Chapter 15 - Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Abnormal Psychology
The scientific study of psychological disorders.
Acute Stress Disorder
AN anxiety disorder in which fear and related symptoms are experienced soon after a traumatic event and last less than a month.
Agoraphobia
A phobia that makes people avoid public places or situations in which escape might be difficult or help unavailable should panic symptoms develop.
Antipsychotic Drugs
Psychotic drugs that reduce tension and anxiety.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
A personality disorder characterized by extreme and callous disregard for the feelings and rights of others.
Automatic Thoughts
Specific upsetting thoughts that arise unwanteingly.
Bipolar Disorder
A mood disorder in which periods of mania alternate with periods of depression.
Borderline Personality Disorder
A personality disorder characterized by severe instability in emotions and self-concept and high levels of volatility.
Catatonia
Extreme psychomotor symptoms of schizophrenia, including catatonic stupor, catatonic rigidity, and catatonic posturing.
Cognitive Triad
A pattern of thinking in which individuals repeatedly interpret their experiences, themselves, and their futures in negative ways that lead them to feel depressed.
Comorbidity
The condition in which a person’s symptoms qualify them for two more diagnoses.
Compulsion
Irrational repetitive and rigid behaviours or mental acts that people feel compelled to perform to prevent or reduce anxiety.
Delusion
Blatantly false beliefs that are firmly held despite evidence to the contrary.
Depression
A persistent sad state in which life seems dark and its challenges overwhelming,
Developmental psychopathology
The study of how problem behaviours evolve as a function of a person’s genes and early
experiences, and how these early issues affect the person at later life stages.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
The leading classification system for psychological disorders in Canada; DSM-5 is the current version.
Dissociative Disorder
A psychological disorder characterized by major loss of memory without a clear physical cause; types include dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, and dissociative identity disorder.
Equifinality
The idea that different children can start from different points and wind up at the same outcome.
Family Sytsem Theory
A theory holding that each family has its own implicit rules , relationship structure, and communication patterns that shape the behaviour of individual members.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
A disorder where an individual feels excessive anxiety and worry under most circumstances.
Hallucinations
Imagined, sight, sound or other sensory events experienced as if they were real.
International Classification of Disease (ICD)
System used by most countries to classify psychological disorders; published by the WHO and currently in its 11th edition (ICD-10).
Loose Association or Derailment
A common thought disorder of schizophrenia, characterized by rapid shifts from one topic to another.
Major Depressive Disorder
A disorder characterized by a depressed mood that is significantly disabling and is not caused by such factors as drugs or a general medical condition.
