Psychology and Mental Wellbeing Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering nervous system functions, memory processes, sleep cycles, mental health continuum models, phobia maintenance, and Indigenous Social and Emotional Wellbeing frameworks.

Spinal reflex

An unconscious and automatically occurring response to external stimuli without involving the brain.

Neural plasticity

The ability of the brain's neural structure or function to be changed by experience throughout the lifespan.

Synaptic plasticity

The ability of the synapse between neurons to change over time (LTD or LTP).

Coping flexibility

The ability to effectively change one's coping strategies according to the demands of the stressful situation.

Learning

A relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience; classified as a psychological construct.

Bandura's research and social learning theory

The theory that when observers watch and pay close attention to something or someone around them, they make a cognitive representation.

Memory

An active processing system that encodes, stores, and retrieves information when required.

Encoding

The process of converting sensory information into neural impulses that support learning.

Selective attention

Focused, close attention to external stimuli.

Explicit memory

Consciously recalled memories of facts or personally experienced events.

Implicit memory

Unconscious recall of memories of how to do something.

Semantic memory

Memories of general facts and concepts.

Episodic memory

Memories that involve re-experiencing events from our lives (autobiographical memories).

Procedural memory

Learned skills and actions.

Autobiographical events

Consists of episodes retrieved from a person's life based on a mixture of episodic and semantic memory.

Possible imagined futures

Mental time travel involving projecting yourself forward in time to pre-experience an event that might happen in your personal future; an active construction process based on past events, knowledge, and retrieval of episodic information.

Knowledge system

A personalized system of thinking, doing, and knowing held by each community based on years of sharing community life with the environment around them.

Kinship

A system where each member has an ongoing right and responsibility to retain knowledge and share it with certain people.

Connection to country

Indigenous ways of knowing rooted in a deep respect and connection to the land.

Alzheimer's disease

A neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive widespread deterioration of brain neurons, causing memory loss, decline in cognitive skills, and personality changes, with no known cure.

Amyloid plaques

Protein deposits formed when beta-amyloid proteins build up between the synapses of neurons, interfering with neural communication.

Neurofibrillary tangles

Structures formed when tau protein builds up inside the neuron, associated with cell death and disrupting information flow within and between neurons.

Brain atrophy

The progressive damage and loss of neurons caused by amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, leading to the shrinking of brain tissues.

Aphantasia

A phenomenon in which people have difficulty with or an inability to visualize mental imagery.

Mnemonic

Any technique used to improve memory encoding (sprouting, rerouting), storage (linking new info to old info in LTM), and retrieval.

Method of Loci

A mnemonic technique of committing a familiar sequence of locations to memory and visually associating items to recall with these locations; location imagery serves as a retrieval cue.

Songlines

Sung narratives of the landscape that weave across Country, enabling every significant place in Aboriginal Dreaming to be known.

Consciousness

The unique, subjective, and constantly changing awareness of your internal mental processes (thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions) and external environment (including behaviour).

Normal waking consciousness

The state of being aware of your own internal mental processes and external environments.

Altered state of consciousness

Any state of consciousness that differs in levels of awareness from normal waking consciousness.

Sleep

A naturally occurring, reversible altered state of consciousness characterized by reduced awareness and responsiveness to surroundings; considered a psychological construct.

Sleep diaries

A subjective self-report tool used by an individual to track their own sleep and wake patterns.

Video monitoring

An objective sleep assessment method that becomes subjective once the recorded footage is interpreted.

Suprachiasmatic nucleus

Part of the hypothalamus that functions as the master body clock to internally regulate the sleep-wake cycle.

Circadian rhythm phase disorders

Sleep disorders caused by a misalignment between internal circadian rhythms and external sleep-wake schedules.

Endogenous cues

Internal biological mechanisms or signals that regulate bodily rhythms, such as melatonin release.

Zeitgebers

External environmental cues that synchronize or misalign the body's circadian rhythm, such as light or shift work schedules.

Delayed sleep phase syndrome

A circadian rhythm disorder marked by a delay of $2\,\text{h}+$ in sleep onset and waking times relative to the desired schedule, lasting more than $3\text{ months}$.

Advanced sleep phase syndrome

A circadian rhythm disorder characterized by sleep onset and wake times occurring $2\,\text{h}\text{ earlier}$ than the desired schedule.

