Ch. 2 - Theoretical Paradigms Flashcards
Repression
A defense mechanism whereby impulses and thoughts unacceptable to the ego are pushed into the unconscious
Resilience
An individual’s level of protection from risk factors or ability to recover from emotional difficulties or trauma
Resilient Type
The most adaptive if three personality types found among children. Resilient children tend to become resilient adults who are able to bounce back from adversity.
Resistances
During psychoanalysis,the defensive tendency of the unconscious part of the ego to ward off from consciousness particularly threatening repressed material
Reuptake
Process by which released neurotransmitters are pumped back into the presynaptic cell, making them available for enhancing transmitting of nerve impulses.
Risk
A factor that increases the likelihood of a person developing a disorder or dysfunction. Risk factors can react to a characteristic of the person or their life situation.
Role-playing
A technique that teaches people to behave in a certain way by encouraging them to pretend that they are in a particular situation; it helps people acquire complex behaviors in an efficient way.
Schema
A mental structure for organizing information about the world
Secondary process thinking
The reality-based decision-making and problem-solving activities of the ego.
Self-actualization
The fulfillment of one’s potential as an always-growing human being; believed by client-centered therapists to be the master motive.
Self-efficacy
In Bandura’s theory, the person’s belief that he or she can achieve certain goals
Sublimation
Defence mechanism entailing the conversion of sexual or aggressive impulses into socially valued behaviours, especially creative activity
Successive Approximations
Responses that closer and closer resemble the desired response in operant conditioning
Superego
In psychoanalytic theory, the part of the personality that acts as the conscience and reflects society’s moral standards as learned from parents and teachers
Sympathetic Nervous System
The division of the autonomic nervous system that acts on bodily systems–for example, contracting the blood vessels, reducing activity of the intestines, and increasing the heartbeat–to prepare the organism for exertion, emotional stress, or extreme cold
Synapse
A small gap between two neutrons where the nerve impulse passes from the axion of the first to the dendrites, cell body, or axon of the second
Systematic Desensitization
A major behaviour therapy procedure that has a fearful person, while deeply relaxed, imagine a series of progressively more fearsome situations. The two responses of relaxation and fear are incompatible and fear is dispelled. This technique is useful for treating psychological problems in which anxiety is the principal difficulty.
Temperament
An individual difference variable that reflects variability in tendencies such as emotionality and activity level that are believed to reflect, in part, biologically inherited differences
Transference
The venting of the client’s emotions, either positive or negative, by treating the psychoanalyst as the symbolic representative of someone important in the past. An example id the client’s becoming angry with the psychoanalyst to release emotions actually felt toward his or her father.
Twin Method
Research strategy in behaviour genetics in which concordance rates of monozygotic and dizygotic twins are compared.
Unconditional Positive Regard
According to Rogers, a crucial attitude for the client-centered therapist to adopt toward the client, who needs to feel complete acceptance as a person in order to evaluate the extent to which current behaviour contributes to self-actualization.
Unconscious
A state of unawareness without sensation or thought. In psychoanalytic theory, it is the part of the personality, in particular the id impulses, or id energy, of which the ego is unaware.
Under-controlled Type
One of the three personality types found among children. Under controlled children are often impulsive and lack self control and are prone to engaging in risky behaviours throughout their adolescence and adult periods.
