Abnormal Psychology

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

Phobia

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation.

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

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

Electroconvulsive therapy

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

Characteristics needed in client-centered therapists

empathy, positive regard, and genuiness

Pyromania

insane impulse to light things on fire

Mania

An intense or extreme enthusiasm or excitement

Transferance

The process by which a person unconsciously and inappropriately displaces (transfers) onto individuals in his or her current life those patterns of behavior and emotional reactions that originated in relation to significant figures in childhood

DSM-V

a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders; addresses the signs and symptoms but not the causes

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

an anxiety disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy

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

Distressful

causing emotional/physical pain and harm

Conventional antipsychotics

control the "positive" symptoms of Schitzophrenia, such as hallucinations, delusions and confusion

Somatoform Disorder

psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause

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.

Schitzophrenia

A group of severe disorder characterized by disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions and inappropriate emotions and actions

Client-Centered Therapy

A humanistic therapy based on Carl Roger's beliefs that an individual has an unlimited capacity for psychological growth and will continue to grow unless barriers are placed in the way.

Catatonic Schizophrenia

A type of schizophrenia marked by striking motor disturbances, ranging from muscular rigidity to random motor activity.

Ecletic Approach

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

Social Phobia

Anxiety disorder characterized by fear of, and desire to avoid, situations in which the person might be exposed to scrutiny by others and might behave in an embarrassing or humiliating way.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

Controversial disorder in which a person experiences depression during winter months and improved mood during spring. Can be treated using phototherapy, using bright light and high levels of negative ions.

Positive Symptoms of Schitzophrenia

Delusions, hallucinations, bizarre or eccentric behavior, disorganized speech

Psychological Disorders

Deviant, Distressful and Dysfunctional behavior patterns

Dissociative Disorders

Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

Dissociative Amnesia

Dissociative disorder characterized by the sudden and extensive inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.

Active listening

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

Lithium

Mood Stabilizer drug used to treat bipolar disorder

Self-Serving bias

The tendency to attribute one's success to internal factors while attributing one's failures to external factors. Not present in depressed people.

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.

Psychotherapy

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

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

Dysfunctional

behavior has to be disturbing enough to disrupt daily life

Dissociative Fugue

disorder in which one travels away from home and is unable to remember details of his past, including often his identity

Impulse Control Disorders

disorders in which a person acts on an irresistible, but potentially harmful, impulse

Behavioral Therapy

focuses on changing behavior by identifying problem behaviors, replacing them with appropriate behaviors, and using rewards or other consequences to make the changes

Medical Model

the concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital.

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

Residual Schizophrenia

there has been a past schizophrenic episode, but presently only some negative symptoms and no positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions)

New Generation antipsychotics

treat both the positive and negative symptoms of Schizophrenia

Disorganized Schizophrenia

type of schizophrenia characterized by severely disturbed thought processes, frequent incoherence, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate affect.

Behavior Modification Therapy

A systematic approach to changing behavior through the application of the principles of conditioning.

Vagus Nerve Stimulation

A treatment procedure for depression in which an implanted pulse generator sends regular electrical signals to a person's vagus nerve; the nerve, in turn, stimulates the brain.

Agorophobia

fear of being in a place or situation in which escape is difficult or impossible

Biomedical Therapy

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

Negative Symptoms of schitzophrenia

withdrawl, struggles with the basics of life, loss of emotional reactions, and no follow through

Depression

A mental disorder characterized by sadness, hopelessness, pessimism, loss of interest in life, reduced emotional wellbeing, and abnormalities in sleep, appetite, and energy level.

hypomania

A mild manic state in which the individual seems infectiously merry, extremely talkative, charming, and tireless.

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities.

Bipolar Disorder

A mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

Deviant

A person's behaviorwhose actions go against social norms, the context of their situation, and is time-dependant.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

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

Hydrochondriasis

A psychological disorder in which a person is preoccupied with minor symptoms and develops an exaggerated belief that the symptoms signify a life-threatening illness

Dissociative Identity Disorder

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. Also called multiple personality disorder.

Conversion Disorder

A rare somatoform disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found.

Systematic Desensitization

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

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing.

Resistance

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

Word Salad

Incoherent mixture of words, phrases, and sentences

Anxiety Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

Mood Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Kleptomania

a continual urge to steal regardless of economic motive

Paranoid Schizophrenia

a person feels extremely suspicious, persecuted, grandiose, or experiences a combination of these emotions