TERMS Flashcards
Terms from Dr. Arthur's NCMHCE Overview
At-risk mental status
Disorders such as schizophrenia, psychosis, dementia and Alzheimer’s
disease, brief psychotic disorders may need assessing for capacity to understand informed
consent procedures.
Character strengths and traits
The purpose in assessing for strengths is often a result of
clients who present with vulnerabilities. Disorders with symptoms of anxieties, existential
despair, pain, and misery are often a result of a build-up of tension between inner strength (resiliency) and vulnerability. The counselor’s intervention is to decrease or eliminate the tension to increase the potential for client change and growth. Strengths can be understood to mean the capacity to cope with difficulties, maintain functioning, bounce back, and use
external challenges as a stimulus for growth (McQuaide & Ehrenreich, 1997). The authors reported that strength perspectives have been used with a wide variety of client situations (severely mentally ill, addiction, clients with disabilities, children, elderly, and the homeless).
Strength perspective has served in another capacity, empowerment. Identifying strengths has been used to solve immediate problems as well as future problems. Strengths are identified in five categories: cognitive and appraisal skills, defenses and coping mechanisms,
temperamental and dispositional factors, interpersonal skills and supports, and external
factors.
Character traits
24-character traits involve reflection wisdom, courage, social and
community strengths, and protective strengths. The counselor assesses for strengths that are
exhibited in the different character traits.
Client competence (Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental States-CAARMS)
The 2015 CAARMS is a brief interview version to assess for competence. This is important in the mental health assessment to assure the client has the capacity to understand informed consent
procedures and consent to treatment. Consider disorders where this may be problematic
(brief psychotic disorder, schizophrenia, memory issues, and psychoses).
Cultural idioms
Cultural concepts such as idioms are ways of communicating emotional distress specific to personal or social ways of expressing somatic, emotional, and social meaning. A specific phrase may signify the distress such as ‘heat in the heart’.The DSM-5-TR
provides several examples of cultural concepts of distress based on folk lore throughout the world. Examples include Ataque de nervios, Dha syndrome, Hikomori, Khyal cap, Kufungisisa, Maladi drab, Nervios, Shenjing shuairuo, Susto, and Taijin kyofusho (APA, 2022).
Dark triad (unhealthy lifestyle)
This dark triad concept focuses on the health potential of a person. Health behaviors reflect self-steem, self-efficacy, optimism, sense of coherence, and mental resilience (Debska et al., 2021). Dark triad consists of three personality traits:
narcissism (grandiosity, entitlement, dominance, and superiority), Machiavellians (manipulation, self-service, amorality, and deceit), and psychopathy (impulsivity, thrill seeking, low empathy, and anxiety). Individuals put their personal good ahead of the public interest.
Impairment
Severity of the client’s subjective distress and reduced functioning. Clients manifesting impairment in 2 or more areas of functioning are likely to benefit from treatment
that is lengthier and from psychoactive medication. Clients who have little social support from
other people are likely to benefit from lengthier therapy and development of social support
outside of therapy.
Deficit syndrome
A syndrome requiring at least two out of six negative symptoms,
restricted affect, diminished emotional range, poverty of speech, curbing of interest,
diminished sense of purpose, and two or more those in the last 12 months for schizophrenia
(Kirkpatrick & Gadleerisi, 2008).
Internal Reactivity Index (IRI)
IRI assesses for perspective taking, fantasy, empathic concern,
and personal distress. This is a measure of individual differences in empathic tendencies and
responsiveness to others (Ingoglia, Coco, & Albiero, 2016).
Malingering
refers to a falsification of information (physical or mental). A client may fake responses to enhance external benefits. Some instruments such as the MMPI have specific scales to measure this tendency. The focus word for malingering would be avoidance. For example, a client with an eating disorder might use denial and minimization (Berg, Peterson, &
Frazier, 2012).
Severity Levels (mild, moderate, severe)
The levels of severity are an outcome of the dimensional assessment DSM-5 addition. Example: Oppositional Defiant Disorder–MILD symptoms confined to one setting, MODERATE some symptoms in at least two settings, and SEVERE some symptoms in three or more settings.
State and Trait
State and trait for
personality disorders involve meanings for ego dystonic/ego syntonic. A trait is a stable
disposition over time, and a state is a behavior that is activated to respond to a particular
behavior and the tendency to be responsive to others.
