Unit 4: AOS 2 Flashcards
Chapter 8-10: Terminology
Mental Wellbeing
An individual’s state of mind, enjoyment of life, and ability to cope with the normal stresses of everyday life and develop to their potential
Functioning
Generally refers to how well an individual independently performs or operates in their environment.
Resilience
The ability to successfully cope with and manage change, uncertainty and adversity, and to ‘bounce back’ and restore positive functioning.
Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB)
In relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, a holistic, multi-dimension framework that describes and explains physical, social, emotional, spiritual and cultural wellbeing.
Internal Factors
An influence on behaviour or mental processes that originates inside or within a person.
External Factors
An influence on behaviour or mental processes that originates outside a person.
Stress
A psychobiological response produced by internal or external stressors.
Anxiety
A state of arousal involving unpleasant feelings of apprehension or uneasiness that something is wrong or something unpleasant is about to happen.
Phobia
A persistent and irrational fear of a particular object, activity or situation, which is consequently either strenuously avoided or endured with marked distress.
Connection (in SEWB)
An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person’s connection to Country, culture, spirituality, ancestry, family and community and its impact on their wellbeing.
Continuum
A spectrum or scale with distinct extremes or opposites on which something (including personal characteristics) can be shown to be varying in level or degree.
Holistic Framework (in SEWB)
The physical, social, emotional, spiritual and cultural elements that encapsulate the social and emotional wellbeing for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person, their family and the entire community to which they belong, thereby bringing about the total wellbeing of their community.
Level of Functioning
How well or adaptively a person is meeting the challenges of living across a range of areas.
Mental Disorder
A diagnosable psychological or behavioural conditions that impairs everyday functioning.
Mental Health Problem
Real experiences that interfere with functioning but are relatively moderate in severity and tend to be temporary.
Mental Illness
A general term for a group of illnesses that may include symptoms that can affect a person’s thinking, perceptions, mood or behaviour.
Multi-Dimensional (in SEWB)
Refers to the multiple and overlapping elements and domains that encapsulate the social and emotional wellbeing for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person, their family and the entire community to which they belong, thereby bringing about the total wellbeing of their community.
Anti-Anxiety Benzodiazepine Agent
Drugs that work on the central nervous system, acting selectively on GABA receptors in the brain to increase GABA’s inhibitory effects and make postsynaptic neurons resistant to excitation.
Anticipatory Anxiety
In relation to specific phobia, worry or apprehension about the possibility of being exposed to a phobic stimulus in the future.
Avoidance Behaviour
In relation to specific phobia, actions that help avert any contact, exposure, or engagement with a phobic stimulus.
Behavioural Model
Based on the theory that individuals’ actions and behaviours are learned.
Benzodiazepine
A group of drugs that work on the central nervous system, acting selectively on GABA receptors in the brain to increase GABA’s inhibitory effects and make postsynaptic neurons resistant to excitation; commonly called sedatives or mild tranquilisers.
Biological Intervention
Treatments that target bodily (‘biological’) mechanisms believed to be contributing to a phobia or its symptoms.
Biopsychosocial Approach
A way of describing and explaining how biological, psychological and social factors combine and interact to influence an individual’s behaviour and mental processes, including mental wellbeing; sometimes called the biopsychosocial model or theory.
Breathing Retraining
In relation to specific phobia, an anxiety management technique that involves teaching correct breathing habits; also called breathing training.
Catastrophic Thinking
Cognitive Bias which involves overestimating, exaggerating or magnifying an event, activity or situation and predicting the worst possible outcome.
Classical Conditioning
A three-phase learning process (before conditioning, during conditioning and after conditioning) that results in the involuntary association between a neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
A type of psychotherapy based on the assumption that the way people fee land behave is largely a product of the way they think; aims to identify, assess and correct faulty patterns of thinking that may be affecting mental health and wellbeing.
Cognitive Bias
A mistaken way of thinking that leads to systematic errors of judgment and faulty decision-making.
Evidence-Based Intervention
A treatment that has been found to be effective on the basis of scientific evidence.
Fear Hierarchy
A list of feared objects or situations, ranked from least to most anxiety-producing.
GABA (Gamma-Amino Butyric Acid)
The primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, making postsynaptic neurons less likely to fire.
GABA Dysfunction
Failure to produce, release or receive the correct amount of GABA needed to regulate neurotransmission in the brain.
GABA Agonist
Drugs that stimulate activity at the site of a postsynaptic neuron where GABA is received from a presynaptic neuron.
