Abnormal Psych 1
Terms
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- Terms applied to the many problems that seem closely tied to the human brain or mind
- Psychopathology, maladjustment, emotional disturbance, mental illness
- Field devoted to the scientific study of problems with mental health
- Abnormal psychology
- Workers in the field of abnormal psychology who gather information carefully so they may describe, predict and explain the phenomena they study
- Clinical scientists
- Detects, assess and treats abnormal patters of functioning
- Clinical practitioners
- Pattern of psychological abnormality that is different, extreme, unusual and bizarre
- Deviance
- Pattern of psychological abnormality that is unpleasant and upsetting to the person
- Distress
- Pattern of psychological abnormality that is interfering with the person's ability to conduct daily activities in a constructive way
- Dysfunction
- Pattern of psychological abnormality that is harmful to the person or others
- Danger
- stated and unstated rules for proper conduct
- norms
- History, values, insititutions, habits, skills, technology and arts which norms form from
- culture
- Judgments of abnormality depend on this
- specific circumstances
- A person who deviates from common behavior patterns or displays odd or whimsical behavior, but is still psychologically healthy
- eccentric
- A procedure to help change abnormal behavior into more normal behavior
- Treatment or therapy
- Clinical theorist who thought that the concept of mental illness was a myth that societies creat
- Thomas Szasz
- Three key features of all forms of therapy according to Jerome Frank
- 1. a sufferer who seeks relief from the healer. 2. a trained healer whose expertise is accepted by the sufferer or social group. 3. a series of contacts between the healer and the sufferer, through which the healer tries to change the sufferer's emotional state, attitude and behavior
- Operation in which a stone instrument was used to cut away a circular section of the skull to let out evil spirits causing the abnormal behavior
- trephination
- Treatment for abnormality in early societies by coaxing evil spirits to leave the person's body
- Exorcism
- a priest performing an exorcism
- shaman
- Father of modern medicine who saw abnormal behavior as a disease caused by internal physical problems and natural causes
- Hippocrates
- Hippocrates' four fluids
- humors
- large numbers of people in the middle ages who had shared delusions and hallucinations
- mass madness
- groups of people suddenly start to jump, dance and go into convulsions. thought to be caused by tarantula bites
- tarantism
- people thought they were posessed by wolves or other animals
- lycanthropy
- First physician to specialize in mental illness. Founder of the modern study of mental dysfunction
- Johann Weyer
- Shrine devoted to the humane treatment of people which lead to mental disorders; forerunner of today's community mental health programs
- Gheel in Belgium
- Institutions whose primary purpose was to care for people with mental illness
- asylums
- hospital name which came to mean "chaotic uproar"
- bedlam
- French chief physician who first reformed mental institutions
- Philippe Pinel
- English quaker who brought reform to england and founded the York retreat
- William Tuke
- Methods of Pinel and Tuke which emphasized moral guidance and humane and respectful techniques
- moral treatment
- Person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the US
- Benjamin Rush
- Boston schoolteacher who really made moral treatment a concern in the US
- Dorothea Dix
- State run public mental institutions in the US, established by Dix
- state hospitals
- View that abnormal psychological functioning has physical causes
- somatogenic perspective
- view that the chief causes of abnormal functioning are psychological
- psychogenic perspective
- German researcher whose work was largely responsible for the rebirth of the somatogenic perspective
- Emil Kraeplin
- German neurologist who injected matter from syphillis sores into patients suffering from general paresis and found none of the patients developed symptoms of syphillis
- Richard von Krafft-Ebing
- Selective elimination of individuals' ability to reproduce
- eugenesis
- Procedure that places people in a trancelike mental state during which they become extremely suggestible
- Hypnotism
- Bodily ailments that have no apparent physical basis
- hysterical disorders
- Freud's theory which holds that many forms of abnormal and normal psychological functioning are psychogenic and that the unconsious processes are at the root of functioning
- psychoanalysis
- form of Freud's therapy where patients visit therapists in their offices for sessions of approximately an hour and then went about their daily activities
