Chapter 1: Overview Flashcards
Abnormal psychology
Study of psychological dysfunctions that the person experiences in terms of distress or impairment in functioning.
Psychopathology
The scientific study of mental illness and it’s causes.
Stigma
Negative attitudes and beliefs that cause general public to avoid certain people, including those with a mental illness.
Behavioral and experimental perspectives
Examines the behavior and experience observed in psychopathology, especially the manner in which the signs and symptoms of a particular disorder are seen in a similar manner throughout the world.
Neuroscience perspectives
Examines what we know about particular psychopathological experience from the standpoint of neuroscience, including the structure and function of the brain, the autonomic nervous system, and a genetic and epigenetic consideratioknasnitbrelated to psychopathology.
Evolutionary perspectives
Examines psychological disorders in terms of certain aspects might be adaptive, asking if there is any advantage to behaving and feeling in certain ways that others consider abnormal or if the disordered behavior is secondary to another process that is beneficial.
Levels of analysis
Examination of psychopathology ranging from culture and society at a higher level to the individual at a middle level and physiology and genetics at the lower levels.
Cultural perspective
Examines the social world in which a person lived from which a person learns skills, values, beliefs, attitudes, and other information.
Hierarchical integration
Through inhibitory control, the various levels of the brain such as the brain stem, limbo system, and the neocortex, are able to interact with each other, and higher levels restrict or inhibit the lower levels.
Variation
The assumption that heritable variations can and do occur in nature.
Natural selection
Darwin’s idea that if an organism has even slight variations that help it to compete successfully for survival then over time the species will be made up more members with these characteristics and less individuals lacking these features.
Sexual selection
The manner in which makes and females choose a mate.
Symptoms
Features observed by patient.
Signs
Features observed by clinician.
Syndrome
Determination of which signs and symptoms go together.
Psychodynamic perspective
Approach to psychological therapy that emphasizes how behaviors and experience may be influenced by internal processes that are outside of awareness, often due to internal conflicts.
Psychoanalysis
Treatment developed by Freud based on the search for ideas and emotions that are in conflict in an unconscious level.
Existential-humanistic perspective
Psychological therapy that focuses on the experience of the person in the moment and the manner in which he or she interprets the experiences.
Client-centered therapy
A treatment approach in psychology characterized by the therapist’s empathic understanding, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness.
Emotion focused therapy
Emotion is viewed as centrally important in the experience of the self.
Mindfulness
A therapeutic technique involving an increased focused nonjudgmental purposeful awareness of the present moment.
Behavior perspectives
A psychological approach focused only on actions and behaviors, not internal processes or aspects of consciousness.
Classic conditioning
The pairing of the unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus eventually causing the neutral stimulus to produce the same response.
Extinction
The process by which, after a period of time, the conditioned stimulus, when presented alone, will no longer produce the response.
