This mini-lesson covers the OCR Psychological Problems topic: what counts as mental health, unipolar depression and its explanations, addiction, and treatments including antidepressants and CBT.
Work through each screen, answer the questions as you go and collect ⭐ stars. Every fact here is anchored to a named study or theory on the OCR GCSE Psychology (J203) Psychological Problems topic. Press Start when you're ready.
Psychological problems · mental health
Defining mental health
Views of mental health change over time and differ between cultures.
Ways of defining a mental health problem include deviation from the norm, failure to function and clinical diagnosis.
OCR focuses on unipolar depression and addiction.
Problems affect the individual (relationships, work) and society (cost, lost productivity).
Quick check
Effects on society
?Which of these is an effect of mental health problems on society?
Depression
Unipolar depression & its explanations
Unipolar depression involves lasting low mood, loss of interest and changes in sleep and appetite. Explanations include:
Biological: low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Cognitive:negative thinking — focusing on the negative and blaming oneself (e.g. Beck's negative triad: self, world, future).
Quick check
Biological explanation
?Which neurotransmitter is most linked to the biological explanation of depression?
Depression · treatment
Antidepressants & CBT
Depression can be treated biologically or cognitively:
Antidepressants (SSRIs) block serotonin reuptake, leaving more in the synapse to lift mood.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) identifies and challenges negative thoughts, replacing them with more realistic ones.
Drugs treat symptoms; CBT tackles the thinking behind them.
Sort it
Sort: depression or addiction?
Tap a description, then tap the problem it belongs to.
🔁 Both / general
😞 Depression
🎲 Addiction
Quick check
How SSRIs work
?SSRIs block serotonin reuptake. The effect at the synapse is that:
Addiction
Addiction & its explanations
Addiction is a lack of control over a behaviour or substance despite harm. Explanations include:
Biological: genetic vulnerability and the brain's reward system (dopamine).
Learning: addiction is learned and maintained through reinforcement — the rewarding effects encourage repetition.
Treatments can be biological (drug therapy) or behavioural (e.g. aversion therapy).
Match it
Match the disorder idea
Tap a description on the left, then its matching term on the right.
Statement
Answer
Quick check
Explaining addiction
?The learning explanation says addiction is kept going mainly because the behaviour is:
Depression · evaluating treatments
Evaluating the treatments
Each treatment involves trade-offs:
Antidepressants: quick and easy but treat symptoms, with possible side effects.
CBT: tackles negative thinking and lasts longer, but needs effort.
They are often combined.
Addiction · explanations
Explaining and treating addiction
Addiction has more than one cause:
Biological: genes and the brain's reward system.
Learning: reinforcement keeps it going.
Aversion therapy pairs the behaviour with something unpleasant to reduce it.
Recap
The big ideas to know
Mental health: definitions change over time; individual and social effects