Health Psychology and Mental Disorders Flashcards

Flashcards about health psychology, mental disorders, and treatment options.

Health Psychology

Researchers and practitioners concerned with psychology’s contribution to promoting health and preventing disease.

Wellness

A dynamic state of physical, mental, and social well-being.

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

Stressors

Sources of stress, including daily hassles, traumatic events, and adverse childhood experiences.

Stress Reactions

Physical and emotional responses to conditions of pressure or strain.

Eustress

The positive stress response, involving optimal levels of stimulation.

Distress

The negative stress response, often involving negative affect and physiological reactivity.

Fight or Flight Response

A pattern of physiological changes elicited by activity of the sympathetic nervous system in response to threatening or stressful situations.

GAS (Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion)

The general adaptation syndrome describes the process of experiencing stress through alarm, resistance, and exhaustion phases.

Tend and Befriend theory

Theory proposes that some people react to stress by tending to their own needs and/or the needs of others and seeking connection with others.

Well-Being

A state of happiness and contentment, with low levels of distress, overall good physical and mental health and outlook, or good quality of life.

Subjective well-being

One’s appraisal of one’s own level of happiness and life satisfaction.

Problem focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress directly—by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor.

Emotion focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction.

Positive Psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.

Resilience

The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress.

Positive Emotion

An emotional reaction designed to express a positive affect.

Gratitude

Appreciating what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible.

Signature strengths/Virtues

Unique personality traits with positive outcomes, classified into six categories of virtues.

Post-Traumatic Growth

A positive subjective experience that some experience after the experience of trauma or stress.

The Three D’s of Mental Disorders

Deviant, Distressful, and Dysfunctional: not typical, worrisome and causes anxiety, impairment or disturbance in behavior.

Diagnosis

The classification of individuals on the basis of a disease, disorder, abnormality, or set of characteristics.

Stigma

The negative social attitude attached to a characteristic of an individual that may be regarded as a mental, physical, or social deficiency.

Eclectic Approach

Most psychologists employ this approach when diagnosing and treating clients, using more than one psychological perspective.

Behavioral Perspective on Mental Disorders

The behavioral perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on maladaptive learned associations between or among responses to stimuli.

Psychodynamic Perspective on Mental Disorders

The psychodynamic perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on unconscious thoughts and experiences, often developed during childhood.

Humanistic Perspective on Mental Disorders

The humanistic perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on a lack of social support and being unable to fulfill one’s potential.

Biological Perspective on Mental Disorders

The biological perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on physiological or genetic issues.

Cognitive Perspective on Mental Disorders

The cognitive perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on maladaptive thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, or emotions.

Evolutionary Perspective on Mental Disorders

The evolutionary perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on behaviors and mental processes that reduce the likelihood of survival.

Sociocultural Perspective on Mental Disorders

The sociocultural perspective proposes that the causes of mental disorders focus on maladaptive social and cultural relationships and dynamics.

Biopsychosocial Model (Interaction Model)

Assumes that any psychological problem potentially involves a combination of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.

Diathesis-Stress Model (Interaction Model)

Assumes that psychological disorders develop due to a genetic vulnerability (diathesis) in combination with stressful life experiences (stress).

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

A group of disorders with onset occurring during the developmental period.

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder

A neurodevelopmental disorder defined by impairing levels of inattention, disorganization, and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.

Schizophrenic Spectrum Disorders

Disorders characterized by issues in delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or speech, disorganized motor behavior, and negative symptoms.

Delusions (persecution, grandeur)

False beliefs that are positive symptoms.

Hallucinations

False perceptions that are positive symptoms and may involve one or more of the senses.

Disorganized Thinking, Speech (word salad)

A positive symptom that may manifest as speaking in a word salad (stringing together words in nonsensical ways).

Disorganized Motor Behavior (Catatonia)

May manifest as catatonia, which may be experienced as excitement (a positive symptom manifestation) or stupor (a negative symptom manifestation).

Negative Symptoms vs Positive Symptoms

Present as the lack of a typical behavior.

Mania

Generally, a state of excitement, overactivity, and psychomotor agitation, often accompanied by overoptimism, grandiosity, or impaired judgment.

Depressive Disorders

Characterized by the presence of sad, empty, or irritable mood along with physical and cognitive changes that affect a person’s ability to function.

Major Depressive Disorder Vs Persistent Depressive Disorder

MDD: presence of symptoms every day for at least 2 weeks. PDD: presence of symptoms over two years, often milder, but more persistent than episodic.

Bipolar Disorders

Characterized by periods of mania and periods of depression.

Bipolar Cycling, Bipolar 1 and 2

Involves experiencing depression and mania in alternating periods that can last a variable amount of time.

Anxiety Disorders

Characterized by excessive fear and/or anxiety with related disturbances to behavior.

Ataque de nervios

A culture-bound syndrome found among Latinos, characterized by shaking, uncontrollable shouting or crying, a sense of rising heat, loss of control, and verbal or physical aggression, followed by fainting or seizure-like episodes.

Specific Phobia

Involves fear or anxiety toward a specific object or situation.

