Examining Behavioural and Cognitive Models in Abnormal Psychology

This essay provides an overview of abnormal psychology, focusing on the behavioural and cognitive models used to understand and treat deviations from ideal mental health. It highlights the difficulty in defining normality and abnormality and discusses how abnormal psychology helps understand psychological problems. The essay elaborates on the behavioural model, which attributes abnormality to maladaptive behaviours acquired from the environment, and the cognitive model, which focuses on cognitive distortions and irrational thought processes. It further discusses treatments within each model, including classical and operant conditioning techniques like aversion therapy, systematic desensitization, contingency management, and behaviour modelling. Finally, it explores cognitive behaviour treatments such as cognitive restructuring, guided discovery, exposure therapy, and relaxation techniques, emphasizing their validity in helping individuals overcome fears, anxieties, and negative thought patterns. The essay concludes by reiterating the distinction between normality and abnormality and the effectiveness of the discussed models in addressing psychological disorders.

Abnormal Psychology

Abnormal Psychology
Abnormal Psychology is a department of psychology that studies those people who are
“abnormal or atypical” when someone is comparing them to other members of a particular society.
It is a topic which have various viewpoints according to the different psychologists. Many
psychologists had tried to connect it to one problem and treatment which was not effective. This
problem result in having various different treatments and definition of the abnormality according to
the psychologists. Those treatments and definition will be the focus of this essay.
Abnormality refers to diversion from what is supposed to be an ideal mental health. The
main problem is that it is difficult to differentiate between abnormality and normality, as there is no
such definition which defines these concepts. As normality refers to where no mental illness is
present while abnormality is defined as this behaviour which are not accepted by the society. So
abnormal psychology helps us to understand what exactly is the problem which as person face
(Roskies, 2019). There is very thin line between them which a person is also not aware of but there
are some in-built fear which can be cured by the treatments which is discussed in the further
information (Kring, and Johnson, 2018).
There are various models which describes and show the treatment such as medical model,
psychodynamic model and others. In the essay 2 models are discussed which are behavioural model
and cognitive model. The Behavioural Model defines abnormality as the behaviour which is not
appropriate but all these behaviours are acquired from one's environment. The abnormality is the
condition which is against the social norms as if the person is not acting according to the society
they will treat the person as abnormal. In the abnormality they take behaviour of everyone and they
are not able to functions as they should have been performing. They will get deviate from their
actual behaviour as they will forget the way they should perform in some situation. As per
psychiatrists this model put more focus on treating those maladaptive behaviour instead of finding
the root cause of this behaviour. In this model phobias or compulsive disorders can be included. The
Cognitive Model focus is on the cognitive distortions or dysfunction, which is present in the
thought process as well as absence of proper thinking and planning. Cognitive model believes that
these factors are the reason for psychological disorder and on this track psychiatrists explain the
abnormality is irrational and negative thought process which reflects on the persons' behaviour
(Baydoun, and et.al., 2018, July).
There are two ways of treating abnormality with the help of behavioural model, which are
classical conditioning and operant conditioning. If we consider operant conditioning, it focuses on
the ways reinforcement and punishment will be used to fluctuate the frequency of a behaviour

(Petry, Zajac, and Ginley, 2018). This treatment includes shaping, modelling, etc. which are fast and
effective In classical conditioning it forms association between stimuli's. It is being done while
doing experiment on the pairing different stimuli and when the desired results is obtained it brings
the response (Bryant, 2019).
In the classical conditioning First is, Aversion Therapy pairs unacceptable behaviour and
aversive stimulus, the expectation associated with this pair is that they will reduce the unwanted
behaviour. Second is, Flooding Therapy where persons are face-to-face with those objects or
situations which generated fear in them. This treatment is basically for those who have phobia.
Psychiatrists also ensure that patients are not able to leave the situations. Last, Systematic
Desensitization focuses on making a list of fears through which a patient will learn to relax while
focusing on those fears. In these psychiatrists starts with those objects whose fear is less than
making their way up to those objects whose fear is more. These objects are faced by the patients
while the psychiatrist are guiding them. Phobias or anxiety can be treated by this treatment
(Woodcock, and Blackwell, 2020).
In the operating conditioning first is, contingency management which have a written
contract which will be in between client and psychiatrist (parent or teacher). This contract will
contain various information such as changed goals, rewards, penalties and reinforcement this will
help in avoiding any problem which may arise. It is valid contract because as it contains the rules
which have to be followed by both parties, it will also ensure that neither party will back down from
their promises. Secondly, Extinction will change the behaviour without reinforcing which will help
to eliminate the response. There is a proper example for the extinction process which is Time-outs.
Extinction treatment is valid because the person is taken away from the situation that was providing
reinforcement, which help to find unwanted behaviour when the person will be taken away from the
situation which he was finding rewarding.
Third is Behaviour Modelling, in this therapy the person observe and model behaviour of
other person so that he can understand the behaviour accepted by the society. While the person will
watch others performing various skills, the person will be motivated to learn various new skills or
behaviour which is acceptable in the society. It is valid because it will help them to understand what
behaviour they are supposed to do and the person will try to behave like a person who is defined as
normal in the society.
Cognitive behaviour treatment includes 9 treatments that are cognitive restructuring, guided
discovery, etc (Kazantzis, and et.al., 2018). First is Cognitive Restructuring, this therapy contains a
negative pattern of thinking where the person will expect about the worst things or give more than
importance to the minor details. This thought process is valid because it will affect what a person

