AP Exam 1

Chapters 1-4

psychopathology

The scientific study of mental difficulties or disorders, including their explanations, causes, progression, symptoms, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment. The word also is used as a synonym for the disorders (or symptoms) themselves.

Deviance

breaking behavioral norms

Distress

negative feelings

Dysfunction

interferes w/ daily functioning

Danger

placing themselves or others at risk

4 D’s that indicate psychopathology

1. Deviance

2. Distress

3. Dysfunction

4. Danger

Norms

A society’s stated and unstated rules for proper conduct.

Culture

A people’s common history, values, institutions, habits, skills, technology, and arts.

Cultural Humility

A process in which clinical scientists or practitioners continuously examine their own beliefs and cultural identities, explore individuals’ cultures and historical realities that differ from their own, seek to understand the cultural context of each person’s mental health challenges, and respond accordingly.

Treatment/Therapy

A systematic procedure designed to change dysfunctional behavior into more functional behavior. Also called therapy.

Percent of adults in U.S. in a given year that need treatment

30%

Prehistoric Societies views and treatments of mental illness

Supernatural (demons, spirits, angry gods)

• shamans and rituals

• Trephination: drilling in skulls to release spirits

• community-based healing

• mixed beliefs: diet, environment, etc.

Early European views and treatments of mental illness

Four Humors: Mental Illness = imbalance of humors

1. Blood

2. Phlem

3. Yellow Bile

4. Black Bile

(focus on scientific thinking thanks to Hippocrates = diet, sleep, lifestyle, etc.)

Early Asian views and treatments of mental illness

Mental Illness = Imbalance of vital energy (Qi)

(focus on Yin Yang and 5 elements theory)

• accupuncture

• herbs

• Tai Chi

Middle Ages views and treatments of mental illness

Supernatural: sin, demons, possession

• exorcism

• prayer

• witch hunts

(Early asylums =  harsh confinement, late shift toward humanism)

Renaissance views and treatments of mental illnesses

• rise of humanism and science

• renewed interest in Hippocrates balanced humors

• seen as medical, not supernatural

• growth of asylums and human care

• mind-body debates and ethical treatment

19th-20th Century views and treatments of mental illness

• Dorothea Dix led Moral Treatment Movement

• Freud: psychoanalysis and talk therapy

• Medical advance: early psychiatry, meds, bloodletting

20th Century views and treatments of mental illness

• cognitive-behavioral therapy, humanistic therapy

• Deinstitutionalization and community care

• Diagnostic systems and reduced stigma

Today’s views and treatments of mental illness

• Biopsychosocial model: genes, brain, personality, environment

• Neuroscience: brain scans, research

• Genetics: markers, personalized treatment

• Evidence-based therapy: CBT, dialectical behavioral therapy, mindfulness

• Meds

• Holistic care: exercise, sleep, nutrition, meditation

• Digital tools: teletherapy, apps, AI chatbots

• Reduced stigma

• Global lens: culture and collaboration

somatogenic perspective

The view that psychopathology has physical causes.

psychogenic perspective

The view that the chief causes of psychopathology are psychological.

psychoanalysis

Either the theory or the treatment of psychopathology that emphasizes unconscious psychological forces as the cause of psychological dysfunction.

psychotropic medications

Drugs that mainly affect the brain and reduce many symptoms of mental dysfunction.

private psychotherapy

An arrangement in which a person directly pays a therapist for counseling services.

positive psychology

The study and enhancement of positive feelings, traits, and abilities.

multicultural psychology

The field that seeks to understand how the varied histories, opportunities, and barriers experienced by people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, languages, and other such factors affect behavior, emotion, and thought.

Intersectionality

A multicultural framework that examines how each individual’s memberships in multiple cultural groups and social identities — including race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, and sexual orientation — combine to shape their particular experiences, opportunities, outlook, and functioning.

managed care programs

Health care coverage in which the insurance company largely controls the nature, scope, and cost of medical or psychological services.

The scientific method

The process of systematically gathering and evaluating information, through careful observations, to understand a phenomenon.

