PSY 215: Psychopathology/Abnormal Psych - Ch. 4

Fear

The central nervous system’s physiological and emotional response to a serious threat to one’s well-being.

Anxiety

The central nervous system’s physiological and emotional response to a vague sense of threat or danger.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Disorder marked by persistent and excessive feelings of anxiety and worry about numerous events and activities.

Unconditional positive regard

Complete, nonjudgmental acceptance and support of a person.

Client-centered therapy

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

Basic irrational assumptions

The inaccurate and inappropriate beliefs held by people with various psychological problems, according to Albert Ellis.

Metacognitive theory

A Theory that suggests that people with generalized anxiety disorder implicitly hold both positive and negative beliefs about worrying.

Rational-emotive therapy

A cognitive therapy developed by Albert Ellis that helps clients identify and change the irrational assumptions and thinking that help cause their psychological disorder.

Mindfulness-based-cognitive-behavioral therapy

Therapy technique where therapists help clients to become aware of their streams of thoughts, including their worries, as they are occurring and to accept such thoughts as mere events of the mind.

Family pedigree studies

A research design in which investigators determine how many and which relatives of a person with a disorder have the same disorder.

Benzodiazepines

The most common group of antianxiety drugs, which includes Valium and Xanax.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

A neurotransmitter whose low activity in the brain’s fear circuit has been linked to anxiety.

Brain circuit

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.

Fear circuit

The particular brain circuit that produces and manages fear reactions; includes such brain structures as the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula, and amygdala.

Sedative-hypnotic drugs

Drugs that calm people at lower doses and help them fall asleep at higher doses.

Specific phobia

A persistent and irrational fear of a particular object, activity, or situation.

Agoraphobia

An anxiety disorder in which a person is afraid to be in public situations from which escape might be difficult or help unavailable if panic-like or embarrassing symptoms were to occur.

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.

Preparedness

A predisposition to develop certain fears.

Exposure treatment

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

Systematic desensitization

An exposure treatment that uses relaxation training and a fear hierarchy to help clients with phobias react calmly to the objects or situations they dread.

Flooding

An exposure treatment for phobias in which clients are exposed repeatedly and intensively to a feared object and made to see that it is actually harmless.

Social Anxiety Disorder

A psychological disorder in which people fear social situations.

Social skills training

A therapy approach that helps people learn or improve social skills and assertiveness through role-playing and rehearsing of desirable behaviors.

Panic attacks

Periodic, short bouts of panic that occur suddenly, reach a peak within minutes, and gradually pass.

Panic disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by recurrent and unpredictable panic attacks.

Norepinephrine

A neurotransmitter/hormone central to the body’s “fight-or-flight” response. Boosts alertness, arousal, focus, and memory formation; additionally helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle and influences mood.

Locus coeruleus

A small area of the brain that seems to be active in the regulation of emotions. Many of its neurons use norepinephrine.

Panic circuit

Brain circuit that tends to be hyperactive in people who suffer from panic disorder.

Biological challenge test

A procedure used to produce panic in participants or clients by having them exercise vigorously or perform some other potentially panic-inducing task in the presence of a researcher or therapist.

Anxiety sensitivity

A tendency to focus on one’s bodily sensations, assess them illogically, and interpret them as harmful.

Obsession

A persistent thought, idea, impulse, or image that is experienced repeatedly, feels intrusive, and causes anxiety.

Compulsion

A repetitive and rigid behavior or mental act that a person feels driven to perform in order to prevent or reduce anxiety.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

A disorder in which a person has recurrent obsessions, compulsions, or both.

Neutralizing

A person’s attempt to eliminate unwanted thoughts by thinking or behaving in ways that put matters right internally, making up for the unacceptable thoughts.

Exposure and response prevention

A cognitive-behavioral technique used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder that exposes clients to anxiety-arousing thoughts or situations and then prevents them from performing their compulsive acts. Also called exposure and ritual prevention.

Cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit

Brain circuit often hyperactive in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, making it difficult for them to turn off or dismiss their various impulses, needs, and related thoughts.

Serotonin

Neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in regulating mood, sleep, digestion, nausea, wound healing, bone health, and intimate desire.

Obsessive-compulsive-related disorders

Disorders in which obsessive-like concerns drive people to repeatedly and excessively perform certain abnormal patterns of behavior.

Hoarding disorder

A disorder in which individuals feel compelled to save items and become very distressed if they try to discard them, resulting in an excessive accumulation of items.

Trichotillomania

A disorder in which people repeatedly pull out hair from their scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, or other parts of the body. Also called hair-pulling disorder.

Excoriation disorder

A disorder in which people repeatedly pick at their skin, resulting in significant sores or wounds. Also called skin-picking disorder.

Body dysmorphic disorder

A disorder in which individuals become preoccupied with the belief that they have certain defects or flaws in their physical appearance. Such defects or flaws are imagined or greatly exaggerated.

Developmental psychopathology

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

Behavioral inhibition

Cautious behavioral pattern where individuals are wary of new objects, people, and environments, and always seem on guard against potential threats.

Overprotective parenting

Parenting style in which parents rush in too quickly to prevent or rescue their children from experiencing distress.