OCR A-Level Psychology H567
Research Methods and Techniques
Planning and Conducting Research
Data Recording, Analysis and Presentation
Report Writing and Scientific Communication
Practical Activities and the Nature of Science
Mathematical Requirements for Research Methods
Studying and Evaluating the Core Studies: The Common Framework
Core Studies: Social Area
Core Studies: Cognitive Area
Core Studies: Developmental Area
Core Studies: Biological Area
Core Studies: Individual Differences Area
Areas and Perspectives in Psychology
Debates in Psychology
Practical Applications of Psychology
Issues in Mental Health
Child PsychologyApplied option
Criminal PsychologyApplied option
Environmental PsychologyApplied option
Sport and Exercise PsychologyApplied option
Methodological Issues and Debates Running Through Applied Psychology
Issues in Mental Health
Humanistic, psychodynamic and cognitive neuroscience explanations of mental illness
- 3 things to know
- Component 03
Overview
Recall questions on the humanistic explanation including Rogers's incongruence and conditions of worth, the psychodynamic explanation including personality conflict, defence mechanisms and Freud on depression, and the cognitive neuroscience explanation of hallucinations and depressive bias.
What you need to know
Answer each one before you reveal it.
How can conflict between the three parts of the personality produce symptoms?
What is the central claim of the humanistic explanation?
Questions from this subtopic
Each one with the model answer underneath.
- 1
What is the central claim of the humanistic explanation?
Model answer
People have free will and an innate drive towards self-actualisation, and psychological distress arises when that growth is blocked.
- 2
Explain what Rogers meant by incongruence.
Model answer
Incongruence is a mismatch between a person's self-concept and their ideal self, and the wider that gap the lower their self-worth and the greater their distress.
- 3
What are conditions of worth?
Model answer
They are the requirements a person learns they must meet in order to be accepted, created when others give affection only conditionally, and they lead the person to deny or distort experiences that conflict with the self they feel they must be.
- 4
What does Rogers say a person needs in order to grow?
Model answer
Unconditional positive regard, offered alongside empathy and genuineness, so that the person can accept their own experience without feeling threatened by it.
- 5
Why is the humanistic explanation praised as non-stigmatising yet criticised as unscientific?
Model answer
It is praised because it is holistic and avoids labelling, treating distress as an understandable response of a whole person; it is criticised because concepts such as self-actualisation are vague and hard to measure, and it offers little for severe disorders such as schizophrenia.
- 6
What does the psychodynamic explanation identify as the cause of mental disorder?
Model answer
Unresolved unconscious conflict, usually rooted in early childhood experience, which the person cannot consciously access.
Other ways to work this
The same content, four other ways.
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Every question in Issues in Mental Health, on a schedule.
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