PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL OF DISORDERS

OCD
- Psychodynamic Explanation
o The ego (the conscious, rational mind) of patients with OCD is disturbed by
their obsessions and compulsions, and this leads them to use ego defense
mechanisms including isolation, undoing, and reaction formation.
o According to psychoanalytic theory, obsessions and compulsions reflect
maladaptive responses to unresolved conflicts from early stages of
psychological development. The symptoms of OCD symbolize the patients
unconscious struggle for control over drives that are unacceptable at a
conscious level.

Behaviorism
o The techniques of behavior therapy are built on the theory that obsessions and
compulsions are the result of abnormal learned responses and actions.
o Obsessions are produced when a previously neutral object (e.g., chalk dust) is
associated with a stimulus that produces fear (e.g., seeing a classmate have an
epileptic fit). Chalk dust becomes connected with a fear of illness even though
it played no causative role.
o Compulsions (e.g., hand washing) are formed as the individual attempts to
reduce the anxiety produced by the learned fearful stimulus (in this case, chalk
dust). Avoidance of the object and performance of compulsions reinforces the
fear and perpetuates the vicious cycle of OCD. The learned fears also begin to
generalize to different stimuli. The fear of contamination with chalk dust may
gradually spread to anything that can be found in a classroom, such as
textbooks.

Cognitive
o According to the cognitive perspective, OCD patients have an inflated sense of
personal responsibility and so feel they must carry out their compulsive rituals
to avoid adverse consequences, and this is their key cognitive error.

Biological
o Imaging, surgical, and lesion studies suggest that the prefrontal cortex
(orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortexes), basal ganglia, and thalamus are
involved in the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
o Recent research in the field of cognitive neuroscience on the normal function
of these brain areas demonstrates the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in reward,

the anterior cingulate cortex in error detection, the basal ganglia in affecting
the threshold for activation of motor and behavioral programs, and the
prefrontal cortex in storing memories of behavioral sequences (called
"structured event complexes" or SECs).
o The initiation of these SECs can be accompanied by anxiety that is relieved
with completion of the SEC, and that a deficit in this process could be
responsible for many of the symptoms of OCD. Specifically, the anxiety can
form the basis of an obsession, and a compulsion can be an attempt to receive
relief from the anxiety by repeating parts of, or an entire, SEC.

DEPRESSION
- Behaviorism
o Depression is the result of a persons interaction with their environment.
o Classical conditioning proposes that depression is learned through associating
certain stimuli with negative emotional states.
o Social learning theory states that behavior is learned through observation,
imitation and reinforcement.
o Operant conditioning states that depression is caused by the removal of
positive reinforcement from the environment. Certain events such as losing
your job, induce depression because they reduce positive reinforcement from
others (e.g., being around people who like you).
-

Psychodynamic
o As per psychodynamics, depression was understood in terms of Inwardly directed anger
Introjections of love-object loss
Severe super-ego demands
Excessive narcissistic, oral and/or anal personality need
Loss of self-esteem
Deprivation in the mother-child relationship during 1st year

Cognitive
o Three mechanisms are responsible for depression
The cognitive Triad (of negative automatic thinking)
Negative self-schemas
Errors in logic (i.e., faulty information processing)
o The cognitive triad there are three forms of negative thinking that are typical
of individuals with depression, namely
Negative thoughts about the self, the world, and the future
o Negative Self-Schemas Depressed people posses a set of beliefs and
expectations about themselves that are essentially negative and pessimistic.

o Beck claimed that negative schemas may be acquired in childhood as a result

of a traumatic event experiences that might contribute to negative schemas
include
Death of a parent or sibling
Parental rejection, criticism, overprotection, neglect, or abuse
Bullying at school or exclusion from peer group
o People with negative self schemas become prone to making logical errors in
their thinking and they tend to focus selectively on certain aspects of a
situation while ignoring equally relevant information.
o Some examples of logical errors or faulty thinking
Arbitrary inference: Drawing a negative conclusion in the absence of
supporting data
Selective Abstraction: focusing on the worst aspects of any situation
Magnification and minimization: making problems appear bigger;
whereas solutions appear smaller
Personalization: negative events are interpreted as their fault
Dichotomous thinking: Everything is seen as black and white. There is
no in-between.
-

Humanistic
o Humanists believe that there are needs that are unique to the human species.
According to Maslow the most important of these is the need for selfactualization.
o The self-actualizing human being has a meaningful life. Anything that blocks
his striving to fulfill this need can be a cause of depression.