- outpatient therapy
- Drugs that primarily affect the brain and reduce many symptoms of mental dysfunctioning
- psychotropic medications
- drugs to correct extremely confused and distorted thinking
- antipsychotic drugs
- drugs to lift the modd of depressed people
- antidepressant drugs
- drugs to reduce worry and tension
- antianxiety drugs
- policy which calls for the releasing of patients from public mental hospitals
- deinstitutionalization
- philosophy with an emphasis on community care for people with severy psychological disturbances
- community mental health approach
- arrangement by which an individual directly pays a psychotherapist for counseling services
- private psychotherapy
- interventions aimed at deterring mental disorders before they can develop
- prevention
- study and encouragement of positive feelings such as optimism and happiness; positive traits like hard work and wisdom; positive abilities such as social skills; and group directed virtues like generosity and tolerance
- positive psychology
- Coverage program in which the insurance company determines such issues as which therapists its clients may choose, cost of sessions, number of sessions for which clients can be reimbursed
- managed care program
- laws that direct insurance companies to offer equal coverage for mental and medical problems
- pariety laws
- Theory with its emphasis on unconscious psychological problems as the cause of abnormal behavior
- psychoanalytic perspective
- Uses effective psychotropic drugs and is another name for the somatogenic view
- biolical perspective
- physicians who complete three to four additional years of training after med school in the treatment of abnormal mental functioning
- psychiatrist
- professionals who earn a doctorate in clinical psychology by completing 4-5 years of grad training along w/ a one year internship at a mental hospital
- psychologist
- largest psychotherapy service
- psychiatric social workers
- people who try to determine which concepts best explain & predict abnormal behavior, which treatments are most effective, and what changes might be required
- clinical researchers
- general understanding of the nature, causes and treatments of abnormality
- nomothetic understanding
- process of systematically gathering and evaluating information through careful observations to gain an understanding of a phenomenon
- scientific method
- characteristic which can vary
- variable
- research focussing on one individual; detailed description of a person's life and psychological problems
- case study
- one of the best known case studies which focusses on a woman with DID.
- The three Faces of Eve
- research procedure used to determine the corelationship between variables
- correlational method
- how closely do 2 variables correspond?
- magnitude
- direction and magnitude of a correlation expressed statistically
- correlation coefficient
- if statistical analysis indicates chance is unlikely to cause the correlation then researches call the correlation___________
- statistically significant
- study which reveals the incidence and prevalence of a disorder in a particular population
- epidemiological studies
- number of new cases that emerge during a given period of time
- incidence
- total number of cases in the population during a given period of time
- prevalence
- correlational studies where researchers observe the same subjects over a long period of time
- longitudinal studies
- research procedure in which a variable is manipulated and the effect on another variable is observed
- experiment
- manipulated variable
- independent variable
- variable being observed
- dependent variable
- variables other than the independent variable that may also be affecting the dependent variable
- confounds
- group of subjects who are not exposed to the independent variable
- control group
- subjects who are exposed to the independent variable
- experimental group
- any selection procedure that ensures that every subject in the experiment is as likely to be placed in one group as the other
- random assignment
- an experiment in which subjects don't know whether they are in the experimental or the control condition to avoid bias
- blind design
- something that looks or tastes like real therapy but has none of the key ingredients
- placebo
- experimenter bias
- Rosenthal effect
- both participators and experimenters are "blind" in the experiment
- double blind
- investigators don't randomly assign subjects to control and experimental groups but make use of groups which already exist. Also called mixed design
- Quasi-experiments
- nature itself manipulates the independent variable while the experimenter observes the effects
- natural experiments
