Compare and contrast one biomedical and one individual approach to treatment.

Side Effects
Biomedical often side effects, whilst individual do not.
SSRIs nausea, vomiting, insomnia, headaches, Paradoxical symptoms can worsen the condition in some cases.
This suggests that individual approaches may be more useful to some patients, as they do not lead to side effects.
Those who have responded badly to SSRIs may use individual treatments as they have few negative consequences.

Biomedical and Individual differ in terms of suitability for different patients.
Biomedical are not particularly suitable for children or adolescents Geller 1992 found it failed to demonstrate
superiority of AD over placebo.
Biomedical (SSRIs) may be unsuitable for adolescents who have suicidal thoughts, doubling the risk of attempted
suicide. Suicidal patients and young people would be better served by seeking individual therapy, as this has not
been found to increase suicide and have been found to be equally effective in different age groups.
However, CBT has been found to be less suitable for people who are resistant to change and who are suffering stress
as a result of real life stressors which cannot be changed i.e. we can change how they think, but we cannot change
the actual stressor.

Effectiveness of biomedical and individual treatments vs Placebo.
Biomedical has been found to be effective vs placebo Bernstein 60-80% improved, BUT Kirsch only 25% more
effective than placebo.
CBT & SSRIs have same effectiveness Elkin - >50% of people in both drug and CBT group recovered, whereas only
29% of people recovered in the Placebo group

However drug therapies worked faster than CBT Difference in time-scale of treatment CBT takes much
longer to start working, SSRIs much quicker. But, CBT 16-20 sessions (possibly finished in a few months),
Drugs - still used over a matter of months.

Amount of time spent with a clinician
Drugs, minimal time, can be administered by GP without ever consulting a Psychiatrist / psychologist. CBT on
average 16-20 hours (Possibly more) with a trained Psychiatrist / Psychologist.
This links into the fact that people are more likely to adhere to drug treatments when combined with individual
treatments such as CBT Karp & Frank contact time with Clinician makes you more likely to adhere.

One similarity between drug treatment and individual treatment is that whilst they may have different
means of treatment, with biomedical focusing on changing biological aspects and CBT changing thinking,
they have both been found to change the way the brain functions Timothy.
Discuss how biological and sociocultural factors influence one anxiety, affective or eating
disorder.

1. Intro what disorder OCD / Depression. Brief overview of what it is. Intro bio & s-c factors.
2. Bio factor 1
3. Eval of bio factor 1
4. Bio factor 2
5. Eval of bio factor 2
6. General eval of bio factors
a. Establishing cause and effect did the NT / brain structure cause the disorder, or the disorder lead
to changes in brain function / structure?
b. Brain scanning provides objective and precise measurement which we do not have for S-C factors,
which often rely on self report.
7. S-c factor 1
8. Eval of sc factor 1
9. S-C factor 2
10. Eval of S-C factor 2
11. General eval of S-C factors
a. Subjective measurements e.g self report, retrospective reports, etc. Not necessarily valid
measurements

Discuss cultural and ethical considerations in diagnosis.

1. Intro term culture, brief outline of how this affects diagnosis, same for ethics.
2. Culture
a. Clinician bias views they have about certain cultures or sub-cultures
b. Cultural differences in presentation of disorders / behaviours alcoholism vs depression, Kirov &
Murray Black people more likely to be diagnosed as Schizophrenia than Bipolar disorder.
c. Culture Bound Syndromes Amok, Koro, some conditions isolated to certain parts of the world.
Issue of imposing views on other cultures.