A-Level Psychology: Depression and OCD

Depression and OCD complete the psychopathology topic, and the exam treats them as a matched pair: a cognitive account with a cognitive therapy for one, a biological account with a drug therapy for the other. This quiz keeps that structure explicit.

The depression questions start with characteristics sorted correctly into behavioural (psychomotor change, disrupted sleep and appetite), emotional (lowered mood, anger) and cognitive categories — a sorting task that costs marks every year when categories blur. The cognitive explanations follow: Beck's negative triad (self, world, future) and negative self-schemas as stable filters on interpretation, and Ellis's ABC model with beliefs as the crucial mediating step between activating event and consequence. CBT is tested as the applied arm of the same theory — challenging irrational thoughts to break the cycle.

The OCD questions run the biological parallel: obsessions distinguished from compulsions as cognition versus behaviour, the genetic explanation tested through candidate genes (SERT's serotonin transport role, COMT's dopamine regulation) alongside the polygenic picture, and the neural explanation through serotonin and the orbitofrontal cortex worry circuit. SSRIs are tested mechanistically — blocking serotonin reuptake to raise synaptic availability — connecting the therapy directly to the neural account it presupposes.

Every explanation makes the theory-to-therapy link explicit, because that coherence — this explanation implies this treatment — is exactly what the 16-mark psychopathology essays are marked on. Pairs with the Abnormality and Phobias quiz for full topic coverage.

• Sort depression's characteristics into behavioural, emotional and cognitive
• Explain Beck's negative triad and schemas, and Ellis's ABC model
• Distinguish obsessions from compulsions precisely
• Describe genetic (SERT, COMT, polygenic) and neural explanations of OCD
• Link SSRIs' reuptake mechanism to the serotonin account of OCD

Covers the compulsory Psychopathology content of A-level Psychology: characteristics and cognitive explanations of depression (Beck, Ellis) with CBT, and characteristics and biological explanations of OCD with SSRI drug therapy.