- experimenters produce abnormal-like behavior in laboratory subjects, then conduct experiments on them in hope of shedding life on real life abnormality
- analogue experiments
- experiment which measures a single subject both before and after the manipulation of an independent variable
- single-subject experimental design
- Perspectives used to explain events; also known as paradigms
- models
- full understanding of thoughts, emotions and behavior must include an understanding of a biological basis
- biological model
- nerve cells in the brain
- neurons
- support cells in the brain
- glia
- bottom part of the brain containing the medulla, pons and cerebellum
- hindbrain
- part of the brain in the middle
- midbrain
- part of the brain at the top which consists of the cerebrum, thalamus and hypothalamus
- forebrain
- part of the brain consisting of the cortex, corpus callosum, basal ganglia, hippocampus and amygdala
- cerebrum
- disorder marked by violent emotional outbursts, memory loss, suicidal thinking, involuntary body movements and absurd beliefs. Traced to a loss of cells in the basal ganglia
- Huntington's disease
- antenna-like extensions located at one end of the neuron which receives impulses
- dendrite
- long fiber extending from the neuron body where the impulses travel down
- axon
- at the far end of the neuron, where impulses are transmitted through
- nerve endings
- tiny space which seperates one neuron from the next
- synapse
- chemical released by one neuron that crosses the synapstic space to be received at receptors on the dendrites of neighboring neurons
- neurotransmittor
- neurotransmittor linked to certain anxiety disorders
- gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
- neurotransmittor linked to schizophrenia
- dopamine
- neurotransmittor linked to depression
- seratonin & norepinephrine
- chemicals released by glands into the bloodstream
- hormones
- glands which secrete cortisol
- adrenal glands
- 3 factors attributing to biological abnormalities
- 1. genetics 2. evolution 3. viral infections
- segments of chromosomes that control the characteristics and traits a person inherits
- genes
- abnormal form of the appropriate gene that emerges by accident
- mutation
- Preclinical phase
- new drug is developed and identified and tested (5 years)
- clinical phase I
- safety screening (1-5 years)
- clinical phase II
- preliminary testing (2 years)
- clinical phase III
- final testing (3-5 years)
- review by FDA
- drug is approved or disapproved (1.5 years)
- postmarketing surveillance
- testing continues long after drug is out to check for long term side effects (10 years)
- drugs mainly affecting emotions and thought processes
- psychotropic medications
- drugs which help reduce tension and anxiety
- antianxiety drugs
- drugs which help improve the mood of people who are depressed
- antidepressant drugs
- Also called mood stabelizers, these drugs help steady the mood of those w/ bipolar disorder
- antibipolar drugs
- drugs which help reduce the confusion, hallucinations, and delusions of psychotic disorders
- antipsychotic drugs
- form of biological treatment used primarily on depressed patients where 2 electrodes are attached to the patient's forehead and an electrical current is passed through the brain
- electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
- form of biological treatment which is brain surgery for mental disorders
- psychosurgery
- portugese neuropsychiatrist who developed the process of labotamy
- Antonio de Egas Moniz
- process where a surgeon would cut the connection between the brain's frontal and lower centers of the brain.
- labotomy
- oldest and most famous of the psychological models; believes a person's behavior is determined largely by underlying psychological forces of the unconscious
- psychodynamic model
- internal forces which interact w/ one another
- dynamic
- abnormal symptoms are viewed as a result of ______ between the internal forces in the psychodynamic model
- conflicts
- assumption that no behavior is accidental; all is determined by past experiences
- deterministic assumption
- Freud's theory explaining both normal and abnormal psychological function
- psychoanalysis
- Freud's term for the instinctual needs, drives and impulses in people.
- Id
- Id always seeks gratification according to this
- pleasure principle
- sexual energy
- libido
- Unconsciously seeks gratification but does so in accordance with the knowledge we acquire through experience; employs reason guides us to know when we can and can't express those impulses
- ego
- knowledge we acquire through experience that it can be unacceptable to express our id impulses outright
- reality principle
- basic strategies the ego develops to control unacceptable id impulses and avoid anxiety they arouse.
