Welcome to Child and Adolescent Psychopathology

1. Welcome to Child and Adolescent Psychopathology Dr. Geoff Goodman x4277 ggoodman@liu.edu What are your expectations for this course? Did you get a syllabus?

2. Historical Overview of Course Perspective: Developmental Psychopathology • Nineteenth Century Conceptions of Child Psychopathology—Cicchetti(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 model—Freud, clinical psychiatry • Behaviorism—Watson, Pavlov, Hull, Skinner

3. 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 today—convergence • 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 psychopathology—influence of Lorenz (ducks), Tinbergen, Harlow, and others

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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 individual’s responses to life events • Effects of life events modifying individuals • Use example of temperamentally irritable infant; Nathaniel

7. Michael Lewis’s 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

8. + - - + + + • 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

9. 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

10. Creation of victim culture (e.g., “murders may be due more to the culture’s 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

11. 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 + + + + ? + + ?

12. Interactional model • Stability and change in child a function of child and environment • Trait and environment may act to produce new set of behaviors -Aπ x +E + O not affected OR • Transformational model (transactional model) -Aπ x +E  +Aπ + 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