Chapter 12 Terms - AP Psycholgoy

Systematic Desensitization

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

Exposure Therapy

An approach to treatment that involves confronting an emotion-arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, ultimately leading to a decrease in the emotional response

Mood Stabilizing Medications

Depakote: Controlling manic episodes Lithium: Levels emotional highs and lows of bipolar disorder

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

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

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

Person-Centered Therapy (Client-Centered)

assumes that all individuals have a tendency toward growth and that this growth can be facilitated by acceptance and genuine reactions from the therapist

Antianxiety Drugs

drugs used to control anxiety and agitation

Antidepressant Drugs

drugs used to treat depression; also increasingly prescribed for anxiety. Different types work by altering the availability of various neurotransmitters

Antipsychotic Drugs

drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder

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

SSRIs

selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors; drugs administered to treat depression that may cause various sexual side effects, especially inhibited or delayed arousal or orgasm

Psychosurgery

surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

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.

Group Therapy

therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction

Behavior Therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors

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 the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members

Psychotherapy

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

Rational-Emotive Therapy

A Cognitive Therapy based on Albert Ellis' theory that cognitions control our emotions and behaviors; therefore, changing the way we think about things will affect the way we feel and the way we behave.

Lobotomy

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

Active Listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers' client-centered therapy.

EMDR

Eye-movement Desensitization & Reprocessing. New treatment for PTSD, client imagines the traumatic event and processes it in a non-threatening manner.

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

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

Therapeutic Alliance

a bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem

Therapeutic Lifestyle Change

a lifestyle modification that includes diet, physical activity, and weight loss

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)

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)

Insight Therapies

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

Unconditional Positive Regard

according to Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Evidence Based Practice

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

Posttraumatic Growth

positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises