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