does, and it can be treated only when the person know how to convert this thought process into
positive way (Rief, and Joormann, 2019).
Second is Guided Discovery, in this treatment the person is guided to view the things from a
different perspective which was not considered by that person. It is valid because here the person
will be questioned for evidence which support their theory so that the person can be challenged to
view the things from a broader perspective. Third is Exposure therapy, in this the person is exposed
to their phobias while they are being guided on the method to overcome the fear which will make
them confident to overcome their fears. They are exposed to their fears in small segments so that
they will not feel overwhelmed with the exposure. This theory validity specifies accurate
implementation of theories, with informative competencies.
Fourth is Journaling, in this therapy the person is asked to write down all the negative
thoughts they get as well as what can be a positive way of seeing those points, this will help the
person to connect with their own thoughts. It can also be done by writing the new thought the
person get when they are trying to change their behaviour, this method will help to know how far a
person has reached. This method is valid because it will help the person to understand his own
though process and his success in recovering. Fifth is activity scheduling and behaviour activation,
in this person will schedule those activities which he was not doing due to the fear, so that they will
be provided with the opportunities to do the things which they were learning to overcome the fear.
This treatment is valid because it helps the person to rise above its fear.
Sixth is Behavioural experiments, this treatment is best for those persons who have anxiety
where the person thinks the worst of the outcomes which will occur. The treatment will be done by
asking the person the outcome of an activity which gives them anxiety. When the given task is
completed the person will be asked to analyse whether their predictions took place or not which will
help them to understand that their assumptions will not be always correct. These experiments are
valid because it will help the person to analyse that every prediction cannot be true. Seventh is
Relaxation and stress reduction techniques, the person is taught various treatments which reduces
the stress and help them to relax so that they can overcome their phobias or social anxieties and
various other problems. There are various treatments but the most suitable is deep breathing so that
they will put all their focus on the breathing instead of the problem from which they get anxiety.
The above treatment is valid because it helps the person to overcome his anxiety at that moment.
Eighth is Role Playing, this can help a person to build confidence and reduce the fear of
some situations, so that they can learn what is to be done in the situations where they are fear issues.
This treatment is valid because it will make them familiar with those situations so that when the
person actually face the situations he will know methods to overcome the fear. Lastly the treatment

is Successive approximation, here the person will overcome the fear at each step when he will move
forward so that he can gain the confidence, which will motivate him to take those further steps. The
validity of this treatment is it increase the confidence among persons.
It is concluded from this essay that there is a thin line between abnormality and normality,
abnormality is defined as those actions which are far from what is supposed be the normal
behaviour while normality is defined when there is no mental illness. The abnormality can be
treated by behavioural & cognitive model, where behavioural model states abnormality as those
behaviours which is not appropriate but acquired through a persons' environment while cognitive
says that there is dysfunction in the thought process of a person.

References
Books & Journal
Baydoun, M. and et.al., 2018, July. Learning switching models for abnormality detection for
autonomous driving. In 2018 21st International Conference on Information Fusion
(FUSION) (pp. 2606-2613). IEEE.
Bryant, R.A., 2019. Post‐traumatic stress disorder: a state‐of‐the‐art review of evidence and
challenges. World psychiatry. 18(3). pp.259-269.
Kazantzis, N. and et.al., 2018. The processes of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-
analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research. 42(4). pp.349-357.
Kring, A.M. and Johnson, S.L., 2018. Abnormal psychology: The science and treatment of
psychological disorders. John Wiley & Sons.
Petry, N.M., Zajac, K. and Ginley, M.K., 2018. Behavioral addictions as mental disorders: to be or
not to be?. Annual review of clinical psychology. 14. pp.399-423.
Rief, W. and Joormann, J., 2019. Revisiting the cognitive model of depression: The role of
expectations. Clinical Psychology in Europe. 1(1). pp.1-19.
Roskies, E., 2019. Abnormality and normality. Cornell University Press.
Woodcock, K.A. and Blackwell, S., 2020. Psychological treatment strategies for challenging
behaviours in neurodevelopmental disorders: what lies beyond a purely behavioural
approach?. Current opinion in psychiatry. 33(2). pp.92-109.