Theories Of

Abnormality
Psychological Approaches
Psychodynamic Theories

Psychopathology, Drives and Unconscious

particularly neurosis, contents fight
is due to conflict wishes are
“buried” in the their way back
Between
drives/instincts into
unconscious
and external consciousness
realities through and come out in
Between internal repression or the form of
agencies/structure
s (Id, ego,
other defense psychopathological
superego) mechanisms. symptoms.
Psychodynamic Theories
• Deprivation during the first few months of life
due to neglectful caretaking may damage the
ego and cause psychopathology.
• Traumatic experiences that threatens survival
also damages the integrity of the ego and may
result into psychopathology.
Psychoanalytical Social Theory
Basic Evil
More
rejection
Basic Anxiety
and Basic
Hostility

Need not
met

Suppression/r
epression
Strategies
Need for
affection
Psychoanalytical Social Theory
Basic Anxiety and
Basic Hostility
Neurosis Suppression/r
epression
Strategies
“Tyranny of the
should” or
“Search for glory”

Alienation

Idealized Self
emerges
Real Self is seen
as inadequate
The Despised and unlovable
Self emerges
Objects Relations Theory

• Proponents
– Melanie Klein
– Margaret Mahler
– Otto Kernberg
– Heinz Kohut
Objects Relations Theory
• Stages of Self Concept Development
1. Undifferentiated Stage
• Infant has an image of the self and no sense of
the separation of the world and self.
• Infant believes that the caregiver and self is one
and that whatever he/she feels is felt by the
caregiver.
2. Symbiosis
• Still does not distinguish bet self and others
• Has image of good-self-others and bad-self-
others
Objects Relations Theory
3. Separation-Individuation Stage
– Child begins to distinguish between self and
others
– Hence:
• good self
• bad self
• good others
• bad others
– The images good self and others are seen as
separate from the images bad self and others.
Objects Relations Theory
3. Integration Stage
– Child can now integrate between good and
bad self, and good and bad others; those
aspects as not seen separately
• Psychopathology
– Others is not differentiated from the self 
no resolution of stage 2
– Good aspect of person is not integrated with
bad aspect  no resolution of stage 3
• Ex. Borderline Personality Disorder
Psychological: Behavioral Theories
• Normal behavior is learned
• Abnormal behavior is leaned
• ...through the conditioning effects of
reward and punishmet
• ...through Classical Conditioning and
Operant Conditioning
Psychological: Behavioral Theories
• Examples:
– Kleptomania
– Addiction
– Exhibitionism
– Phobia
Psychological: Cognitive Theories
• Cognitive Theories of abnormality argue that
cognitions shape our behaviors and emotions
• Cognitions linked to psychopathology:
1. Causal Attributions
2. Control Beliefs
3. Dysfunctional thoughts
Psychological: Cognitive Theories
• Causal Attributions  the reasons why we
think certain things happen
• If we attribute behaviors, such as rudeness, to
situational factors we will react less negatively
than if we attribute behaviors to a stable
factor such as the person’s personality.
 Cognitive Theories
• On Control Beliefs
– Repeated experiences with uncontrollable events
can lead to learned helplessness, the general
expectation the future events will be uncontrollable
– Learned helplessness result to the following:
• Lowered self-esteem
• Lowered persistence and motivation
• Inability to see opportunities for control when
such arise
• Lowers self-efficacy
Humanistic Theories
• Person-Centered Theory by Carl Rogers
– Conditional positive regard
– Conditions of Worth
• I am good if I am like this…or like that.
– Incongruence
• Experiences of the Self Image is far from the
experiences of the Organism
• Maintained through distortion, denial, projection
– Psychopathology
Humanistic Theories
• Holistic Dynamic Theory by Abraham Maslow
– Psychopathology  can result from a person’s
inability to fulfill lower-order needs and reach a
point of growth instead of striving.
– Dissatisfaction of instinctoid needs 
physiological, safety, belonging, esteem self-
actualization
Existential Theories
• Proponents
– Rollo Mae, Fritz Perls, Martin Heidegger,
Soren Kierkegaard
– Society puts many obstacles in the way of living
according to one’s own values.
– Existential Anxiety
• Created by the realization of our own death
• Leads many people to abandon their personal
growth and search for meaning
– There is shift in emphasis from what is wrong to how
can we help people achieve their greatest potential.
Existential Theories
• Rollo Mae
– Apathy and emptiness are he pathology of
the modern world
– Psychopathology stems from lack of
communication—the inability to know others
and to share oneself with them.
– There is a denial of one’s destiny and
therefore a loss of freedom.
 Take Home Discussion
• Behavioral Theory
• Cognitive Theory
 Cognitive Theories
• On Dysfunctional Beliefs and Global
Assumptions
– Proponents are Albert Ellis and Aaron
Beck
– Some broad beliefs about how things
should work can cause unhealthy
thinking and behavior.
 Cognitive Perspective: Dysfunctional Thoughts
1. All-or-Nothing Thinking (Black-and-White Thinking) 
– seen in statements that use absolute terms such as
“always, never, completely, totally, or perfectly.”
– Leaves no room for middle ground or exceptions.
– Often used to suggest you are a failure if your
performance falls short of standards.
2. Blaming 
–Blaming ourselves, someone else or a situation for set-
back, mistake or problem instead of using it as an
opportunity to learn.
3. Catastrophizing 
–building of up consequences to an event so that they seem
insufferable or particularly horrible.
 Cognitive Theories: Dysfunctional Thoughts
4. Minimizing (and maximizing) 
– “the binocular trick” happens when we enlarge our shortcomings or
someone else’s accomplishments while shrinking our accomplishments
or someone else’s shortcomings.
5. Fortune-telling / Jumping to conclusions
– occurs as unfounded, usually dire predictions that are made as if they are
already fact.
6. Labeling 
– An extreme form of overgeneralization whereby a negative and usually
emotionally charge label is attached to a person on the basis of a
relatively isolated or insignificant behavior.
7. Mental filter 
– Focusing on an aspect, usually negative, of a situation while ignoring the
positive.
– Can also be rejecting the positive experiences by insisting they “don’t
count”.
 Cognitive Theories: Dysfunctional Thoughts
8. Mind reading 
– A prediction about other people’s thoughts or behaviors that is
made without checking it out
9. Overgeneralization 
– The use of a single negative event as evidence for a never-ending
pattern of negative events
10. Should statements 
– Statements that suggest a desire to change some reality when the
only real choice is between accepting and not accepting it.
– Often related to shame/guilt statements.
11. Selective interpretation
– Happens when we choose to hear/believe only those statements
which meet/fit our own expectations/experience.
– We have a tendency to selectively take information and use it to fit
our own reality.