of
patients with phobias respond well to SD
Weaknesses:
 Symptom substitution – SD may appear to resolve the problem but they
only elimate or supress symptoms
 Reduced effectiveness – some suggest that SD may not be as effective in
treating some anxiety problems; fear of heights or animals

23. Psychological therapies
Rational-emotive behaviour therapy
 Helps patients understand irrationality and consequences of this
way of thinking
 REBT helps a person substitute these thoughts with a more
effective problem-solving method
Challenging irrational beliefs
 Client and therapist decide how the clients beliefs can be reality
tested
 The aim is for the client to become more self-sufficient and
recognise the consequences of their faulty cognitions
 The client and therapist will then set new goals for the client in
order to become more realistic
 Because it is not activating events themselves it can cause
unproductive consequences therefore the patient is encouraged to
dispute these beliefs by:
 Logical disputing – Self-deflating beliefs do not follow logically
from the information available (Does this information make
sense?)
 Empirical disputing – Self-deflating beliefs may not be consistent
with reality (Where is the proof that this is accurate?)
 Pragmatic disputing – Emphasises the lack of usefulness of self-
deflating beliefs (How is this belief likely to help me?)

24. Psychological therapies
ABC model and REBT
A (activating event) B (belief about event) C (emotional
consequences) D (disputations take place) E (effective
beliefs replace irrational ones)
Strengths
Effectiveness – It is an effective treatment for a number of different
types of disorders
Appropriateness – It is useful for clinical population (mental
disorders) and non-clinical populations (anxiety)
Weaknesses
Irrational environments – REBT cannot control outside factors
such as marriage, bullying or jobs etc and as a result, these
environments reinforce these irrational beliefs
Not suitable for all – REBT does not always work for everyone and
is not always what everyone wants, some just don’t want the advice
that a therapist will have to offer