Exam 2-PSY 320 Flashcards
Fight-or-Flight Response
Physiological changes in the human body that occur in response to a perceived threat, including the secretion of glucose, endorphins, and hormones as well as the elevation of heart rate, metabolism, blood pressure, breathing, and muscle tension.
Cortisol
Hormone that helps the body respond to stressors, including the fight-or-flight response.
Anxiety
State of apprehension, tension, and worry
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)
Anxiety disorder characterized by (1) repeated mental images of experiencing a traumatic event, (2) emotional numbing, and detachment, and (3) hypervigilance and chronic arousal
Acute Stress Disorder
Disorder similar to post-traumatic stress disorder but occurs within 1 month of exposure to the stressor and does not last more than 4 weeks; often involves dissociative symptoms
Adjustment Disorder
Stress-related disorder that involves emotional and behavioral symptoms (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and/or antisocial behaviors) that arise within 3 months of the onset of a stressor.
Stress-management Interventions
Strategies that teach clients to overcome the problems in their lives that are increasing their stress.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s)
Class of antidepressant drugs
Panic Attacks
Short, intense periods during which an individual experiences physiological and cognitive symptoms of anxiety, characterized by intense fear and discomfort
Panic Disorder
Disorder characterized by recurrent, unexpected panic attacks.
Agoraphobia
Anxiety disorder characterized by fear of places and situations in which it would be difficult to escape, such as enclosed places, open spaces, and crowds.
Limbic System
Part of the brain that relays information from the primitive brain stem about changes in bodily functions to the cortex, where the information is interpreted.
Locus Ceruleus
Area of the brain stem that plays a part in the emergency response and may be involved in panic attacks
Anxiety Sensitivity
Belief that bodily symptoms have harmful consequences.
Interoceptive Conditioning
Process by which symptoms of anxiety that have preceded panic attacks become the signals for new panic attacks
Conditioned Avoidance Response
Behavior that is reinforced because it allows individuals to avoid situations that cause anxiety.
Specific Phobias
Extreme fears of specific objects or situations that cause an individual to routinely avoid those objects or situations
Animal Type Phobias
Extreme fear of specific animals that may induce immediate and intense panic attacks and cause the individual to go to great lengths to avoid the animals.
Natural Environment Type Phobias
Extreme fears of events or situations in the natural environment that cause impairment in one’s ability to function normally
Situational Type Phobias
Extreme fears of situations such as public transportation, tunnels, bridges, elevators, flying, driving, or enclosed spaces.
Blood-Injection-Injury Type Phobias
Extreme fears of seeing blood or an injury or of receiving an injection or another invasive medical procedure, which cause a drop in heart rate and blood pressure and fainting
Social Phobia
Extreme fear of being judged or embarrassed in front of people, causing the individual to avoid social situations.
Negative Reinforcement
Process in which people avoid being exposed to feared objects and their avoidance is reinforced by the subsequent reduction of their anxiety.
Prepared Classical Conditioning
Theory that evolution has prepared people to be easily conditioned to fear objects or situations that were dangerous in ancient times.
Applied Tension Technique
Technique used to treat blood-injection-injury type phobias in which the therapist teaches the client to increase his or her blood pressure and heart rate, thus preventing the client from fainting.
Modeling
Process of learning behaviors by imitating others, especially authority figures or people like oneself
Flooding
Behavioral technique in which a client is intensively exposed to a feared object until the anxiety diminishes (also called implosive therapy)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Anxiety disorder characterized by chronic anxiety in daily life
Obsessions
Uncontrollable, persistent thoughts, images, ideas, or impulses that an individual feels intrude on his or her consciousness and that cause significant anxiety or distress.
Compulsions
Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels he or she must perform
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Anxiety disorder characterized by obsessions (persistent thoughts) and compulsions (rituals)
Exposure and Response Prevention
Type of therapy in which individuals with anxiety symptoms are exposed repeatedly to the focus of their anxiety but prevented from avoiding it or engaging in compulsive responses to the anxiety
Somatoform Disorders
Disorders marked by unpleasant or painful physical symptoms that have no apparent organic cause and that are not physiologically possible, suggesting that psychological factors are involved.