A Case Study

a detailed description of a person’s life and psychological problems

Benefits of Case Studies

• source of new ideas about behavior

• offer tentative support for a theory

• can challenge a theory’s assumptions

• show value of new therapeutic techniques

• opportunity to study unusual problems

limitations of case studies

• biased observers 

• subjective evidence

• low internal validity

• low external validity

internal validity

The accuracy with which a study can pinpoint one factor as the cause of a phenomenon.

external validity

The degree to which the results of a study may be generalized beyond that study.

The Correlational Method

A research procedure used to determine how much events or characteristics vary along with each other.

Masked Design

A feature of an experiment in which participants do not know whether they are in the experimental condition or the control condition. Previously called blind design.

Placebo Therapy

A pretend treatment that the participant in an experiment believes to be genuine.

Matched Design

A research design that matches the experimental participants with control participants who are similar on key characteristics.

Natural Experiments

An experiment in which nature, rather than an experimenter, manipulates an independent variable.

Analogue Experiments

A research method in which the experimenter produces pathological-like behavior in laboratory participants and then conducts experiments on the participants.

Single-case experimental design

A research method in which a single participant is observed and measured both before and after the manipulation of an independent variable. Also called single-subject experimental design.

Epidemiological studies

A study that measures the incidence and prevalence of a problem, such as a disorder, in a given population.

Incidence

The number of new cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time.

Prevalence

The total number of cases of a disorder occurring in a population over a specific period of time.

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

An ethics committee in a research facility that is empowered to protect the rights and safety of human research participants.

Brain circuits

A network of particular brain structures that work together, triggering each other into action to produce a distinct kind of behavioral, cognitive, or emotional reaction.

4 major psychotropic drug groups

1. Antianxiety

2. Antidepressant

3. Mood stabilizers

4. Antipsychotics 

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

A biological treatment in which a brain seizure is triggered when an electric current passes through electrodes attached to the patient’s forehead.

Psychosurgery

surgery done on the brain to relieve mental disorders

Benefits of the biological model

• well respected by professionals/research to back it up

• treatments often bring relief when others have failed

limitations of biological model

• expect that all behavior can be explained biologically

• treatments can have significant unwanted side effects

Psychodynamic model

believe all behaviors are determined largely by underlying psychological forces of which individuals are not consciously aware (no behavior is accidental)

• developed by Freud

The Id

psychological force that produces instinctual needs, drives, and impulses.

• operates in accordance with the pleasure principle; always seeks gratification

The Ego

psychological force that employs reason and operates in accordance with the reality principle.

• unconsciously seeks gratification, but does so in accordance with reality principle, knowledge we acquire through experience that it can be unacceptable to express our id impulses outright

Ego Defense Mechanisms

strategies developed by the ego to control unacceptable id impulses and to avoid or reduce the anxiety they arouse

The Superego

psychological force that represents a person’s values and ideals

• operates by the morality principle, a sense of what is right and what is wrong

Developmental stages

at each stage of development, from infancy to maturity, new events challenge individuals and require adjustments in their id, ego, and superego

Self-theorists

The psychodynamic theory that emphasizes the role of the self — our unified personality

Object relations theorists

The psychodynamic theory that views the desire for relationships as the key motivating force in human behavior.

Free Association

A psychodynamic technique in which the patient describes any thought, feeling, or image that comes to mind, even if it seems unimportant.

Resistance

An unconscious refusal to participate fully in therapy.

Transference

redirection toward the psychotherapist of feelings associated with important figures in a patient’s life, now or in the past.

Catharsis

The reliving of past repressed feelings in order to settle internal conflicts and overcome problems.

benefits of the psychodynamic model

• helped to understand that dysfunctional behavior may be rooted in the same processes as functional behavior

• first to apply theory systematically to treatment

• first to demonstrate the potential of psychological, as opposed to biological, treatment

• ideas have served as starting points for many other psychological treatments

limitations of the psychodynamic model

• concepts are hard to research

• processes such as id drives, ego defenses, and fixation are abstract and supposedly operate at an unconscious level - no way of knowing for certain they are occurring

• limited research support over the years

• only 3 percent of today’s clinical psychologists identify themselves as classical psychoanalytic therapists

