PSYC1030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Derealization, Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement
PSYC1030 Lecture Nine: Psychological
Therapies & Mood Disorders
• Exercise is probably the only good advice to give to someone who is depressed
• Four kinds of foundational models of therapy: biological, psychodynamic, behavioural,
cognitive behavioural
• Biological model suggests that emotional stress is caused by biological or genetic
determinants
• Psychodynamic, Sigmund Freud, is widely regarded as the founder of clinical
psychology even though he was originally a neurologist. A core construct that has
proven worthy is the relationship between the client and the therapist, and the feelings
they hold towards each other
• Behavioural therapy is focused on what people do and how they behave, and there are
two types of conditioning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. It began in
1913 due to an article published by John Watson. He suggested that all aspects of
human psychology could be explained by the process of Classical conditioning.
Everything from speech to emotional responses was simply a pattern of stimulus and
response, and even applied to animals
• Cognitive behavioural therapy build on behavioural therapy with an emphasis on the
role of cognitions and their importance in determining the way people feel. The key
strategies involved in cognitive behavioural therapy are: explain the rationale for of
thought influencing feelings, identify unhelpful thoughts, challenge unhelpful
thoughts, replace unhelpful thoughts with more realistic thoughts
• The behavioural therapies have the strongest evidence base
• Operant behaviour elicits certain sets of consequences for us; and the consequences
make it more or less likely we will repeat the behaviour in the future
• The Stimulus Organism Response Consequence Kcontingency (SORCK) analysis was
developed by Kanfer and Saslow in 2969. It allows the clinician and client to look at the
pattern of relationships between the antecedent stimuli and the problematic
responses, and to understand why the responses are being maintained over time.
• Stimulus Historical stimuli have a bearing on likelihood of whether or not the
behaviour is going to occur but they don't directly illicit the behaviour. Contextual
stimuli is occurring concurrently with the problematic response, increase the likelihood
if its occurrence but don’t directly trigger or elicit the response. Immediate stimuli that
occurs immediately before the problem behaviour and directly triggers its occurrence
• Organismic variables influence the relationship between the antecedent stimuli and the
response; and that are characteristic of the current state of the individual. They may
include cognitive functioning, drug use, emotions, physical health problems
• Consequence is what happens after the problem behaviour or response. Immediate
consequences are the stimuli that occur after the problem response and that changes
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the likelihood of the response occurring in the future. Delayed or longer-term
consequences of the problem responses
• Contingency: how the behaviour or response and its consequences relate to each
other. Trying to figure out what function the behaviours are serving'
• In order for an intervention to be evidence-based there need to have been at least two
independent randomised controlled trials (RCTs), that indicate that the intervention is
useful in treating a particular presenting problem. The active treatment that is being
evaluated has to be better than either a placebo condition, or an alternative active
treatment. The RCT must be competently carried out (American Psychological
Association of Clinical Psychologists Taskforce, 1993; Nathan & Gorman, 2002) RCTs
are typically regarded as the highest threshold of evidence when evaluating an
intervention, they should be registered on a national or international clinical trials
register, where the full protocol for the trial should be outlined
-clear inclusion or exclusion of participants criteria
-clear recruitment procedures
-random assignment of participants to the different conditions
-active intervention and placebo or wait list control (where participants receive no
treatment)
-assessment before and after intervention
-adequately powered by enough participants to detect differences between conditions
• When two independent randomised control trials show different outcomes, researchers
use meta-analyses to help determine which method is closer to the truth. A meta-
analysis reports on all the studies, both published and unpublished, that have
attempted to answer the same question
Anxiety and mood disorders
• There are two classification systems that mental health practitioners use to diagnose
mental illness
-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual if Mental Disorders (DSM-5)
-International Classification of Diseases (ICD)
• Depressive and anxiety disorders happen co-currently
• Depressive disorders include: disruptive mood, dysregulation disorder, major
depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder (aka: dysthymia), premenstrual
dysphoric disorder, substance-medication induced depressive disorder, depressive
disorder due to another medical condition, other specified depressive disorder, and
unspecified depressive disorder.
Depression disorders
• Major depressive disorder (MDD)
The diagnostic criteria states that a person needs to demonstrate 5 or more symptoms
during the same 2 week period for the most of the day, nearly everyday; that the
person's presentation needs to represent a significant change compared to their
previous functioning; and that one of the 5 symptoms needs to either be persistent
sad mood for the most of the day and most days, or loss of interest or pleasure in
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Document Summary
1913 due to an article published by john watson. He suggested that all aspects of human psychology could be explained by the process of classical conditioning. Contextual stimuli is occurring concurrently with the problematic response, increase the likelihood if its occurrence but don"t directly trigger or elicit the response. Immediate stimuli that occurs immediately before the problem behaviour and directly triggers its occurrence: organismic variables influence the relationship between the antecedent stimuli and the response; and that are characteristic of the current state of the individual. They may include cognitive functioning, drug use, emotions, physical health problems: consequence is what happens after the problem behaviour or response. Immediate consequences are the stimuli that occur after the problem response and that changes the likelihood of the response occurring in the future. Delayed or longer-term consequences of the problem responses: contingency: how the behaviour or response and its consequences relate to each other.
