PSYC 210 Study Guide - Final Guide: Rodent, Phenylketonuria, Dementia With Lewy Bodies
28 Jun 2018
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FINAL – Study Guide
PSY 210 ABNORMAL
M. Treadway
PART I
Three criteria for “abnormal”
1. Distress/suffering
2. Impairment
3. Atypical/Deviant
Working definition of “abnormal:” Social, cognitive, emotional, or motivational dysfunction that is
unexpected in its cultural context and associated with present distress and impairment, or increased
risk of suffering, death, pain or impairment”
Historical traditions:
1. Supernatural
a. etiology: witches/demons/planets etc.
b. treatment: magic/prayers/trepanning etc.
2. Psychological
a. early stirrings: plato, tension b/w reason and passion, treatment by rational discussion
b. etiology: environment, socialization, learning
c. treatment: talk therapy, behavioral therapy
i. Psychodynamic movement (Freud)
1. Psychic determinism: behavior determined by intrapsychic forces
2. Unconscious mind: intrapsychic forces not accessible to conscious
thought
3. Childhood experience: determines how these forces interact
4. Depth hypothesis: most of the action in human personality and behavior is
determined without any conscious input, without any conscious access at
all.
5. Structural model of the mind:
a. id: pleasure principle
b. ego: reality principle
c. superego: moral principle
d. The primary job of the ego is to manage the competing demands of
the Id and supergo; to the extent that these forces are kept in
balance, you have psychological health. When one force
overwhelms the other, psychopathology results
6. Defense Mechanisms:
a. Denial: “I am NOT angry at my Steve”
b. Displacement: “I am SO angry at my dog”
c. Projection: “Why is Steve so angry at me?
d. Rationalization: “Steve is probably talking about me behind my
back!”
e. Reaction formation: “I think I’ll buy Steve a beer!”
f. Repression: “I don’t feel angry. What are you even talking about?”
g. Sublimation: “I’m going to go work out for, like, 3 hours. Either that
or eat an entire tube of cookie dough. Not quite sure yet.”
7. Psychoanalysis: The principle techniques of psychodynamic therapy are
free association and dream analysis, which allow the unconscious mind to
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reveal itself. Psychodynamic therapy is traditionally intensive, comprising
4-5 weekly sessions for a period of 2-5 years
8. Neo-Freudians: Jung, Adler, Horney Erikson
ii. Humanist Movement: Rogers, Maslow, Perls
1. Carl Rogers emphasized importance of treating all patients with
“Unconditional positive regard” – had major subsequent influence on how
patient/clinician interactions became structured.
iii. Behaviorist Movement: central organizing theme for the behaviorists was the role
that learning processes play a key role shaping human behavior
1. Classical conditioning (Pavlov): the processes whereby a neutral stimulus,
by repeated pairings with a stimulus that is inherently motivationally
significant begins to take on the properties of the motivationally significant
stimulus
2. Operant/Instrumental Conditioning: If you want an animal to do more of
something, you reinforce it- either by giving it something it likes or taking
away something it doesn’t ; if you want an animal to do less of something,
you punish it - either by giving it something it doesn’t like, or taking away
something that it does.
a. Positive reinforcement: GIVE something GOOD
b. Negative reinforcement: REMOVE something BAD
c. Positive punishment: GIVE something BAD
d. Negative punishment: REMOVE something GOOD
3. Biological movement:
a. Etiology: genes, neurotransmitters, hormones, neural dysfunction
b. Treatment: pharmacotherapy
i. Origins: Hippocrates, Galen and the 4 humours (phlegm, blood, bile, black bile)
ii. Alzheimer and the neuropathological basis of psychopathology
iii. The accidental origins of psychopharmacology: e.g., thorazine (anti-psychotic),
meprobamate (anti-anxiety), or amphetamine (cognitive enhancer)
1. Limitation of psychopharmacology model of psychopathology:
a. Incorrectly believed in single-cause hypothesis of mental illness;
influenced by the discovery of syphilis treatment for General
Paresis.
b. Incorrectly inferred that if drug X reduces symptoms in disorder Y
by affecting neurotransmitter Z, disorder Y MUST be a disorder of
altered neurotransmitter Z (etc..)
Mind and Brain
Psychological models are often too mentally reductive - they act as if mental processes arise
through magic, in a box located somewhere above your head.
And biological models are too biologically reductive - they act as though the thoughts that go
through a patients head are somehow irrelevant to their illness, because what really matters are
synapses, neurotransmitters, and gray matter.