Agoraphobia

Intense fear of specific social situations, including using public transportation, being in open spaces, being in enclosed spaces, standing in line or being in a crowd, or being outside of the home alone.

Panic Disorder

Involves the experience of panic attacks (unanticipated and overwhelming biological, cognitive, and emotional experiences of fear/anxiety).

Social Anxiety Disorder

Involves the intense fear of being judged or watched by others.

Taijin Kyofusho

A culture-bound anxiety disorder experienced mainly by Japanese people in which people fear others are judging their bodies as undesirable, offensive, or unpleasing.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Involves prolonged experiences of non-specific anxiety or fear.

Dissociative Amnesia (with and without fugue)

A dissociative disorder characterized by failure to recall important information about one’s personal experiences, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

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

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Characterized by the presence of obsessions (intrusive thoughts) and compulsions (intrusive, often repetitive, behaviors intended to address obsessions).

Hoarding Disorder

Characterized by persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value.

Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders

Characterized by exposure to a traumatic or stressful event with subsequent psychological distress.

Bulimia Nervosa

Involves recurrent episodes of binge eating followed by inappropriate compensatory behaviors.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder in which a person maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight; sometimes accompanied by excessive exercise.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Personality Disorders

Characterized by enduring patterns of internal experience and behavior that is deviant from one’s culture; is pervasive and inflexible; begins in adolescence or early adulthood; is stable over time; and leads to personal distress or impairment.

Meta-Analysis

A quantitative technique for synthesizing the results of multiple studies of a phenomenon into a single result.

Deinstitutionalization

The joint process of moving people with developmental or psychiatric disabilities from structured institutional facilities to their home communities.

Therapeutic Alliance

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

Evidence-Based Practice

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

Psychodynamic Therapy Techniques

Therapies employ free association and dream interpretation to uncover the unconscious mind.

Free Association

a basic process in psychoanalysis and other forms of psychodynamic psychotherapy, in which the patient is encouraged to verbalize without censorship or selection whatever thoughts come to mind, no matter how embarrassing, illogical, or irrelevant.

Dream Analysis

a technique, originally used in psychoanalysis but now also used in some other psychotherapies, in which the content of dreams is interpreted to reveal underlying motivations or symbolic meanings and representations.

Cognitive Restructuring

A technique used in cognitive therapy and cognitive behavior therapy to help the client identify their self-defeating beliefs or cognitive distortions, refute them, and then modify them so that they are adaptive and reasonable.

Cognitive Therapy Techniques

Proposes that people should focus on the cognitive triad—negative thoughts about oneself, the world, and the future.

Applied Behavior Analysis

Involves applying principles of conditioning to address mental disorders and developmental disabilities.

Exposure Therapy

Behavioral techniques that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imaginary or actual situations) to the things they fear and avoid.

Systematic Desensitization

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

Biofeedback

Uses principles of conditioning to help clients regulate body systems that contribute to feelings of anxiety or depression.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Combine techniques from the cognitive and behavioral perspectives to treat mental and behavioral disorders.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

A flexible, stage-based therapy that combines principles of behavior therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, and mindfulness.

Rational-Emotive Therapy (Also called Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy- REBT)

A form of cognitive behavior therapy based on the concept that an individual’s self-defeating beliefs influence and cause negative feelings and undesirable behaviors.

Aversion Therapy

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior.

Token Economy

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats.

Group Therapy

Treatment of psychological problems in which two or more participants interact with each other on both an emotional and a cognitive level in the presence of one or more psychotherapists.

Individual Therapy

Treatment of psychological problems that is conducted on a one-to-one basis.

Hypnosis

The procedure in which suggestion is used to evoke changes in sensation, perception, cognition, emotion, or control over motor behavior.

Humanistic Therapy

Therapy from the humanistic perspective that employs active listening and unconditional positive regard.

Active Listening

Empathetic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies.

Unconditional Positive Regard

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

Biological Interventions/Therapy

Any form of treatment for mental disorders that attempts to alter physiological functioning.

Psychoactive Medications/Drugs

Any drug that has significant effects on psychological processes.

Medication Interactions with Specific Neurotransmitters

Interact with specific neurotransmitters the central nervous system to address possible biochemical causes of mental disorders.

Antidepressants

Any drug administered in the treatment of depression.

Antianxiety Medications

A drug used in the treatment of anxiety, mild behavioral agitation, and insomnia.

Lithium

An element of the alkali metal group whose salts are used in psychopharmacotherapy as mood stabilizers.

Antipsychotic Medications

Any pharmacological agent used to control the symptoms of schizophrenia and other disorders characterized by impaired reality testing.

Antipsychotic Medication side effect: Tardive Dyskinesia

A movement disorder associated with the use of antipsychotics.

Surgery/Invasive Interventions

Surgical or invasive interventions include psychosurgery, or electroconvulsive therapy.

TMS: Transcranial Magnetic stimulation

Localized electrical stimulation of the brain caused by changes in the magnetic field in coils of wire placed around the head.

Psychosurgery

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

ECT: Electroconvulsive Therapy

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