- ego defense mechanisms
- most basic ego defense mechanism which prevents unacceptable impulses from reaching consciousness
- repression
- psychological force which represents a person's values or ideals
- superego
- condition in which the id, ego and superego don't mature properly and are frozen at an early stage of development
- fixation
- person refuses to acknowledge the existence of an external source of anxiety
- denial
- person imagines events as a means of satisfying unacceptable, anxiety-producing desires that would otherwise go unfulfilled
- fantasy
- person attributes own unacceptable impulses, motives, or desires to other individuals
- projection
- person creates a socially acceptable reason for an action that actually reflects unacceptable motives
- rationalization
- person adopts behavior that is the exact opposite of impulses he or she is afraid to acknowlege
- reaction formation
- person displaces hostility away from a dangerous object and onto a safer substitute
- displacement
- person represses emotional reactions in favor of overly logical response to a problem
- intellectualization (isolation)
- person tries to make up for unacceptable desires or acts frequently through ritualistic behaviors
- undoing
- person retreats from an upsetting conflict to an early developmental stage at which no one is expected to behave maturely or responsibly
- regression
- person tries to cover up a personal weakness by focusing on another, more desirable trait
- overcompensation
- person expresses sexual and aggressive energy in ways that are acceptable to society
- sublimination
- all of Freud's theories
- psychodynamic
- psychodynamic theory emphasizing the role of the ego and consider it a more independent and powerful force than Freud did
- Ego theory
- psychodynamic theory which gives the greatest attention to the role of the self and believe that the basic human motive is to strengthen the wholeness of the self
- self theory
- unified personality
- self
- psychodynamic theory which proposes that people are motivated mainly by a need to have relationships with others and that severe problems in the relationships between children and their caregivers may lead to abnormal development
- object relations theory
- psychodynamic theory where the therapist tells the patient to describe any thought, feeling or image that comes to mind, even if it seems unimportant.
- free association
- unconscious refusal to participate fully in therapy
- resistance
- when patients act and feel toward the therapist as they did or do twoard important persons in their life
- transference
- Freud called this the "royal road to the unconscious"
- dreams
- a reliving of past repressed feelings
- catharsis
- process where the patient and therapist must examine the same issues over and over in the course of many sessions, each time with greater clarity
- working through
- single problem patients choose to work on
- dynamic focus
- This model believes that our actions are determined largely by our experiences in life.
- behavior model
- responses an organism makes to its environment
- behaviors
- process by which behaviors change in response to the environment
- principles of learning
- simple form of learning where researches manipulate stimuli and rewards
- conditioning
- learning to behave in certain ways as a result of receiving rewards
- operant conditioning
- satisfying consequence
- reward
- where individuals learn responses simply by observing other individuals and repeating their behaviors
- modeling
- learning occurs by temporal association
- classical conditioning
- first demonstrated classical conditioning with dogs
- Ivan Pavlov
- One method, often applied to phobias, where clients step by step learn to react calmly instead of with fear to the objects or situations they dread
- systematic desensitization
- list of feared objects or situations, starting with those that are less feared and ending with the ones most dreaded
- fear hierarchy
- people must have confidence that they can master and perform needed behaviors whenever necessary according to Bandura
- self-efficacy
- special intellectual capacities to think, remember and anticipate
- cognitive abilities
- Two clinicians in the 60's who proposed that cognitive processes are at the center of behavior, thought and emotions
- Albert Ellis & Aaron Beck
- Model that says we can best understand abnormal functioning by looking to cognition
- cognitive model
- sources of abnormal functioning according to the cognitive theorists
- disturbing or inaccurate assumptions and attitudes and illogical thinking processes
- drawing of broad negative conclusions on the basis of a single insignificant event.
- overgeneralization
- Beck's approach where therapists help clients recognize the negative thoughts, biased interpretations and errors in logic that dominate their thinking & cause them to feel depressed
- cognitive therapy
- model focussing on the broader dimensions of human existance
- humanistic-existential model
- optimists who believe that humans are born with the natural tendency to be friendly, cooperative and constructive
- humanists
- fulfill this potential for goodness and growth
- self-actualize
- theorists who believe humans must have an accurate awareness of themselves, but don't believe people are naturally inclined to live positively
- existentialists
- humanistic-existential therapist, most famous, first
- Carl Rogers
- warm supportive approach in therapy, contrasting sharply with psychodynamic techniques of the day. created a supportive climate where clients feel able to look at themselves honestly and acceptingly
- client centered therapy
- standards that tell people they are lovable only when they conform to certain guidelines
- conditions of worth
- full and warm acceptance of the client
- unconditional positive regard
- skillful listening and restatements
- accurate empathy
- sincere communication
- genuineness
- process where clients look at themselves with honesty and acceptance
- experiencing
- humanistic therapy developed by Fritz Perls in which clinicians actively move clients toward self-recognition and self-acceptance by using techniques such as role-playing and self discovery exercises.
