What is psychopathology?

• Psychopathology = study of mental disorders:
  • What they look like
  • Where they come from
  • How to assess & treat them
• How common?
  • About 1 in 2 people will meet criteria for a mental disorder by 18.
  • Only ~1 in 6 children & adults get evidence-based treatment.
• Why the treatment gap?
  • Access & cost – services expensive, long waitlists, rural issues.
  • Stigma & distrust – shame, racism, fear of services.
  • Research–practice gap – clinicians often don’t use the most effective methods (e.g. behavioural activation for depression).
  • Training programs only bump use of evidence-based treatments by about 6%.

What Counts as “Abnormal”?

1. Disrupted functioning
   • Patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that get in the way of daily life.
2. Impact on person + society
   • Unusual behaviour that causes distress, harm or big life problems, judged through cultural norms.

Common indicators (usually need more than one):

• Subjective distress (feeling awful)
• Maladaptive behaviour (doesn’t help you cope, actually makes life worse)
• Statistically very rare
• Breaks social rules / norms
• Irrational or unpredictable
• Dangerous to self or others

Mental Health vs Mental Disorder

• Mental health – overall emotional & social wellbeing.
• Mental health problems – noticeable emotional/behavioural issues that impair functioning, but may be mild/short-term.
• Mental disorder – clinically recognised set of symptoms that:
  • Cause significant distress and/or impairment
  • Usually need professional treatment

Anxiety and depression jumped by ~25% during the COVID pandemic.

Higher-risk groups

• Children & adolescents
• Older adults
• Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples
• Rural & remote communities
• People who are homeless or incarcerated
• Culturally & linguistically diverse (CALD) groups

Biological Perspective

Diathesis–Stress Model

• Diathesis = genetic/biological vulnerability
• Stress = life events, trauma, drugs, illness, etc.
• Mental disorders often emerge when vulnerability + stress cross a threshold.

Gene–Environment Interaction

• Genes influence how we respond to the environment.
• Experiences (e.g. drugs, diet, stress) can change the brain over time.

Neurotransmitters – Key Ideas

• NTs = chemical messengers released into the synapse when neurons fire.
• They shape mood, thinking, behaviour.

Types:

• Excitatory – make the next neuron more likely to fire (↑ chance of action potential).
• Inhibitory – make the next neuron less likely to fire.

Important neurotransmitters:

• Glutamate – main excitatory NT; involved in learning & memory, implicated in schizophrenia.
• GABA – main inhibitory NT; calms brain activity, helps regulate anxiety.
• Serotonin – often inhibitory; mood, sleep, thinking, info processing.
• Dopamine – reward, pleasure, motivation, attention; can act excitatory or inhibitory.

Imbalances in these systems are linked to disorders like depression, anxiety, psychosis, addiction.

Psychodynamic Perspective

• Founded by Freud.
• Focus: unconscious conflicts, early childhood experiences, defence mechanisms.
• Classic categories:
  • Neurotic problems (anxiety, phobias)
  • Personality disorders
  • Psychosis (most severe)

Modern psychodynamic spins

• Object relations
  • We internalise early relationships (“objects”) and replay them later.
  • Patterns of attachment, trust, fear, shame → shape adult relationships.
• Interpersonal perspective
  • Broader social context matters: culture, family patterns, social roles.
• Attachment theory
  • Early caregiver responsiveness → secure vs insecure attachment.
  • Inconsistent/unsafe caregiving → insecure styles, associated with later mental health issues.

Behavioural Perspective

• Focus: observable behaviour and its reinforcers/punishers.
• Maladaptive behaviour = learned patterns that once “worked” (reduced distress / brought reward) but now cause problems.

Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning

• Neutral cue + aversive event → cue becomes a fear trigger.
• Used to explain:
  • Phobias
  • Conditioned anxiety or panic
  • Some aspects of depression (e.g. learning that certain contexts = humiliation or failure)

Operant conditioning

Behaviour is shaped by its consequences:

Type of conditioning	Something bad (aversive)	Something good (rewarding)
Add something	Positive punishment – you add an unpleasant event to reduce a behaviour (e.g. fine, scolding).	Positive reinforcement – you add a reward to increase a behaviour (e.g. praise, money).
Take away	Negative reinforcement – you remove something unpleasant to increase a behaviour (e.g. anxiety drops after avoidance).	Negative punishment – you remove something pleasant to reduce a behaviour (e.g. loss of privileges).

• Many symptoms (e.g. avoidance in anxiety) are negatively reinforced because they temporarily reduce distress.

Cognitive Perspective

• Thoughts, beliefs and mental habits contribute to both onset and maintenance of disorders.

Cognitive processes

• Perception, attention, memory, problem-solving.

Information-processing biases

People may systematically:

• Pay attention to threats over positives.
• Remember failures more than successes.
• Interpret neutral events as hostile/rejecting.

Cognitive distortions (common patterns)

• Catastrophising – “This is a disaster, everything will fall apart.”
• Black-and-white thinking – “If I’m not perfect, I’m a failure.”
• Overgeneralisation – “One bad mark = I’m bad at everything.”

Cognitive models → basis of CBT, which targets these thoughts and biases.

Theory in Psychopathology

• Theories:
  • Guide research & treatment choices.
  • Should be testable and open to being disproven.
  • Are complex and shaped by personal/cultural bias.

Character Structure & Bodynamic Theory (Psychodynamic Offshoots)

Character Structure Model

• Idea: early childhood experiences form “character structures” – stable ways of relating, defending, and coping.
• Difficult early environments → rigid, defensive patterns that later show up as personality styles/disorders.

Bodynamic Theory

• Body-focused variant of character structure theory.
• Suggests overwhelming early stress → loss of emotional skills and bodily issues.
• Some interventions (e.g. rebirthing therapy, linked to the death of Candace Newmaker) have been dangerous and discredited.
• Good reminder: not all therapies are safe or evidence-based → need ethical oversight and research.