Unit 8: Clinical Psychology Flashcards
Abnormal Psychology
Dedicated to the study and treatment of psychological disorders or mental illness
Medical Model
The concept that disease and/or disorder have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and cured, often through treatment in a hospital
Insanity
Legal term (not mental health or psychological term) used to determine whether an individual is to be held accountable/liable for criminal behavior.
Mental Incompetence
Legal term for when criminal suspects are deemed mentally ill and unable to understand the criminal proceedings or aid in their own defense.
Psychological Disorder
Syndrome with clinically significant disturbance in one’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior. Caused by dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes for mental functioning.
Criteria: Maladaptive Behavior
Behavior that causes harm by making it difficult to fulfill the normal functions of everyday life
Criteria: Personal Distress
A person’s individual perception of their own emotional distress
Criteria: Atypical Behavior
Behavior that deviates from what is considered socially or culturally normal
Criteria: Violation of Cultural Norms
Behavior that so deviates from what is culturally accepted that it is considered unacceptable and intolerable
Demonolgy
Early theoretical approach in which holes were drilled in a living person’s skull in order to release the ‘demonic spirits’ that were ‘causing’ their disorder
Lobotomy
Surgical procedure to damage or remove the frontal lobe to treat mental illness
DSM-5
The diagnostic and statistical manual of disorders written by the APA. Contains sets of diagnostic criteria (the symptoms being experienced) grouped into categories to help clinicians effectively diagnose and care.
Anxiety: Classical and Operant Conditioning
When bad things happen unpredictably and uncontrollably, anxiety or other disorders often develop
Anxiety: Observational Learning
Anxiety can develop from observing others’ fear
Anxiety: Cognition
Our interpretations or irrational beliefs can cause feelings of anxiety. Those with anxiety tend to be hypervigilant.
EX: House creaking could be seen as wind or potential burglar
Anxiety: Natural Selection
We humans seem biologically prepared to fear threats faced by our ancestors
Anxiety: Genes
Some are more anxious due to genes passed on. Twins are often more vulnerable to anxiety disorders.
Anxiety: The Brain
Generalized anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, and OCD are manifested biologically as an over arousal of brain areas involved in impulse control and habitual behaviors.
When the disordered brain detects that something is amiss, it seems to generate a mental hiccup of repeating thoughts or actions
Anxiety Disorders
Pathological disorders characterized by distressing persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal
Panic Disorder
Anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations that is often followed by worry over a possible next attack
Phobia
Anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation
Social Anxiety Disorder
Intense fear of social situations, leading to avoidance of social situations
Agoraphobia
Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide-open places, where one feels a loss of control and panic
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions)
PostTraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for more than 4 weeks after a traumatic experience
Mood Disorders: Social-Cognitive Perspective
Negative thoughts and negative moods interact
Rumination
Compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes
Major Depressive Disorder
Two (or more) weeks with 5+ symptoms. Symptoms must include either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure. Mood must be without drugs or other medical condition
Bipolar Disorder
Alternating between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania
Mania
Hyperactive, wildly optimistic state
Schizophrenia
Characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished or inappropriate emotional expression.
Psychosis
A person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perception
Hallucinations
False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus
Delusions
False beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders
Somatic Symptom Disorder
Symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without any apparent physical cause
Conversion Disorder
A person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no psychological basis can be found
Illness Anxiety
A person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease. Formerly called hypochondriasis
Dissociative Disorders
Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
A rare disorder in which a person exhibits 2 or more distinct and alternating personalities
Anorexia Nervosa
A person (usually adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly (15% or more) underweight
Bulimia Nervosa
A person alternates binge eating (usually high calorie foods) with purging (by laxative use or vomiting), excessive exercise, or fasting
Binge-Eating Disorder
Significant binge-eating disorder, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory purging or fasting that makes bulimia nervosa
Personality Disorders
Characterized by inflexible and enduring patterns that impair social functioning
Antisocial Personality Disorder
A person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even towards friends and family members. May be aggressive and ruthless, or a clever con artist
Commonalities in Treatment
Hope for demoralized people
A new perspective
An empathetic, trusting, and caring relationship
Therapeutic Alliance
A bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client’s problem
Outcome Research
Hans Eysenck summarized studies showing 2/3 of people receiving psychotherapy for nonpsychotic disorders improved remarkably. Showed that there was improvement for those untreated and that time was a great healer
Meta-Analysis
Procedure for statistically combining the results of different research studies
Evidence-Based Practice
Clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preference
Psychopharmacology
The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior
Antipsychotic Drugs
Used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder
Antianxiety Drugs
Used to control anxiety and agitation
Antidepressant Drugs
Used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD
Mood-Stabilizing Medications
For those suffering the emotional highs and lows of bipolar disorder
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electrical current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient
Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)
The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity
Deep-Brain Stimulation
Sometimes used to treat Parkinson’s tremors. Bridges the thinking frontal lobes to the limbic system and calms when treated by ECT or antidepressants
Psychosurgery
Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior
Lobotomy
Procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. Cut the nerves connecting he fontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain
Lifestyle Change
Everything psychological is also biological. Improve lifestyle, improve mood
Psychotherapy
Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a train therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.
Biomedical Therapy
Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person’s psychology
Eclectic Approach
An approach that, depending on the client’s problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s therapeutic technique. Free associations allow the patient included self-insight
Psychoanalysis: Resistance
The blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material
Psychoanalysis: Intepretation
The analyst’s supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events leading to insight
Psychoanalysis: Transfereces
The patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships
Psychodynamic Therapy
Deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight. Shown to help depressions and anxiety
Insight Therapy
A variety of therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person’s awareness of underlying motives and defences
Client-Centred Therapy
Developed by Carl Rogers. Therapist uses techniques such as active listening withing a genuine, accepting, empathetic environment to facilitate clients’ growth
Active Listening
Empathetic listening in which the listener echos, restates, and clarifies
Unconditional Positive Regard
A caring, accepting, non-judgemental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance
Cognitive Therapy
Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions
Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
A confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people’s illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
A population integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self defeating thinking) with behavioral (changing behavioral)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
A population integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self defeating thinking) with behavioral (changing behavior)
Group Therapy
Conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction
Family Therapy
Treats the family as a system, viewing an individual’s unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members
Self-Help Groups
Focus on stigmatized or hard-to-discuss illnesses
Behavioral Therapies
Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors
Counter Conditioning
Using classical conditioning to evoke new responses to the stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; include exposure therapy and aversive conditioning
Exposure Therapy
Behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization and VR exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid
Systematic Desensitization
A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli; commonly used to treat phobias
VR Exposure Therapy
An anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to electronic simulations of their greatest fears
Aversive Conditioning
A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (feeling nauseous) with an unwanted behavior (drinking alcohol)
Token Economy
People earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior, and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Developed by Francine Shapiro. Thought that eye movement helps with anxious thoughts. Works by imagining traumatic scenes and moving your eyes, thereby ‘unlocking’ and reprocessing previously frozen memories. Similar to hypnosis
Light Exposure Therapy
Lack of sunlight can lead to a seasonal pattern for major depressive disorder
