Exam 3 Flashcards
Parasuicide
A suicide attempt that doesn’t result in death.
Suicide
A self-inflicted death in which the person acts intentionally, directly, and consciously to end one’s life.
Death Seeker
A person who clearly intends to end his or her life at the time of a suicide attempt.
Death Initiator
A person who attempts suicide believing that the process of death is already underway and that he/she is simply hastening the process.
Death Ignorer
A person who attempts suicide without recognizing the finality of death.
Death Darer
A person who is ambivalent about the wish to die even as he/she attempts suicide. Ex. a person playing russian roulette.
Subintentional Death
A death in which the victim plays an indirect, hidden, partial, or unconscious role. Ex. drug/alcohol/tobacco use, recurrent physical fighting, etc.
Retrospective Analysis
A psychological autopsy in which clinicians piece together information about a person’s suicide from the person’s past.
Common Triggering Factors for Suicide
Stressful events, mood and thought changes, alcohol and other drug use, mental disorders, and modeling. Also, social isolation, serious illness, an abusive environment, and occupational stress.
Hopelessness
A pessimistic belief that one’s present circumstances, problems, mood won’t change.
Psychache
A feeling of psychological pain that seems intolerable to a person. Key to suicide.
Dichotomous Thinking
Viewing problems and solutions in rigid “either/or” terms.
“Only” is the 4-letter word in suicide.
Social Contagion Effect
Increases in the risk of suicide among the relatives and friends of people who recently committed suicide.
Psychodynamic Perspective for Suicide
They believe that suicide results from depression and anger at others that is redirected toward oneself. Death instinct (thanatus) directed to themselves in suicide patients.
Sociocultural Perspective for Suicide
According to Durkheim, the probability of suicide is determined by how attached a person is to such social groups as the family, religious institutions, and community. The more thorough a person belongs, the lower the risk of suicide.
Egoistic Suicides
Committed by people over whom society has little or no control. In people who are isolated, non-religious, and alienated.
Altruistic Suicides
Committed by people who are so well integrated into the social structure that they intentionally sacrifice their lives for its well-being. Ex. kamikazes.
Anomic Suicides
Committed by people whose social environment fails to provide stable structures, such as family as religion, to support and give meaning to life. By people who have been let down by a disorganized, inadequate, often decaying society. Can also be caused by major life changes in a person’s immediate surroundings.
Anomie
“Without law,” this societal condition leaves people without a sense of belonging.
Biological Perspective for Suicide
They rely on family pedigree studies to support their position that biological factors contribute to suicidal behavior. Low serotonin activity levels found in people who commit suicide. Some studies found that they had fewer receptor sites on neurons that normally receive serotonin than people who don’t commit suicide. Also, abnormalities in the PFC, orbitofrontal cortex, and cingulate cortex (all have serotonin-using neurons). Biological theorists believe that heightened feelings of aggression and impulsivity, produced by low serotonin activity are key factors in suicide.
Treatments for Suicidal People
Medical care after an attempt, psychotherapy, and/or drug therapy. CBT maybe particularly helpful for suicidal people bc it focuses on the painful thoughts, sense of hopelessness, dichotomous thinking, poor coping skills, weak problem-solving abilities, etc. Mindfulness-based CT, too, bc the therapists guides the client to be aware of his negative thoughts and feelings and accept them rather than eliminate it.
Suicide Prevention Program
A program that tries to identify people who are at risk of killing themselves and to offer them crisis intervention.
Crisis Intervention
A treatment approach that tries to help people in a psychological crisis to view their situation more accurately, make better decisions, act more constructively, and overcome the crisis.
Treating Suicidal People in Therapy
Establish a positive relationship, understand and clarify the problem, assess suicide potential, assess and mobilize the caller’s resources, and formulate a plan.
Therapy Goals for Suicidal People
Keep the patient alive, reduce psychological pain, help achieve a nonsuicidal state of mind, help gain a sense of hope, guide better stress management.
Factitious Disorder / Munchausen Syndrome
A disorder in which a person feigns or induces physical symptoms, typically for the purpose of assuming the role of a sick person. Maybe caused by factors such as depression, unsupportive parental relationships during childhood, extreme need for social support.
Malingering
Intentionally feigning illness to achieve some external gain, such as financial compensation or deferment from military service.
Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another / Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
Parents or caretakers make up or produce physical illnesses in their children, leading in some cases to repeated painful diagnostic tests, medication, and surgery. Use various techniques to induce symptoms in a child (ex. giving a child drugs). Caretaker craves attention and praise she receives from the sick child.
Conversion Disorder
A disorder in which a person’s bodily symptoms affect his or her voluntary motor and sensory functions, but the symptoms are inconsistent with known medical diseases. They have neurological-like symptoms (ex. paralysis, blindness) with no neurological basis. Appears suddenly at times of extreme stress.
Somatic Symptom Disorder
A disorder in which people become excessively distressed, concerned, and anxious about bodily symptoms that they are experiencing, and their lives are greatly and disproportionately disrupted by the symptoms. Great disruption of life. Longer lasting but less dramatic symptoms than conversion disorder.
