APP Clinical Psychology Vocab 2

Modules 70-73

Psychotherapy

an emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and someone who suffers from psychological difficulties

Deinstitutionalization

the recent shift away from institutionalizing psychiatric patients for extended periods, often their entire lives

Biomedical Therapy

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

Eclectic Approach

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

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique; he 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

Resistance

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

Interpretation

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

Transference

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

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)

Carl Rogers

psychologist; developed client-centered therapy (father of humanistic approach)

Active Listening

empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies; a feature of client-centered therapy

Behavior Therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors

Counterconditioning

a behavior therapy procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors; based on classical conditioning (includes exposure therapy and aversive conditioning)

Exposure Therapies

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

Mary Cover Jones

psychologist; pioneer in systematic desensitization, maintained that fear could be unlearned; first to use counterconditioning

Systematic Desensitization

a type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli; commonly used to treat phobias

Joseph Wolpe

psychologist; described use of systematic desensitization to treat phobias (expanded on Mary Cover Jones' work); first to use systematic desensitization

flooding

intensive exposure to a feared stimulus (not gradual)

aversive conditioning

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

behavior modification

systematic application of learning principles to change people's actions and feelings

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

cognitive therapy

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

Aaron Beck

psychologist; cognitive therapy, suggested negative beliefs cause depression

Rational Emotive Therapy

a form of cognitive therapy associated with Albert Ellis, in which the therapist actively challenges the patient's irrational beliefs

Albert Ellis

pioneer in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

cognitive-behavioral therapy

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

regression toward the mean

the tendency for extremes of unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average

meta-analysis

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

eye movement desensitization

a form of psychotherapy that was developed to resolve symptoms resulting from disturbing and unresolved life experiences

light exposure therapy

used in the treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder; exposure to daily doses of intense light; increases activity in the adrenal gland and the superchiasmatic nucleus

psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior

antipsychotic drugs

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

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 D2 dopamine receptors

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

SSRI's

medications that are used in depression and anxiety disorders; they increase the level of serotonin without the side effects of MAOIs; Prozac is an example.

lithium

mood stabilizing drug used to treat manic symptoms, especially bipolar disorder

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

rTMS

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

psychosurgery

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

lobotomy

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

insight therapies

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

cognitive restructuring

a therapeutic approach that teaches clients to question the automatic beliefs, assumptions, and predictions that often lead to negative emotions and to replace negative thinking with more realistic and positive beliefs

evidence-based practice

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

therapeutic alliance

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

resilience

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

posttraumatic growth

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