Welcome to Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

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Welcome to Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

• Dr. Geoff Goodman
• x4277
• ggoodman_at_liu.edu
• What are your expectations for this course?
• Did you get a syllabus?

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Historical Overview of Course Perspective
Developmental Psychopathology

• Nineteenth Century Conceptions of Child
  PsychopathologyCicchetti(1984)
• Medical model main-effects model used by
  clinicians (Freud)
• Pathological internal agent disturbing
  homeostasis of organism (e.g., weak constitution)
• Pathological external agent disturbing
  homeostasis of organism (e.g., early childhood
  trauma)
• Academic psychology empiricism and
  associationism
• Behavior following mechanistically from the
  action of external determinants in here and now
  (behaviorism)
• Twentieth Century Adherents to These Two Models
• Medical modelFreud, clinical psychiatry
• BehaviorismWatson, Pavlov, Hull, Skinner

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• Contrasts between these two models
• While medical model focuses on emotions,
  behaviorism focuses on cognition
• Medical model focuses on pathology, not on
  development of personality behaviorism focuses
  on normal development or immediate
  stimulus-response, not on pathology.
• Developmental psychopathology todayconvergence
• Clinicians becoming aware of Piagetian and other
  organismic models of behavior, taking into
  account more factors
• Academic behaviorists abandoning simple theories
  of classical learning theory in favor of more
  reality-based model that reflects clinical
  problems
• Implications of Convergence
• Collaborative, multidomain, longitudinal studies
• Use of control groups to establish baseline,
  normal behavior
• Use of ethology in evaluation of developmental
  psychopathologyinfluence of Lorenz (ducks),
  Tinbergen, Harlow, and others

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• Contemporary Approaches to Developmental
  Psychopathology (Cicchetti, 1990)
• Psychoanalytic Developmental Approach
• Maternal deprivation and problematic mother-child
  relationships?psychopathology (Bowlby)
• Early life events?later behavior through concept
  of representational models (Bowlby)
• Fixations in stages of differentiation from
  mother from infantile autism to object-libidinal
  cathexis of mother (Mahler)
• Multiple determinations of psychopathalogical
  symptoms such as temper tantrum (A. Freud)
• Abnormal behavior caused by regression, arrest,
  or developmental delay (A. Freud)

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• Organismic developmental approach
• Use of normal psychology for understanding
  abnormal behavior (Werner/Kaplan)
• Early levels of normal symbolic functioning and
  language development parallel to symbolic
  fuctioning and language development in
  psychiatric patients (disintegration)
• Functioning in psychiatric population not
  hierachically organized or differentiated or
  integrated
• Organism achieves higher levels of organization,
  differentiation, and integration before
  regression or disintegration occurs

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• Piagetian developmental approach
• Thinking processes of mentally retarded children
  demonstrate traces of previous thinking
  (viscosity)
• Understanding transitions between stages of
  development and the meaning of fluctuations
  (decalage)
• Psychobiological developmental approach (Meyer)
• Constitutional factors modifying individuals
  responses to life events
• Effects of life events modifying individuals
• Use example of temperamentally irritable infant
  Nathaniel

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• Michael Lewiss contemporary approaches to
  developmental psychopathology (Lewis, 1990)
• Trait or status model ( medical model)
• A trait at T1 predicts a trait at T2
• No environmental input
• Examples include temperament, particular genetic
  codes
• Attachment construct

Mt1
Ct1
Ct2
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• Secure attachment can buffer against stress
  (still trait)
• Et1 Et2 Et3
• Ct1 Ct1 Ct1
• Introduce idea of critical or sensitive period
• When does trait model break down, and environment
  affect trait (thresholds)?
• Duration of stressor
• Intensity of stressor
• Frequency of stressor
• Earlier rather than later in life
• Problems with trait model
• Situation-specific (secure attachment to mom
  rather than dad)
• No room for environment to affect trait past
  first few years of life

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• Environmental model (behaviorism)
• Normal or maladaptive behavior is function of
  environmental forces acting on individual at that
  time
• Individual responds to rewards and punishments
• Passive child, active environment
• Memories of previous rewards or punishments can
  affect current behavior (development of
  representational models)
• Different kinds of environments
• Dyadic family interactions
• Family systems
• Peers
• Neighborhood effects
• Community effects
• Gender,ethnicity, cohort, SES effects
• Cultural effects

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• Creation of victim culture (e.g., murders may be
  due more to the cultures non-punishment or
  nonrestriction of handguns, p. 19)
• Are Americans more violent by nature, or do we
  just permit handguns?
• Environmental model
• Et1 Et2 Et3
• Ct1 Ct2 Ct3
• assuming homeostatic environment
• Effects of attachment (? peer relations, ? school
  performance) could be function of homeostatic
  environment)
• Foster care study, changes in mothers level of
  depression

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• Compare trait and environmental models
• Poor parenting? insecure attachment? poor peer
  relationships (mediated model)
• Poor parenting? insecure attachment
• poor peer
  relationships
• Poor parenting insecure attachment? poor peer
  relationships (additive model)
• Poor parenting insecure attachment? poor peer
  relationships (moderated model)
• Affects of prior experience
• t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t1
  t2 t3
• E -
  -
• C ?
  ?

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• Interactional model
• Stability and change in child a function of child
  and environment
• Trait and environment may act to produce new set
  of behaviors
• -Ap x E? O ?not affected
• OR
• Transformational model (transactional model)
• -Ap x E ? Ap? O
• Goodness-of-Fit Model
• Discord arises when child characteristics do not
  match environmental demand (e.g., temperament,
  sex role attitudes)
• C play x ?
  () school adjustment
• C play x ?
  (-) school adjustment

M () attitude toward play
M (-) attitude toward play