The Cognitive-Behavioral Model

focuses on behaviors people display and the thoughts they have (interplay btw behaviors and thoughts)

Conditioning

A simple form of learning

classical conditioning

A process of learning by temporal association in which two events that repeatedly occur close together in time become fused in a person’s mind and produce the same response.

modeling

A process of learning in which an individual acquires responses by observing and imitating others

operant conditioning 

A process of learning in which individuals come to behave in certain ways as a result of experiencing consequences of one kind or another whenever they perform the behavior

Exposure therapy

A behavior-focused intervention in which fearful people are repeatedly exposed to the objects or situations they dread

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

help clients to accept their thoughts instead of judging, acting on, or trying to change them (when changing is not possible)

Benefits of the CB model

• nearly half of today’s clinical psychologists report that their approach is cognitive and/or behavioral

• can be tested in the laboratory

• people with psychological disorders often display the kinds of reactions, assumptions, and errors in thinking that cognitive-behavioral theorists would predict

• impressive research performance of cognitive-behavioral therapies

limitations of the CB model

• problematic behaviors and cognitions seen in people with psychological conditions could well be a result rather than a cause of their difficulties

• do not help everyone

• by focusing primarily on clients’ current experiences and functioning, cognitive-behavioral therapists may be paying too little attention to the influence of early life experiences and relationships on a client’s current difficulties

• although behavior and cognition obviously are key dimensions in life, they are still only two aspects of human functioning

Humanists

believe that human beings are born with a natural tendency to be friendly, cooperative, and constructive

self-actualize

The humanistic process by which people fulfill their potential for goodness and growth

Existentialists

believe that from birth we have total freedom, either to face up to our existence and give meaning to our lives or to shrink from that responsibility

unconditional self-regard

recognize their worth as persons, even while recognizing that they are not perfect

conditions of worth

standards that tell them they are lovable and acceptable only when they conform to certain guidelines

client-centered therapy

The humanistic therapy developed by Carl Rogers in which clinicians try to help clients by conveying acceptance, accurate empathy, and genuineness

3 qualities of client-centered therapy

1. full and warm acceptance for the client

2. skillful listening and restating

3. sincere communication

Gestalt Therapy

The humanistic therapy developed by Fritz Perls in which clinicians actively move clients toward self-recognition and self-acceptance by using techniques such as role-playing and self-discovery exercises

existential therapy

A therapy that encourages clients to accept responsibility for their lives and to live with greater meaning and value

Sociocultural model

psychopathology is best understood in light of the broad forces that influence an individual

• norms

• roles the person plays in their society

• family structure or cultural background

• how others view and react to the person

Family-social perspective

argue that clinical theorists should concentrate on those broad forces that operate directly on individuals as they move through life

• family relationships

• social interactions

• community events

Family Systems theory

A theory that views the family as a system of interacting parts whose interactions exhibit consistent patterns and unstated rules

Interpersonal psychotherapy

addresses four interpersonal problem areas that may lead to psychopathology:

1. interpersonal losses

2. interpersonal role disputes

3. interpersonal role transitions

4. interpersonal deficits

Biopsychosocial theories

psychopathology results from the interaction of genetic, biological, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social, cultural, and societal influences

Developmental Psychopathology perspective

uses a developmental framework to understand how variables and principles from the various models may collectively account for human functioning

Equifinality

principle that a number of different developmental pathways can lead to the same psychological disorder

multifinality

principle that persons with similar developmental histories may have different clinical outcomes or react to comparable current situations in very different ways

protective factor

positive developmental variable such as effective parenting - helps to offset the impact of negative variables (i.e. unfavorable genes or a difficult temperament)

Clinical Assessment

used to determine whether, how, and why a person is behaving in a dysfunctional manner and how that person may be helped

Categories of assessment

1. tests

2. interviews

3. observations

What do assessment tools need in order to be useful?

• be standardized

• have reliability

• have validity

standardize

process in which a test is administered to a large group of people whose performance then serves as a standard or norm against which any individual’s score can be measured

Reliability

measure of the consistency of test or research results

Validity

measure of the accuracy of a test’s or study’s results

Predictive validity

tool’s ability to predict future characteristics or behavior