24 CHAPTER 1
Cognitive psychology has contributed to the understanding of psychological
disorders by focusing on specifi c changes in mental processes. For instance, people
withanxiety disorders—a category of disorders that involves extreme fear, panic,
and/or avoidance of a feared stimulus—tend to focus their attention in particular
ways, creating a bias in what they expect and remember. In turn, these biased mem-
ories appear to support the “truth” of their inaccurate view about the danger of
the stimulus that elicits their fear. For instance, a man who is very anxious in social
situations may pay excessive attention to whether other people seem to be looking
at him; when people glance in his general direction, he will then notice the direction
of their gaze and infer that they are looking at him. Later, he will remember that
“everyone” was watching him.
Other cognitive explanations of psychological disorders focused on the content
of people’s thoughts. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck (b. 1921) and psychologist Albert Ellis
(1913–2007) each focused on how people’s irrational and inaccurate thoughts about
themselves and the world can contribute to psychological disorders (Beck, 1967;
Ellis & Maclaren, 1998). For example, people who are depressed often think very
negatively and inaccurately about themselves, the future, and the world. They think
that they are inept, ugly, or unlovable or they have other equally unhappy thoughts.
They often believe that they will always be so, and that no one will care about them;
or, if someone does care, this person will leave as soon as he or she sees how really
inept, ugly, or unlovable the depressed person is. Such thoughts could make anyone
depressed! For cognitive therapists, treatment involves shifting, orrestructuring,peo-
ple’s faulty beliefs and irrational thoughts that led to psychological disorders. Such
cognitive techniques will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
Cognitive therapy might have been appropriate for the Beale women, who had
unusual beliefs. Consider the fact that Little Edie worried about leaving her mother
alone in her room for more than a few minutes because she might come back and
fi nd her mother dead, or that a stranger might break in, despite the fact that the
windows were nailed shut (Graham, 1976). Big Edie also had unusual beliefs. One
time, a big kite was hovering over Grey Gardens and she called the police, con-
cerned that the kite was a listening device or a bomb (Wright, 2007).
The focus on particular mental processes and mental contents illuminates some
aspects of psychological disorders. But just as behaviorist theories do not fully
address why individuals develop the particular beliefs and attitudes they have, cog-
nitive theories do not fully explain why an individual’s mental processes and con-
tents are biased in a particularway. For instance, Little Edie’s brothers, who grew
up in the same household, were not eccentric, nor did they appear to harbor unusual
beliefs or behave in bizarre ways. Knowledge about social and neurological factors
(i.e., those that affect the brain and its functioning) helps to complete the picture.Social Stressors
We can view behavioral and cognitive explanations as psychological: Both refer to
thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of individuals. In addition to these sorts of factors,
we must also consider social factors, or factors that involve more than a single per-
son. There is no unifi ed social explanation for psychological disorders, but various
researchers and theorists in the last half of the 20th century recognized that social
forces affect the emergence and maintenance of mental illness. Many of these social
forces, such as the loss of a relationship, abuse, trauma, neglect, poverty, and dis-
crimination, produce high levels of stress.
Looking at the earliest years of life, Freud had a valuable insight when he rec-
ognized that the way parents treat their children can make them more vulnerable to
mental illness. Two researchers who focused on the interactions between the infant
and the primary caretaker were John Bowlby (1969) and Mary Ainsworth (1989;
Ainsworth & Bell, 1970). They examined attachment style, which characterizes the
particular way a person relates to intimate others. Specifi cally, they observed young
American children with their mothers and characterized each child’s attachment style