PSY 240 FINAL EXAM (UOFT)

Psychopathology

symptoms that cause mental, emotional, and/or physical pain

abnormality

Any pattern of behavior that causes people significant distress, causes them to harm themselves or others, or interferes with their ability to function in daily life.

Culture and Gender and diagnoses

culture and gender can influence:
1. the ways people express symptoms
2. People's willingness to admit to certain types of behaviors or feelings
3. the types of treatments deemed acceptable or helpful for people exhibiting abnormal behaviors

The Four D's of Abnormality

dysfunction, distress, deviance, and dangerousness

dysfuntion

interferes in one's life

distress

causing individuals pain

deviance

outside cultural or social norm

dangerousness

harm to selves or others

Biological Theories of abnormal behavior

abnormal behavior similar to physical diseases

Supernatural Theories

Abnormal behaviour as a result of divine intervention, curses, demonic possession, and personal sin

Psychological Theories

Mental disorders as caused by psychological processes (beliefs, thinking styles, coping styles)

Ancient Theories

Prehistoric people had a concept of insanity most likely rooted in supernatural beliefs

Trephination

An ancient operation in which a stone instrument was used to cut away a circular section of the skull, perhaps to treat abnormal behavior.

psychic epidemics

phenomena in which large numbers of people begin to engage in unusual behaviors that appear to have a psychological origin

mental hygiene movement

Mid-19th-century effort to improve care of the mentally disordered by informing the public of their mistreatment.

moral treatment

type of treatment delivered in mental hospitals in which patients were treated with respect and dignity and were encouraged to exercise self-control

general paresis

disease that leads to paralysis, insanity, and eventually death; discovery of this disease helped establish a connection between biological diseases and mental disorders

mesmerism

treatment for hysterical patients based on the idea that magnetic fluids in the patients' bodies are affected by the magnetic forces of other people and objects; the patients' magnetic forces are thought to be realigned by the practitioner through his or her own magnetic force

Ivan Pavlov

developed methods and theories for understanding behavior in terms of stimuli and responses rather than in terms of the internal workings of the unconscious mind

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

Behaviorism

study of the impact of reinforcements and punishments on behavior

Patient's Rights Movement

Movement to ensure that mental patients retain their basic rights and to remove them from institutions and care for them in the community

Deinstitutionalization

moving people with psychological or developmental disabilities from highly structured institutions to home- or community-based settings

Community mental health movement

movement launched in 1963 that attempted to provide coordinated mental health services to people in community-based treatment centers

Community mental health centers

institutions for the treatment of people with mental health problems in the community; may include teams of social workers, therapists, and physicians who coordinate care

Halfway Houses

living facilities that offer people with long-term mental health problems the opportunity to live in a structured, supportive environment while they are trying to reestablish employment and ties to family and friends

Day Treatment Centers

Mental health Facilities that allow people to obtain treatment, along with occupational and rehabilitative therapies, during the day but to live at home at night

Managed Care

health care system in which all necessary services for an individual patient are supposed to be coordinated by a primary care provider; the goals are to coordinate services for an existing medical problem and to prevent future medical problems

Phineas Gage

railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function

Brain dysfunction

one of the three causes of abnormality on which biological approaches often focus

What are the three causes of brain abnormality

brain dysfunction, biochemical imbalances, and genetic abnormalities

Hindbrain

An area of the brain that coordinates information coming into and out of the spinal cord
crucial for basic life functions

midbrain

A small part of the brain above the pons that integrates sensory information and relays it upward.

Forebrain

structures located in the front part of the brain

structures of the hindbrain

medulla, pons, cerebellum, reticular formation

medulla

controls breathing and reflexes

Pons

Attentiveness and Timing of Sleep

Reticular Formation

Neurons that control arousal and attention to stimuli

Cerebellum

Coordination of Movement

structures of the midbrain

inferior and superior colliculi and substantial nigra

superior and inferior colliculus

relay sensory information and control movement

Substantia nigra

crucial part of the pathway that regulates responses to reward

Structures of the forebrain

cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, limbic system, thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus

cerebral cortex function

Is the center for humans highest functions governing thought, memory, reasoning, sensation and voluntary movement.
Divided into four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal

thalamus

directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla

hypothalamus

a neural structure lying below the thalamus; directs eating, drinking, body temperature; helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion

limbic system

set of structures that regulate many instinctive behaviors, such as reactions to stressful events and eating and sexual behavior

Amygdala

A limbic system structure involved in memory and emotion, particularly fear and aggression.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.