- Gestalt Therapy
- technique where Gestalt therapists refuse to meet their clients expectations or demands
- skillful frustration
- techniqe where gestalt therapists instruct clients to act out various roles
- role playing
- where people are encouraged to accept responsibility for their lives and problems
- existential therapy
- model where abnormal behavior is best understood in the light of social and cultural forces that influence an individual
- sociocultural model
- family is a system of interacting parts who relate to one another in consistent ways and follow rules unique to each family
- family systems theory
- family structure where family members are grossly overinvolved in each other's activities, thoughts and feelings
- enmeshed structure
- family structure marked by very rigid boundaries between members
- disengagement
- conducted family study of societal labels and roles
- David Rosenhan
- approaches that seek to address the unique issues faced by members of minority groups
- culture-sensitive therapy
- therapies geared to the special pressures of being a woman in western society
- gender-sensitive therapy or feminist therapies
- format of therapy in which a therapist meets with a group of clients who have similar problems
- group therapy
- group made up of people with similar problems who help and support each other without the direct leadership of a clinician (also called a mutual help group)
- self-help group
- therapy format in which the therapist meets with all members of a family and helps them to change in therapeutic ways
- family therapy
- one family systems approach where therapists try to change the family power structure
- structural family therapy
- therapists try to help members change harmful patterns of communication
- conjoint family therapy
- therapists work with 2 individuals who are in a long term relationship
- couple therapy or marital therapy
- treatment approach that emphasizes community care
- community mental health treatment
- consists of efforts to improve community attitudes and policies; goal to prevent psychological disorders all together
- primary prevention
- indentifying and treating psychological disorders in the early stages, before they become serious
- secondary prevention
- goal is to provide effective treatment as soon as it is needed so that moderate or severe disorders don't become long-term problems
- tertiary prevention
- explanations that attribute the cause of abnormality to an interaction of genetic, biological, cognitive, social and societal influences
- biopsychosocial theories
- individual information about the clients
- idiographic understanding
- collecting of relevant information in an effort to reach a conclusion
- assessment
- used to determine how and why a person is behaving abnormally
- clinical assessment
- set up common steps to be followed whenever an assessment is administered
- standardize
- consistency of assessment measures
- reliability
- where different judges independently agree on how to score and interpret an assessment
- interrater reliability
- assessment accurately measures what it is supposed to measure
- validity
- a given assessment appears to be valid simply because it makes sense and seems reasonable
- face validity
- assessment tool's ability to predict future characteristics or behavior
- predictive validity
- degree to which the measures gathered from one tool agree with measures gathered from other assessment techniques
- concurrent validity
- face to face encounter in which clinicians ask questions of clients, weight their responses and reactions, and learn about them and their psychological problems
- clinical interview
- clinician asks open ended questions
- unstructured interview
- clinician asks prepared questions
- structured interview
- standard set of questions designed for all interviews
- interview schedule
- set of questions and observations that systematically evaluate the client's awareness, orientation with regard to time and place, attention span, memory, judgment and insight, thought content and processes, mood and appearance
- mental status exam
- devices for gathering information about a few aspects of a person's psychological functioning
- tests
- tests requiring subjects to interpret vague stimuli (inkblots, pictures, drawings)
- projective tests
- Projective tests
- rorschach test, TAT, sentence completion test and drawings
- test designed to measure broad personality characteristics, consisting of statements about behaviors, beliefs and feelings that people evaluate as characteristic or uncharacteristic of them
- personality inventory
- most widely used personality inventory
- MMPI (minnesota multiphasic personality inventory)
- tests which ask people to provide detailed information about themselves, but these tests focus on only one specific area of functioning
- response inventory
- measures the severity of such emotions as anxiety, depression and anger
- Affective inventories
- used by behavioral and sociocultural clinicians, asks respondents to indicate how they would react in a variety of social situations
- social skills inventory
- reveals a person's typical thoughts and assumptions and can uncover counterproductive patterns of thinking
- cognitive inventories
- clinicians use this, which measures physiological responses as possible indicators of psychological problems
- psychophysiological tests
- popular psychophysiological test
- polygraph/lie detector
- questions whose answers are known to be yes
- control questions
- tests measuring brain structure and activity directly
- neurological tests
- records brain waves
- EEG