AP Psychology Unit 13 Vocab

eclectic approach

an approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client's problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy.

token economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats.

virtual reality exposure therapy

An anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking.

psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences—and the therapist's interpretations of them—released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

counterconditioning

a behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

(electroconvulsive therapy) ECT

a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.

unconditional positive regard

a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

client-centered therapy

a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth. (Also called person-centered therapy.)

lobotomy

a now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

cognitive-behavioral therapy

a popular integrative therapy that combines changing self-defeating thinking with changing actions/responses.

meta-analysis

a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies.

aversive conditioning

a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).

systematic desensitization

a type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

insight therapies

a variety of therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing the client's awareness of underlying motives and defenses.

exposure therapies

behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actuality) to the things they fear and avoid.

interpretation

in psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.

resistance

in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

transference

in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent).

tardive dyskinesia

involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs; a possible neurotoxic side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic drugs that target certain dopamine receptors.

psychosurgery

medical procedure that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

antianxiety drugs

prescribed medication used to control anxiouness and agitation.

antidepressant drugs

prescribed medication used to treat low spirits/moods; also increasingly prescribed for anxiety. Different types work by altering the availability of various neurotransmitters.

biomedical therapy

prescribed medications or medical procedures that act directly on the patient's nervous system.

antipsychotic drugs

prescribed medicine used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder.

(repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) rTMS

the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

resilience

the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.

psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

regression toward the mean

the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average.

psychodynamic therapy

therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight.

behavior therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted actions/responses.

cognitive therapy

therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

family therapy

therapy that treats those living with the individual being treated for a disorder as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, those with whom they live.

evidence-based practice

clinical decision-making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences.

active listening

giving the speaker empathic attention by echoing, restating, and clarifying what the speaker said so he/she know you were paying attention. A feature of Rogers' client-centered therapy.

psychotherapy

treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.