Neurotransmitters

biochemicals that act as messengers carrying impulses from one neuron, or nerve cell, to another int he brain and in other parts of the nervous system

neuron make up

Cell body & 2 processes: 1) one Axon, which transmits a nerve impulse away from the cell body & 2) one or more dendrites, which carry impulses toward the cell body

Dendrites

Branchlike parts of a neuron that are specialized to receive information.

axon

the extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers, through which messages pass to other neurons or to muscles or glands

Synapse function

site at which neurons communicate with other neurons, muscles or glands

Process of reuptake

when neurotransmitters are transported back into the synaptic knobs of the presynaptic neurons

process of degradation

occurs when receiving neuron releases an enzyme into the synapse that breaks down the neurotransmitter into other biochemicals

Serotonin

neurotransmitter involved with emotional states and impulsiveness, dreaming

Dopamine

neurotransmitter involved with areas of the brain associated with our own experience of reinforcements or rewards (also involved with control over muscles)

Norepinephrine

A neurotransmitter produced mainly by neurons in the brain stem (Too much=stimulation, too little = depression)

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

inhibits actions of other neurotransmitters (Plays an important role in anxiety)

hormone

chemical that carries messages throughout the body, potentially affecting a person's mood, level of energy, and reaction to stress

pituitary gland

The major component of the endocrine system, or "master gland," which secretes hormones that control growth and other parts of the endocrine system.

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF)

Carried form the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland through a channel - like structure to the pituitary gland through a channel - like structure. It stimulates pituitary gland to release body's major stress hormone ACTH

ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)

stimulates secretion of hormones by adrenal cortex

HPA Axis

hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis

Behavioural genetics

Study of genetics of personality and abnormality is concerned with two questions:
1) To what extent are behaviors or behavioral tendencies inherited?
2) What are the processes by which genes affect behavior

Polygenic Process

Multiple genetic abnormalities coming together in one individual to create a specific disorder

Epigenetics

the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change

antipsychotic drugs

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

Antidepressant Drugs

drugs used to treat depression; also increasingly prescribed for anxiety. Different types work by altering the availability of various neurotransmitters; tricyclics, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and serotonin- norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors

Lithium

drug used to treat manic and depressive symptoms

antianxiety drugs

drugs used to control anxiety and agitation

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Alternative to drug therapies by inducing brain seizure by passing an electrical current through the brain

Psychosurgery

rare treatment for mental disorders in which a neurosurgeon attempts to destroy small areas of the brain thought to be involved in a patient's symptoms

Behavioral Approaches

approaches to psychopathology that focus on the influence of reinforcements and punishments in producing behavior; the two core principles or processes of learning according to behaviorism are classical conditioning and operant conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus

a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response

Unconditioned Response

Response created by unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned Stimulus

Previously neutral stimulus

Conditioned Response

Response that it elicits

Operant Conditioning

Form of learning in which behaviors lead to consequences that either reinforce or punish the organism, leading to an increased or a decreased probability of a future response

Continuous Reinforcement Schedule

Consistent Response

Partial Reinforcement Schedule

Reward or punishment only occurs sometimes

Extinction

Eliminating a learned behavior

modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

observational learning

takes place when a person observes the rewards and punishments that another person receives for his or her behavior and then behaves in accordance with those rewards and punishments

Behavioral Therapies

focus on identifying those reinforcements and punishments that contribute to a person's maladaptive behaviors and on changing specific behaviors

behavioral assessment

Assessment of individual

systematic desensitization therapy

attempts to reduce client anxiety through relaxation techniques and progressive exposure to feared stimuli

Desensitization

reduction in emotion-related physiological reactivity in response to a stimulus

Cognitive Theories

Not simply rewards and punishments that motivate human behavior

cognitions

thoughts or beliefs

causal attribution

explanation as to why an event occurred

Global assumptions

fundamental beliefs that encompass all types of situations

goals of cognitive therapy

Help Clients identify bad thoughts, teach clients to challenge thoughts, encourage clients to face fears and recognize ways they could cope

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

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

psychodynamic theories

all behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, whether normal or abnormal, are influenced to a large extent by unconscious processes

Psychoanalysis

1) refers to a theory of personality and psychopathology
2) A method of investigating the mind
3) a form of treatment for psychopathology

Catharsis

expression of emotions connected to memories and conflicts, which according to Freud, leads to the release of energy, used to keep these memories in the unconscious

Repression

Defense mechanism in which the ego pushes anxiety - proving material back into the unconscious

id, ego, superego

Freudian terms to describe the three parts of the self and the basis of human behavior, which Freud saw as basically irrational