1. Descarte’s error: dualism, the idea that mind and brain are two different and fundamentally
incompatible things. A brain, made of physical stuff, and which occupied space, and a
mind, which was made up of thinking stuff, and completely insubstantial.
2. This is wrong: he brain and mind are not two different things at all! We experience them as
separate, but they are actually integrated, just different levels of analysis of the same
phenomenon. All of the psychological phenomena that we experience derive, inextricably,
from coherent patterns of neuronal firing. The mind is indistinguishable from the brain.
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3. “Psychological” factors affect behavior by changing the brain
a. early life stress changes brain circuitry for emotional control and decision-making
b. “talk therapy” in depression works by changing the brain in ways that are similar to
anti-depressant meds
c. “placebo effect” works to reduce pain by changing brain chemistry and function
4. Everything that’s “biological” affects psychopathology by changing our thoughts, feelings,
perceptions and behavior. Everything that’s “psychological” affects psychopathology by
changing our brain, which in turn changes our thoughts, feelings, perception and behavior.
Biopsychosocial model of psychopathology: an integrative approach to thinking about illness
1. According to this model, biological factors, psychological factors, and social factors all act,
and interact, to affect the brain to produce mental illness.
2. Biological etiological factors: genetics, neurobiology
3. Psychological (environmental) etiological factors: trauma, stress, parenting
4. Social etiological factors: community, culture, peers
5. Biological treatment factors: drugs, brain stimulation
6. Psychological treatment factors: therapy
7. Social treatment factors: stigma vs. support
Etiology
1. Necessary Causes: If X is a Necessary Cause of Y, then any time that Y occurs, X
ABSOLUTELY HAD TO HAVE OCCURED. Drinking is a necessary cause of getting a DUI.
But even though drinking is a necessary cause of DWI, drinking alone is not sufficient to
produce a DWI. X is not a sufficient cause of DWI
2. Sufficient Causes: If X is a sufficient cause of Y, any time that X occurs, Y occurs. Cause X is
sufficient to produce outcome Y. Sleeping through your final is a sufficent cause of failing that
final. Nothing else needs to happen for you to fail. This, and this alone, is enough to cause this
consequence.
3. Equifinality: Single bad outcome caused by multiple distinct risk factors (contributory causes
increase RISK for bad outcome)
4. Multifinality: Single factor causes risk for multiple bad outcomes (risk factors NON-SPECIFIC
for a single bad outcome)
5. Biological Etiological Factors:
a. Genetics
i. heritability: When we ask if a disorder is genetic, we’re asking whether or not,
across all individuals in a population, heritable, genetic factors account for
significant amount of the variability in a trait, behavior or disease. Heritability is
the proportion of variance in a trait, symptom, behavior or disease accounted
for by genetic factors. Remember: if something is 80% heritable, we’re talking
about variability across the population... this doesn’t mean that, in any one
person, 80% of their impulsivity, or anxiety, or schizophrenia is due to genes.
ii. Across the board, psychopathology is significantly heritable – even “behavioral
disorders” like addiction are significantly heritable. There is no meaningful
difference between “diseases” (like schizophrenia) and “behaviors” (like
addiction) with respect to heritability
iii. DNA: DNA is a code. Like any code, the individual coding symbols are in some
sense arbitrary. What really matters is the sequence, the relative position of the
coding symbols. For example, using Morse code, any word in the english
language can be represented by a sequence of dots and dashes. For DNA, any
protein in the brain and body can be represented as a combination of 4 letters,
ACG and T, that correspond to four different molecules, adenine, guanine,
cytosine and thymine. These four molecules are called DNA bases.
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Document Summary
Three criteria for abnormal : distress/suffering, impairment, atypical/deviant. Working definition of abnormal: social, cognitive, emotional, or motivational dysfunction that is unexpected in its cultural context and associated with present distress and impairment, or increased risk of suffering, death, pain or impairment . What are you even talking about? : sublimation: i"m going to go work out for, like, 3 hours. Either that or eat an entire tube of cookie dough. Not quite sure yet. : psychoanalysis: the principle techniques of psychodynamic therapy are free association and dream analysis, which allow the unconscious mind to reveal itself. 4-5 weekly sessions for a period of 2-5 years: neo-freudians: jung, adler, horney erikson, humanist movement: rogers, maslow, perls, carl rogers emphasized importance of treating all patients with. Paresis: incorrectly inferred that if drug x reduces symptoms in disorder y by affecting neurotransmitter z, disorder y must be a disorder of altered neurotransmitter z (etc)