BLT (Bright Light Therapy)

Exposure to artificial light for a specific, timed period to resynchronize the sleep-wake cycle with the external 24-hour day-night cycle.

Shift work

Employment schedules that regularly take place outside conventional business hours, such as night shifts and early morning work.

Sleep hygiene

A set of behavioural practices and environmental conditions designed to promote quality sleep.

Predisposing risk factors

Factors that increase an individual's susceptibility to developing a mental health disorder.

Precipitating risk factors

Events or conditions that increase susceptibility and directly trigger the onset of a mental health disorder.

Perpetuating risk factors

Factors that maintain or prolong an existing mental health disorder and inhibit recovery.

Protective factors

Characteristics, conditions, or behaviours that prevent the occurrence or recurrence of a mental disorder.

Dysfunctional GABA system

A failure of the nervous system to produce, release, or receive the correct amount of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.

Memory bias

Distorted cognitive processing that selectively enhances, impairs, or alters memory recall.

Specific environmental triggers

Direct negative, traumatic experiences involving an object or situation that produce extreme fear and subsequently trigger phobic reactions.

Stigma

Feelings of shame or disgrace linked to a characteristic that identifies someone as part of a culturally devalued social group.

Benzodiazepines

A class of central nervous system agonist drugs that reduce post-synaptic firing, decreasing physiological arousal and promoting relaxation.

Agonist

A chemical or drug that mimics or amplifies a neurotransmitter's effects at receptor sites, such as boosting GABA activity to lower anxiety.

Breathing retraining

An anxiety-reduction method training phobic individuals to regulate respiration (inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth) when facing feared stimuli.

CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy)

An intervention blending cognitive and behavioural strategies to restructure maladaptive thoughts and reduce phobic avoidance behaviour.

Cognitive therapy

A therapeutic focus on how beliefs, thoughts, and assumptions shape emotion and action, prompting clients to collect evidence for and against fear-based assumptions.

Behavioural therapy

Treatment aimed directly at modifying maladaptive behaviours that perpetuate or aggravate a specific phobia.

Systematic desensitisation

A stepwise behavioural treatment that pairs graduated exposure to a phobic trigger with relaxation responses until fear is extinguished.

Psychoeducation

Structured instruction for individuals with mental health disorders and their families concerning the illness and its management options.

Mentally healthy

A state marked by the capacity to perform daily tasks without major disruption while exhibiting resilience.

High level of functioning

The capability to fulfill everyday routines, practice self-care, sustain relationships, and demonstrate resilience amidst daily stressors.

Social wellbeing

The capacity to form positive interpersonal connections and interact harmoniously within one's community.

Emotional wellbeing

The ability to experience a balanced spectrum of emotions and express them adaptively and positively.

Resilience

The ability to successfully cope with adversity, adapt to change, and recover positive functioning during hardship.

Mental health problem

A short-term disruption to a person's cognitive, emotional, or social capacities, differentiated from disorders by its lower severity and shorter duration.

Mental disorder

A lasting psychological condition defined by the 'Three Ds' (distress, dysfunction, deviance) that impairs mood, thoughts, and actions.

Genetic vulnerability

An elevated biological risk of acquiring a specific mental disorder attributable to inherited genetic traits.

Poor response to medication

A clinical situation in which prescribed pharmacological therapies fail to adequately alleviate targeted clinical symptoms.

Substance use

The harmful consumption of or chronic psychological and physiological reliance upon psychoactive chemicals.

Rumination

Continuously obsessing over, focusing on, and fixating upon negative thoughts, problems, and distressful feelings.

Adequate nutritional intake and hydration

Consuming appropriate fluids and nutrients needed to fuel physiological processes, maintain energy, and protect mental health.

Mindfulness meditation

A contemplative technique focused on observing present reality non-judgmentally while maintaining a calm mental state.

Mindfulness

The practice of directing conscious awareness to immediate sensory inputs and internal psychological states without judgment.

Meditation

The deliberate self-regulation of attention to calm the mind, process internal states, and focus mental resources.

Culture

A learned and shared way of life, including beliefs, values, traditions, and practices embraced by a group.

Cultural continuity

The ongoing preservation, revitalization, and transmission of a culture's heritage and traditions into future generations.

Self-determination

The right to make decisions concerning their own community, life, and future.