Chapter 01 – Origins & Causes of Psychopathology
Psychopathology
Chapter 01 –
Origins and Causes of Psychopathology
Textbook Used:
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 1
,Chapter 01 – Origins & Causes of Psychopathology
Introduction
→ Psychopathology: The scientific study of psychological disorders, and a central question in
psychopathology concerns why people develop psychological disorders.
→ Aetiology: The study of causes of disorders. Aetiology literally means the study of origination or
causation.
- Understanding aetiology guides the clinician in understanding a patient’s symptoms and making
decisions regarding treatment.
→ Aetiology does NOT provide us with answers about the causes of disorders, because:
1. Human behaviour is highly complex.
2. Disorders are more often than not caused by multiple factors.
3. Causal factors change over the lifespan.
4. Different causal routes exist for the same disorder.
5. The same causal route may develop into different disorders.
→ Reasons WHY the study of the aetiology of disorders is important:
1. Treatment and management of disorders is often, if not always, informed by the aetiology of
the disorder.
2. A better understanding of aetiology can also inform categorisation and classification of
disorders.
3. Studies of aetiology stimulate further research.
→ It is important to understand abnormal behaviour in its totality – this means that both macro (e.g.,
psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, behavioural, and humanistic) and micro (e.g., uni- and
multivariate) psychological understandings of disorders needs to be described.
Equifinality & Multifinality
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 2
, Chapter 01 – Origins & Causes of Psychopathology
→ Cicchetti and Rogosch (1996, as cited in Burke et al., 2019) use the term equifinality when sets of
differing circumstances lead to the same disorder.
Difference between family
background and school culture
Genetic Factors
EATING DISORDER
Parenting Style
Exam Stress
→ On the other hand, the same causal factor may lead to different disorders in different people.
→ Cicchetti and Rogosch (1996, as cited in Burke et al., 2019) use the term multifinality when sets of
similar beginnings lead to different disorders.
Depression
Anxiety
PARENTING STYLE
Eating Disorder
Elimination Disorder
Biomedical Perspectives
→ The biomedical model claims that all mental illnesses have a biological cause.
→ There are many studies that report abnormalities in shape, size, and function in multiple anatomical
regions of the brain, particularly related to the so-called neuropathology of the different disorders;
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 3
Psychopathology
Chapter 01 –
Origins and Causes of Psychopathology
Textbook Used:
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 1
,Chapter 01 – Origins & Causes of Psychopathology
Introduction
→ Psychopathology: The scientific study of psychological disorders, and a central question in
psychopathology concerns why people develop psychological disorders.
→ Aetiology: The study of causes of disorders. Aetiology literally means the study of origination or
causation.
- Understanding aetiology guides the clinician in understanding a patient’s symptoms and making
decisions regarding treatment.
→ Aetiology does NOT provide us with answers about the causes of disorders, because:
1. Human behaviour is highly complex.
2. Disorders are more often than not caused by multiple factors.
3. Causal factors change over the lifespan.
4. Different causal routes exist for the same disorder.
5. The same causal route may develop into different disorders.
→ Reasons WHY the study of the aetiology of disorders is important:
1. Treatment and management of disorders is often, if not always, informed by the aetiology of
the disorder.
2. A better understanding of aetiology can also inform categorisation and classification of
disorders.
3. Studies of aetiology stimulate further research.
→ It is important to understand abnormal behaviour in its totality – this means that both macro (e.g.,
psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, behavioural, and humanistic) and micro (e.g., uni- and
multivariate) psychological understandings of disorders needs to be described.
Equifinality & Multifinality
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 2
, Chapter 01 – Origins & Causes of Psychopathology
→ Cicchetti and Rogosch (1996, as cited in Burke et al., 2019) use the term equifinality when sets of
differing circumstances lead to the same disorder.
Difference between family
background and school culture
Genetic Factors
EATING DISORDER
Parenting Style
Exam Stress
→ On the other hand, the same causal factor may lead to different disorders in different people.
→ Cicchetti and Rogosch (1996, as cited in Burke et al., 2019) use the term multifinality when sets of
similar beginnings lead to different disorders.
Depression
Anxiety
PARENTING STYLE
Eating Disorder
Elimination Disorder
Biomedical Perspectives
→ The biomedical model claims that all mental illnesses have a biological cause.
→ There are many studies that report abnormalities in shape, size, and function in multiple anatomical
regions of the brain, particularly related to the so-called neuropathology of the different disorders;
Raven Strydom 063 378 4873 3