Somatization Pattern / Briquet’s Syndrome
The individual experiences a large and varied number of bodily symptoms. Experience many long-lasting physical ailments with no known cause such as headaches. For diagnosis, must have several pain symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, a sexual symptom, and a neurological symptom.
Predominant Pain Pattern
Pain disorder associated with psychological factors. The person’s primary bodily problem is the experience of pain. Diagnosis is possible when psychosocial factors play a central role in the onset, severity, or continuation of pain. Often develops after an accident or illness that caused genuine pain.
Psychodynamic Perspective for Somatic Symptom Disorders
Freud came to believe that hysterical (implied it only happened to women) disorders (conversion and somatic symptom disorders) represented a conversion of underlying emotional conflicts into physical symptoms and concerns. Since most patients were women, Freud centered his explanation on the need of girls during their phallic stage (3-5) bc he believed that during that tome girls develop the Electra complex, however they suppress it. If a child’s parents overreact to her sexual feelings with strong punishments, the Electra conflict will be unresolved and the child may reexperience sexual activity throughout life. Freud concluded that some women hide their sexual feelings by unconsciously converting them into physical symptoms and concerns. Current theorists disregard the Electra conflict but continue to emphasize unconscious conflicts carries from childhood.
Primary Gain
In psychodynamic theory, the gain people derive when their somatic symptoms keep their internal conflicts out of awareness.
Secondary Gain
In psychodynamic theory, the gain people derive when their somatic symptoms elicit kindness from others or provide an excuse to avoid unpleasant activities.
Behavioral Perspective for Somatic Symptom Disorders
Behaviorists propose that the physical symptoms of conversion and somatic symptom disorders bring rewards to sufferers. They also hold that people who are familiar with an illness will more readily adopt its physical symptoms. May remove individual from unpleasant situations and brings attention from others. In response, people learn to display symptoms more, similar to secondary gain but behaviorists view gains as the primary cause.
Cognitive Perspective for Somatic Symptom Disorders
Some cognitive theorists propose that conversion and somatic symptom disorders are forms of communication, providing a means for people to express emotions that would otherwise be difficult to convey. They hold that the emotions of people with the disorders are being converted into physical symptoms to communicate extreme feelings like anger or fear in a physical language that’s familiar and comfortable for the person.
Multicultural Perspective for Somatic Symptom Disorders
Most western clinicians believe that it’s inappropriate to produce or focus excessively on somatic symptoms in response to personal distress (more common and seen as a norm in non-western countries). Some theorists believe that this position reflects a western bias that sees somatic reactions as an inferior way of dealing with emotions. Both bodily and psychological reactions to life events are often influenced by one’s culture.
Treatments for Somatic Symptom Disorders
Psychotherapy and/or psychotropic drug therapy only after medical diagnostics have failed to tell them what they want to hear.
Disorders Featuring Somatic Symptoms
Problems that appear to be medical but are actually caused by psychosocial factors. Not psychophysiological disorders which arises from an actual physical ailment affected by psychosocial factors.
Illness Anxiety Disorder
A disorder in which people are chronically anxious about and preoccupied with the notion that they have or are developing a serious medical illness, despite the absence of somatic symptoms. Previously known as hypochrondriasis.
Psychophysiological Disorders / Psychological Factors Affecting Other Medical Conditions / Psychosomatic Disorders
Disorders in which biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors interact to cause or worsen a physical illness.
1) presence of a general medical condition
2) psychological factors adversely affecting the general medical condition in one of the following ways:
a) influence the course of the general medical condition,
b) interfering with the treatment of the condition,
c) posing additional health risks,
d) stress-related physiological responses precipitating or exacerbating the condition.
Ulcer
A lesion/hole that forms in the wall of the stomach of the duodenum. Leads to burning sensation/pain/vomiting/and stomach pain. Psychophysiological disorder.
Asthma
A medical problem marked by narrowing of the trachea and bronchi, which results in shortness of breath, wheezing, coughing, and chocking sensation. Psychophysiological disorder.
Muscle Contraction Headache / Tension Headache
A headache caused by a narrowing of muscles surrounding the skull. Psychophysiological disorder.
Migraine Headache
A very severe headache that occurs on one side of the head, often preceded by a warning sensation and sometimes accompanied by dizziness, nausea, or vomiting. Psychophysiological disorder.
Coronary Heart Disease
Illness of the heart caused by a blockage in the coronary arteries. Psychophysiological disorder.
Biological Factors for Psychophysiological Disorders
Defects in the ANS said to contribute to the development of psychophysical disorder. If one’s ANS is stimulated too easily, it may overreact to situations that most people find only mildly stressful, eventually damaging certain organs and causing a psychophysiological disorder.
Psychological Factors for Psychophysiological Disorders
According to many theorists, certain needs, attitudes, emotions, or coping styles may cause people to overreact repeatedly to stressors and so increases their chances of developing psychophysiological disorders.
Type A Personality Style
A personality pattern characterized by hostility, cynicism, driveness, impatience, competitiveness, and ambition.
Type B Personality Style
A personality patten in which a person is more relaxed, less aggressive, and less concerned with time.
Psychoneuroimmunology
The study of the connections between stress, the body’s immune system, and illness.
