Understanding Depression and Schizophrenia

Introduction

In this assignment, the psychological disorder of depression and schizophrenia are to be discussed with effective psychological theoretical explanation and importance of therapies for the conditions.

Depression

Depression is one of the psychological disorders which negatively affects the way a person feels, behaviour and think leading them to have different physical and emotional problems which negative affect their ability to practice normal life (Choi et al., 2020). The signs and symptoms of depression include feeling sad or having persistent depressing mood, loss of interest in social and pleasure activities, sudden weight loss unrelated to dieting, hindered sleeping, increased fatigue, self-harm affinity and others (LeMoult and Gotlib, 2019).

The behaviourist theory considers that certain avoidant behaviour in people and sudden environment changes inhibits certain individuals from experiencing and enjoying the environmental rewards and reinforcement. It leads the individuals subsequently to develop and maintain low mood and depressive symptoms making them develop depression (Hunter, 2019). In contrast, the biological theory informs that depression is caused due to reduced level of neurotransmitter norepinephrine in certain brain areas leading to depressive mood of the individual. However, it is not the sole explanation and biological theory mentions that depression may be raised due to certain medical problems, hindered mood regulation by brain, stressful live events and genetic vulnerability in person developed from parent generation (Condon et al., 2019).

The strength of behaviourist theory is that it helps in effectively defining any behaviour and measures the changes occurred in the behaviour (Ahmad et al., 2020). However, the limitation is that the theory fails to inform core cause of an issue in psychological behaviour (Ahmad et al., 2020). Thus, the use of behaviour theory in explaining depression would be advantageous to assist in measuring the depression level of the individual but it would fail to identify the core reason behind the depressed behaviour or disorder. The strength of biological theory is that it helps in determining the correlation of brain activity impact in promoting mental disorder, but the limitation is that it fails to account for the influence of external environment in causing psychological disorder (Montag and Elhai, 2019). Thus, using biological approach though assist in understanding the correlation of brain activity with depression but it fails to explain the way external environment influences depression in person failing to provide holistic cause of the disorder. The usefulness of following psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and others for depression is that it helps individual with the disorder become aware of the negative thoughts and its cause along with inform them way to change their negative mood to lead life with enhanced mental well-being (Furukawa et al., 2017).

Schizophrenia

is a serious psychological disorder in which individuals the ability to interpret reality by them in hindered making them act abnormally (McCutcheon et al., 2020). The key positive signs and symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations, confused thoughts, disorganised speech, delusion, troubled concentration and hindered movement. The negative signs and symptoms of Schizophrenia are lack of communication, motivation and social interaction (Wolf et al., 2021). The behavioural theory proposes that in the early stage, the families and role models play important part in the lives of the individuals and their hindered contribution towards the upbringing of the individuals makes them develop inappropriate behaviour towards social stimulus leading the individuals to gradually develop schizophrenia (Bliksted et al., 2019). In contrast, the biological theory of Schizophrenia mentions that the disorder is developed due to imbalance in the normal level of dopamine (high level), serotonin (high level), acetylcholine (low level), glutamate and gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA). Further, the disorder is also mentioned to be caused due to presence of complex multi-genetic disorder in individual passed through heredity (Alnæs et al., 2019).

The strength of behaviourist theory is that it helps in developing ideas about the effectiveness of any psychotherapy in individuals with any psychological disorder. However, the weakness is that it is highly deterministic and does not consider the influence of social, emotional and cognitive aspects in behaviour (Ahmad et al., 2020). Thus, the use of the theory though able to specific the effect of any psychotherapy in treatment of schizophrenia but it does not explain the way social constructs and cognitive intellect influence the symptoms of schizophrenia patients. The strength of biological theory is that it provides detailed explanation of the cause of any hindered disorder, but the limitation is that it is nomoethic leading to generalise the cause of disorder in all individuals (Montag and Elhai, 2019). Thus, the use of the theory though explains the biological cause of schizophrenia, but it fails to infirm the different factors regarding specific person that causes schizophrenia in them. The usefulness of leading therapies in Schizophrenia is that it helps the individuals to overcome negative and positive symptoms of the disease to develop sable mental efficiency (McCutcheon et al., 2020).

Conclusion

The above discussion concludes depression and schizophrenia are mainly caused by hindered environmental influence and dysfunction of the brain due to imbalance in neurotransmitters as per behavioural and biological theory.

References

Ahmad, S., Sultana, N. and Jamil, S., 2020. Behaviorism vs Constructivism: A Paradigm Shift from Traditional to Alternative Assessment Techniques. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 7(2), pp.19-33.

Alnæs, D., Kaufmann, T., van der Meer, D., Córdova-Palomera, A., Rokicki, J., Moberget, T., Bettella, F., Agartz, I., Barch, D.M., Bertolino, A. and Brandt, C.L., 2019. Brain heterogeneity in schizophrenia and its association with polygenic risk. JAMA psychiatry, 76(7), pp.739-748.

Bliksted, V., Frith, C., Videbech, P., Fagerlund, B., Emborg, C., Simonsen, A., Roepstorff, A. and Campbell-Meiklejohn, D., 2019. Hyper-and hypomentalizing in patients with first-episode schizophrenia: fMRI and behavioral studies. Schizophrenia bulletin, 45(2), pp.377-385.

Choi, E.P.H., Hui, B.P.H. and Wan, E.Y.F., 2020. Depression and anxiety in Hong Kong during COVID-19. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(10), p.3740.

Condon, M.D., Platt, N.J., Zhang, Y.F., Roberts, B.M., Clements, M.A., Vietti-Michelina, S., Tseu, M.Y., Brimblecombe, K.R., Threlfell, S., Mann, E.O. and Cragg, S.J., 2019. Plasticity in striatal dopamine release is governed by release-independent depression and the dopamine transporter. Nature communications, 10(1), pp.1-15.

Furukawa, T.A., Weitz, E.S., Tanaka, S., Hollon, S.D., Hofmann, S.G., Andersson, G., Twisk, J., DeRubeis, R.J., Dimidjian, S., Hegerl, U. and Mergl, R., 2017. Initial severity of depression and efficacy of cognitive–behavioural therapy: individual-participant data meta-analysis of pill-placebo-controlled trials. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 210(3), pp.190-196.

Hunter, G., 2019. The Self: Can Behaviorism Inform the Study of The Self. J Psychiatry Depress Anxiety, 5, p.021.

LeMoult, J. and Gotlib, I.H., 2019. Depression: A cognitive perspective. Clinical Psychology Review, 69, pp.51-66.

McCutcheon, R.A., Marques, T.R. and Howes, O.D., 2020. Schizophrenia—an overview. JAMA psychiatry, 77(2), pp.201-210.

Montag, C. and Elhai, J.D., 2019. A new agenda for personality psychology in the digital age?. Personality and Individual Differences, 147, pp.128-134.

Wolf, R.C., Rashidi, M., Schmitgen, M.M., Fritze, S., Sambataro, F., Kubera, K.M. and Hirjak, D., 2021. Neurological soft signs predict auditory verbal hallucinations in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 47(2), pp.433-443.

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