Exam 4 (Fall 2013) Flashcards
Psychological disorder
deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
symptoms of ADHD
Extreme inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity.
evidence for environmental influences on psychological disorders
Roles, expectations, definitions of normality and disorder.
How does the biopsychosocial model relate to psychological disorders?
The approach recognizes that mind and body and inseparable. It helps assess genetic predispositions, physiological states and social/cultural circumstances.
Medical model
concept that psychological disorders have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and cured through treatment
How do mental health professionals diagnose mental disorders?
Through assessments, interviews, observations, and the DSM-IV-TR
DSM-IV-TR
a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
worrying about many things, autonomic arousal, trembling, sweating, sleep abruption. Anxiety interferes with concentration.
Specific phobias
uncontrollable, irrational, intense desire to avoid some object/situation
Panic disorder
repeated and unexpected panic attack, fear of the next panic attack, change in behavior to avoid panic attack.
OCD
intense, unwanted worries, ideas and images that repeatedly pop up
PTSD
intense memories, repeated intrusive recall of those memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, phobic avoidance, jumpy anxiety, hyper vigilant.
Agoraphobia
avoidance of situations in which one will fear having a panic attack.
Psychoanalytic theory
people repress intolerable impulses, ideas and feelings that this submerged energy sometimes produce mystifying symptoms, such as anxiety.
Learning theories
observational learning (what others fear), interpretations and irrational beliefs, cause anxiety
Biological theory
natural selection (our ancestors’ threats), genes (high strung temperament), the brain, cause anxiety.
Post-traumatic growth
positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.
Major depressive disorder
depressed mood most of the day, diminished interest or pleasure in activities, significant increase or decrease in appetite and weight, insomnia or sleeping too much, recurring thoughts about death or suicide.
Bipolar disorder
alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania (manic depressive disorder)
different theories as to why people develop mood disorders.
Genetic influences: disorders run in families
Depressed brain and neurotransmitters
Learned helplessness
What makes people more or less vulnerable to developing PTSD?
Those with less control in situations
Those who get traumatized more frequently
Those with brain differences
Those with less resiliency (the ability to adapt)
Those who gets re-traumatized.
types of thinking that are associated with Depression.
Explain bad events in stable, global, and internal terms. Respond in a self-focused, self-blaming way.
rates of suicide and self-injury for various populations.
National: Britain, Italy, Spain, suicide rates are a little more than half those of Canada, Australia, USA. Austria and Finland are about double the suicide rate.
Racial: In the US, whites kill themselves twice as often as blacks.
Gender: women are more likely to attempt but men are more likely to actually end their lives.
Other: suicide rates higher among the rich, nonreligious, single, widowed, or divorced.
Day of the week: 25% of suicides occur on Wednesdays.
Paranoid schizophrenia-
preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations, often with themes of persecution or grandiosity.
Disorganized schizophrenia
disorganized speech or behavior, or flat or inappropriate emotion
Catatonic schizophrenia
immobility or excessive purposeless movements, extreme negativism, parrot-like repeating of another’s speech or movement.
Positive symptoms
presence of problematic behaviors.
Negative symptoms
absence of healthy behaviors
Understand some of the brain research involved in the study of Anxiety Disorders
Elevated brain activity in specific areas. Fear-learning experiences that traumatize the brain can also create fear circuits within the amygdala.
early warning signs of schizophrenia
Flu epidemic in the country
Densely populated areas where viral diseases spread more readily
People born in winter and spring months, after flu season.
People in the Southern hemisphere.
Mothers who were sick with influenza
Mothers who have blood that suggest a higher level of antibodies.
brain and other physical differences in people with Schizophrenia.
Abnormally low brain activity in the frontal lobe. Decline in brain waves that reflect synchronized mural firing in the frontal lobes. Enlarged, fluid-filled areas of the brain and corresponding shrinkage of the cerebral tissues.
Dissociative disorders
conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts and feelings.
Dissociative identity disorder
a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities (multiple personality disorder)
Personality disorder
psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impure social functioning
Antisocial personality disorder
person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family.
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s therapeutic technique. The patient’s free association, resistances, dreams, and tranferences and the therapist’s interpretation of them release previously repressed feelings, allowing patient to gain self-insight.
Humanistic therapies
aims to boost people’s self-fulfillment by helping them grow in self awareness and self-acceptance, taking immediate responsibility for one’s feelings and actions, rather than uncovering hidden determinants. Present more important than the past. Conscious thoughts are more important than the unconscious.
Behavior therapy
therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.
Cognitive therapies
therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking, based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.
What are some common ways to determine whether therapy is effective, and what are some limitations to those methods?
Client is satisfied
Client senses improvement
Therapist sees improvement
Observable, measurable change in initial symptoms
Limitations: client might lie to get out of therapy, therapists protecting their reputation or prolonging sessions for money
What common factors are found in nearly all effective therapies?
Hope. A new perspective. Therapeutic alliance
Resilience
personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.
Psychopharmacology
the study if the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.