Irrational
Not logical or reasonable.
Long-term Potentiation (LTP)
The long-lasting enhancement of synaptic transmission due to repeated strong stimulation.
Memory Bias
A type of cognitive bias involving distorting influences of present knowledge, beliefs and feelings on the recollection of previous experiences.
Operant Conditioning
A learning process whereby the consequences of a behaviour (e.g reward or punishment) determine the likelihood that it will be performed again in the future.
Perpetuation (of a phobia)
Strengthening or maintaining a phobia through particular behaviour (such as avoidance).
Phobia Stimulus
A specific object, activity or situation that causes a phobic reaction (such as spiders).
Precipitation (of a phobia)
Development of a phobia through particular behaviour or circumstance.
Psychoeducation
The provision and explanation of information to individuals about a mental health disorder to assist their understanding of its characteristics and treatment.
Psychological Intervention
Treatments for phobias involving the use of cognitive behavioural therapy and systematic desensitisation.
Psychotherapeutic Treatment
Treating mental health problems by talking with a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health worker.
Safety Behaviour
Behaviour used by people with phobias to help minimise or control their fear or anxiety whereby they may not directly avoid a phobic stimulus but are willing to have contact with it if certain precautions are in place.
Self-Stigma
When an individual accepts the negative views and reactions of others, internalises them, and applies them to themself.
Social Intervention
Treatment for a specific phobia that may involve a social intervention such as psychoeducation for family, friends or others who are close to the person with a specific phobia and therefore part of their social support network.
Social Stigma
The negative attitudes and beliefs held in the wider community that lead people to fear, exclude, avoid or unfairly discriminate against people with a disorder.
Specific Environmental Trigger
Developing a specific phobia after a direct negative experience with an object or situation.
Specific Phobia
An anxiety disorder characterised by marked and persistent fear about a specific object, activity or situation, typically avoided or endured with marked anxiety or distress.
Stigma
A sign of social disapproval, often involving shame or disgrace; see also self-stigma and social stigma.
Systematic Desensitisation
A behaviour therapy for treatment of specific phobia that aims to replace an anxiety response with relaxation when an individual encounters a fear-inducing, phobic stimulus.
Activity Scheduling
A CBT technique to help an individual identify and schedule activities that promote enjoyment or reduce stress; also called activity scheduling.
Adequate Hydration
Drinking enough water to maintain good physical health.
Adequate Nutritional Intake
Eating a variety of different foods to maintain good physical health.
Adequate Sleep
Regularly getting the right amount of sleep, and enough good quality sleep.
Behaviour Activation
A CBT technique to help an individual identify and schedule activities that promote enjoyment or reduce stress; also called activity scheduling.
Biological Protective Factor
Biological interventions that are protective and can be used to help maintain or improve mental wellbeing.
Cognitive Behavioural Strategy
In relation to psychotherapy, a CBT technique used to identify, assess and correct faulty patterns of thinking or problem behaviours that may be adversely affecting mental health and wellbeing.
Cognitive Restructuring
A CBT technique that may be used to help the individual identify their cognitive biases and other distorted ways of thinking, refute them, and then modify them so that they are adaptive and reasonable.
Cultural Continuity
The preservation of all things to do with culture over time, and the sense of history, identity and belonging this provides.
Cultural Determinant (of mental wellbeing)
Protective factors that help maintain strong connections to culture, strengthen cultural identity, enhance resilience and contribute to the maintenance of good mental wellbeing.
Culture
The way of life of a particular community or group that sets it apart from other communities and groups.
Mindfulness Meditation
A type of meditation in which a person focuses attention on their breathing, whilst thoughts, feelings, and sensations are experienced freely as they arise; involves paying attention, noticing, experiencing, doing and being, right here, right now.
Protective Factor
Something that enhances and helps to protect mental wellbeing and reduces the likelihood that mental ill-health will occur.
Psychological Protective Factor
Cognitive strategies that are protective and can be used to help maintain or improve mental wellbeing.
Risk Factor
In relation to mental health, something that increases the likelihood of experiencing mental ill-health, or can make existing mental health difficulties more severe or long-lasting.
Self-Determination
The human right to freely determine or control one’s political status and freely pursue one’s cultural, social and economic development.
Social Protective Factor
Being connected with other people and the community in general in order to protect and maintain mental wellbeing.
Social Support
The assistance, care or empathy provided by people to each other
