Abnormal Psychology

1
Abnormal Psychology

• Contemporary Perspectives

2
Biological

• Nervous system
• Neuron
• soma
• dendrite
• axon
• terminal button
• synapse
• neurotransmitter

3
Cont. Biological

• Brain anatomy
• hindbrain
• medulla - hrt rate, respiration, bld pressure,
  sleep, sneezing
• pons - body movement, attention, sleep,
  respiration
• cerebellum - balance, motor behavior
• midbrain
• reticular activating system - sleep, attention,
  arousal,

4
Cont. biological

• Forebrain
• thalmus - relays sensory info to cortex
• hypothalmus - body temperature, concentration of
  fluids, motivation, emotions
• limbic system - hypothalmus/parts of thalmus-
  memory
• basal ganglia - coordination
• cerebrum-large mass of the forebrain 4 regions

5
Cont. Biological

• Cerebrum is divided into
• occipital - vision
• temporal - auditory
• parietal - body position
• frontal - muscles, memory, speech, language.

6
Psychodynamic

• Freuds psychoanalytic approach
• key terms
• Id pleasure principle, primary process thinking
• ego reality principle, secondary process
  thinking
• superego moral principle
• defense mechanisms
• psychosexual stages of development
• oral -phallic -genital
• anal -latency

7
Cont. Psychodynamic

• Jungs Analytical psychology
• Collective unconscious
• archetypes
• Adlers Individual psychology
• Striving for superiority
• Inferiority/compensation

8
Cont. Psychodynamic

• Erik Eriksons Ego psychology
• Eight stages
• trust vs mistrust
• autonomy vs shame/doubt
• initiative vs guilt
• industry vs inferiority
• identity vs role confusion
• intimacy vs isolation
• generativity vs stagnation
• integrity vs despair

9
Cont. Psychodynamic

• Margaret Mahlers Object-relations theory
• A contemporary psychodynamic approach
• Key ideas
• separating from mother is crucial to personality
  development.
• We introject into our own personalitites,
  elements of major figures in our lives.
• We experience conflict when attitudes of
  introjected people battle with our own attitude.

10
Evaluating Psychodynamic theory

• Encourages us to think about unconscious forces
  that influence behavior.
• However, it is difficult to validate
  scientifically.
• Especially Freuds theory is negative towards
  women and over emphasizes the role of sex and
  aggression.
• Limited generalizability.

11
Learning Perspective

• Pavlovs Classical Conditioning helps to explain
  PTSD.
• Skinners Operant Conditioning
• Banduras Social Learning theory
• What Causes abnormality?
• Acquisition, lack of skills, inadequate rewards
  and self-defeating expectancies.

12
Cont. Learning

• Critique
• Limited view of human nature to just observable
  behaviors loses the richness of human experience.

13
Humanistic/existential Perspective

• Humanists
• Rogers
• incongruences
• Maslow
• self-actualization
• Abnormal behavior is the result of conditional
  positive regard/conditions of worth

14
Cont. humanistic/existential

• Existentialists
• Heidegger/Sartre
• Key ideas Humans must find meaning in existence
• Our lives are not inevitably determined by our
  pasts, we have the power to choose.
• Abnormal behavior occurs when there is no meaning
  to life.

15
Cognitive Perspective

• Albert Ellis
• Rational-emotive therapy where
• A ? B ? C (Aactivating event, Bbeliefs,
  Cconsequence)
• musturbations
• I must be liked by everyone.
• Others must treat me fairly.
• My life must be easy.

16
Cont. Cognitive Perspective

• Aaron Becks Cognitive Theory
• 4 types of errors in thinking
• Selective abstraction - focus on negative
• Overgeneralization
• Magnification - blow out of proportion
• Absolutist thinking - seeing things in
  black/white
• Critique Applied to anxiety and mood disorders
  but not to more severe pathology

17
Sociocultural Perspective

• Thomas Szasz
• The focus is on the effects of socioeconomic,
  cultural, and ethnic factors in abnormal behavior.

18
Biopsychosocial Perspective

• Diathesis-stress model