Defining Abnormality

Teachers or students who want the original PPT please tweet @psychopepper

Learning Objectives

To KNOW and UNDERSTAND what the clinical characteristics of Depression are.
To APPLY these definition to real life scenarios and exam questions.

Lesson Outline:

Tasks:

We discussed what depression is and what the main symptoms of the disorder are.
We watched a TED talk on depression looking for the emotional, cognitive and behavioural characteristics of the disorder.
Completed the page in the booklet for the clinical characteristics of the depression.
Created a poster on one set of characteristics.

Content Recap:

Depression is a mood disorder which is the term used to explain disorders that affect the emotional state of those suffering from them, i.e. – the current emotional mood is distorted or inappropriate to the circumstances.
Depression is characterised by low mood and low energy levels
Depression can affect the thoughts (cognitions), feelings (emotion), behaviour (actions) and the physical well-being of an individual.
Clinical depression for example is not merely a feeling of sadness (although this forms a major part of the illness), but rather a set of complex symptoms.
The symptoms must be causing distress or impaired functioning in social and/or occupational roles

Emotional	Behavioural	Cognitive
Lowered mood	Activity levels (reduced energy OR psychomotor agitation)	Poor concentration
Anger	Disruption to seep / eating behaviours	Dwelling on the negative
Lowered self-esteem	Aggression & Self-harm.	Absolutist thinking (Everything is Good OR Everything is Bad)

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Study Notes (TBC):

If you would like to download a set of study notes for this lesson, you can do so here (TBC). If you would like access to the original word file please tweet @psychopepper

Resources Used:

TEXTBOOKS OR EXTRA READING:

I would suggest that you have a copy of one of the textbooks which will allow you to read around the subject matter, pre-read ahead of lessons or even take extra notes/practise questions afterwards. I would recommend the following (you do not need to replicate books, one of each type is plenty!)

Complete Companion Series:
- Textbooks affectionately known as catbook (Year 1) dogbook (Year 2).
- Revision Guides affectionately known as kittenbook (Year 1) puppybook (Year 2).
- Exam Companions also affectionately known as kittenbook (Year 1) puppybook (Year 2).
- Research Methods guide
Psychology for A Level:
- Textbooks affectionately known as green hair girl (Year 1) pink hair girl (Year 2)
- Revision Guides affectionately known as green hair girl (Year 1) pink hair girl (Year 2)
CGP
- Maths for Psychologists