Summary
Summary Alevel Psychology AQA Psychopathology Notes
- Module
- Biopsychology
- Institution
- AQA
Detailed Alevel Psychology AQA Psychopathology Notes - A01 and Ao3
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DepressionDepressive disorders are characterised
by changes to mood and to
diagnose the sufferer is required to display 5
symptoms daily over 3 .
weeks
can be unipolar or bipolar
bipolar sufferers experience low moods as well as phases of mania Ceupharia , Insanial
Behavioural Characteristics -
>
disruption to sleep and
eating
=
reduced/Increased sleep and appetite may Increase or decrease
>
-
Aggression and self-norm =
Irritable , verbally physically aggressive
,
·
Physical aggression directed against the self (self horm/suicide)
>
-
Activity levels= reduced levels of energy · Withdrawl from work education
,
and social . Ican
life make the suffer unable to leave bed)
Emotional Characteristics -
>
Anger-linked to
aggressive behavior
>
-
lowered mood-feeling sad ,
wothless
, hopeless and empty
>
-
lowered self-esteem =
sense of self-loathing (hating themselves)
Poor concentration
Cognitive characteristics > =
unable to stick to a task and
struggle with decisions
-
>
-
Attention to
negatives
=
pay more attention to the
negative aspects and
Ignore the positives and a bias to
recalling unhappy
events
Absolute 'Black and White' which absolute extremes. E
>
thinking thinking is
g. when a situation is unfortunate they tend to see it as an
- =
.
absolute disaster
, The Cognitive Explanation of Depression
Beck's negative Triad
Individuals
Depressed feel as
they do because their
thinking is biased towards
negative Interpretations of the world the
, future and themselves
,
It occurs
automatically in
depressed people as
they have a
negative self-schema
The self-schema develops in childhood and becomes
negative after experiencing negative things like criticism from parents and peers and
they begin to think
they
will fail ,
cause of misfortune and undervalue themselves
More
thery to focus on the
negatives than the positives which distorts the way they view
everything and results in them
bias'
making faulty Interpretations known as 'cognitive and tend to blow small out of proportion
Views
Negative
of the world problems
everyone is
against
me because Im worthless
'I'll never be good Types of Cognitive bias :
at anything
Negative
views of
Negative
All or none
thinking
-
A tendancy to
classify everything into one of two extremes (success and failure)
the future nimworthless Viewa b
Arbitrary Inferences drawing negative conclusions without the evidence to support them
having
-
Overgeneralisation
-
where
relatively normal events are perceived as disasters
Selective abstraction -
when a person only pays attention to certain features of an event ,
and
Ignores other features that might lead to a different conclusion
Excessive
responsibility Excessively taking responsibility
-
and blame for things which happen
Ellis's ABC model
good mental health is the result of rational
thinking and anxiety and depression occurs because of Irrational thinking
Activating Event- Irrational
thoughts are
triggered by external events (not a schema
could be
big events like
failing a test or
ending a relationship or small like no
reply from someone on text
-
Beliefs-mastrbatory thinking centered unachievable assumptions that for Individual to be such as to be liked
is an must be true in order on
happy by everyone and to
achieve highty in
everything
.
-
a
person becomes depressed because
they hold
an irrational belief regarding that failure .
Such as 'musts' need to be challenged in order for mental healthiness
to prevail
consequences -
on
activating event
triggers irrational beliefs there are emotional and behavioural consequences
-
e .
g. If you believe
you must always succeed ,
but then fail at
something this can
trigger depression
Treatment -
> CBT that is based on this explanation is proven to be successful
>
-
March et al found that after 36 weeks 81 %
of both CBT and
drug groupsImproved therefore having the same effectiveness .
When used
together
86 %
of the participants improved
>
-
This suggests that CBT is an effective method ofceatment as
good as medication) . CBT is a
lang term solution that fixes the issue despite being more
expensive and time consuming
Research >
-
Boury et al studied participants negative thoughts with the Beck Depression Inventory (a questionnaire to measure
negative thoughts) and a
positive
beck's
correlation was found between
negative thoughts and
severity of depression and so
supports theory
>
-
correlations do not show a cause and effect relationship because depression may be
causing the
negative thoughts and therefore may be caused
by
something else and the
negative thoughts are
merely a
byproduct of depression
reductionist -
>
focusses
an
faulty thought processes and
Ignores other elements like social environments or neurotransmitters
. It
Ignores other potential factors
that could and therefore treatments like CBT to not help
be
causing depression change thought processes may everyone
>
-
being reductionist is helpful as it means
psychologises are able to test and study with controlled research because it can be conducted
using
nomothetic approaches and then the results can be
generalised and is more scientific
people with depression often have low self esteem and self worth so told its their
Ethics >
being depression is caused
by their own
thoughts may make it worse
-
>
-
It
may empower them because the explanation suggests that
they can
change their thinking ,
unlike the biological explanation that gives patients lifth
power over
creating change in their lives
.
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