Psychosomatic Disorders
Syndromes marked by unidentifiable physical illness or defect caused at least partly by psychological factors.
Malinger
Feigning of a symptom or a disorder for the purpose of avoiding an unwanted situation, such as military service.
Dissociation
Process whereby different facets of an individual’s sense of self, memories, or consciousness become split off from one another.
Factitious Disorder
Disorders marked by deliberately faking physical or mental illness to gain medical attention.
Factitious Disorder by Proxy
Disorder in which the individual creates an illness in another individual in order to gain attention.
Conversion Disorder
Syndrome marked by a sudden loss of functioning in a part of the body, usually following an extreme psychological stressor.
Glove Anesthesia
State in which people lose all feeling in one hand, as if they were wearing a glove that wiped out all physical symptoms.
Somatization Disorder
Syndrome marked by the chronic experience of unpleasant or painful physical symptoms for which no organic cause and that often are not physiologically possible, suggesting that psychological factors are involved.
Pain Disorder
Syndrome marked by the chronic experience of acute pain that appears to have no physical cause.
Hypochondriasis
Syndrome marked by chronic worry that one has a physical symptom or disease that one clearly does not have.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Syndrome involving obsessive concern over a part of the body the individual believes is defective.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Syndrome in which a person develops more than one distinct identity or personality, each of which can have distinct facial and verbal expressions, gestures, interpersonal styles, attitudes, and even physiological responses.
Dissociative Fugue
Disorder in which a person moves away and assumes a new identity, with amnesia for the previous identity.
Dissociative Amnesia
Loss of memory for important facts about a person’s own life and personal identity, usually including the awareness of this memory loss.
Organic Amnesia
Loss of memory caused by brain injury resulting from disease, drugs, accidents (blows to head), or surgery
Anterograde amnesia
Deficit in the ability to learn new information
Psychogenic amnesia
Loss of memory in the absence of any brain injury or disease and thought to have psychological cause.
Retrograde Amnesia
Deficit in the ability to recall previously learned information of past events.
Depersonalization Disorder
Syndrome marked by frequent episodes of feeling detached from one’s own body and mental processes, as if one were an outside observer of oneself; symptoms must cause significant distress or interference with one’s ability to function.
Sleep Disorders Related to a General Medical Condition
Sleep disorders that result from the physiological effects of a medical condition, such as arthritis or pulmonary disease.
Substance-induced sleep disorders
Sleep disturbances due to the use of substances, including prescription medication (e.g., medications that control hypertension or cardiac arrhythmias) and non prescription substances (e.g., alcohol and caffeine)
Primary sleep disorders
Category of sleep disorders including dyssomnias and parasomnias
Dyssomnias
Primary sleep disorders that involve abnormalities in the amount, quality, or timing of sleep.
Primary Insomnia
Difficulty in initiating or maintaining sleep, or sleep that chronically does not restore energy and alertness.
Primary Hypersomnia
Sleep disorder in which people are chronically sleepy and sleep for long periods of time, leading to social and occupational impairment
Narcolepsy
Sleep disorder characterized by irresistible attacks of sleep plus (1) cataplexy or (2) recurrent intrusions of elements of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep into the transition between sleep and wakefulness.
Breathing-related sleep disorder
Group of sleep disorders characterized by numerous brief sleep disturbances due to problems breathing
Central Sleep Apnea
Sleep disorder characterized by complete cessation of respiratory activity for brief periods of time (20 seconds or more); sufferers do not have frequent awakenings and do not tend to feel tired during the day; occurs when the brain does not send the signal to breath to the respiratory system
Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Sleep disorder characterized by repeated episodes of upper-airway obstruction during sleep.
Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder
Sleep disorder characterized by insomnia or excessive sleepiness during the day due to disruptions in circadian rhythms
Parasomnias
Primary sleep disorders that involve abnormal behavioral and physiological events occurring during sleep.
Nightmare Disorder
Sleep disorder Characterized by nightmares frequent enough to cause significant distress or impairment in functioning.
Sleep Terror Disorder
Sleep disorder in which the individual screams, sweats, and has a racing heart during NREM sleep; the person cannot be easily wakened and usually does not remember the episode on awakening
Sleep Walking Disorder
Sleep disorder characterized by repeated episodes of walking during NREM sleep
