Psychology 2310A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Mental Disorder, Paresis, Biopsychosocial Model

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2310A/B
• Professor: Jack Martin

Document Summary

Focus on unconscious processes in the mind: behavioural. Focus on external environment and conditioning behaviour: cognitive. Focus on cognitions: humanistic/existential, sociocultural, focuses on the social environment of the individual, interpersonal relationships. Integrative theories: try to bring together all of the theories and look at how they each contribute, diathesis-stress model, system theory: biopsychosocial. This is the one that is emphasized in this course. Looks at the physiology and brain chemistry of the brain to find the causes of mental disorders and look for treatments: three step process to find cures for medical problems, identify a syndrome. Certain groups of symptoms tended to occur together, and these groupings are called syndromes. E. g. infection, genetic abnormalities, hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalance. Multifactorial causes e. g. cancer, heart disease: develop treatments. Lifestyle chances diet, smoking, exercise: e. g. E. g. mania norepinephrine: too little of a neurotransmitter. E. g. anxiety gaba: too few or too many receptors. Low levels = anxiety disorders: inhibit reuptake.