Unit 5 Mental Health AP Psych

Abnormal Psychology

The study of psychological disorders, including their symptoms, etiology (i.e., their causes), and treatment.

Acrophobia

Fear of heights.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood and can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being.

Agoraphobia

Fear of open or crowded spaces.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by an abnormally low body weight, intense fear of gaining weight, and a distorted perception of body weight.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family.

Anxiety Disorders

Mental health disorders characterized by significant feelings of anxiety and fear.

Arachnophobia

Fear of spiders.

Ataque de nervios

A cultural syndrome primarily seen in Latin Americans, involving symptoms of intense emotional upset, acute anxiety, fear, or anger.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

A chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

A disorder that affects communication and behavior.

Avoidant Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

Behavioral Perspective

Focuses on how we learn observable responses and how the environment impacts those responses.

Biological Perspective

Explores the links between brain and mind, and how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences.

Biopsychosocial Model

An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis to better understand health and illness.

Bipolar Cycling

The process of cycling through episodes of mania and depression in bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Disorder

A disorder associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs.

Bipolar I Disorder

A type of bipolar spectrum disorder characterized by the occurrence of at least one manic episode.

Bipolar II Disorder

A type of bipolar disorder marked by milder episodes of hypomania that alternate with periods of severe depression.

Borderline Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by severe instability in emotions and self-image, along with impulsive and reckless behavior.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by binge eating followed by purging.

Catatonia

A state of unresponsiveness to one's outside environment, usually including muscle rigidity, staring, and inability to communicate.

Clinical Psychology

A branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.

Cluster A Personality Disorders

Odd, eccentric thinking or behavior (including paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorders).

Cluster B Personality Disorders

Dramatic, overly emotional or unpredictable thinking or behavior (including antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders).

Cluster C Personality Disorders

Anxious, fearful thinking or behavior, including avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders.

Cognitive Perspective

Focuses on how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

Compulsions

Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession.

Cultural Humility

An approach to engagement across cultures emphasizing openness and self-awareness of one's own cultural identities.

Deinstitutionalization

The release of institutionalized individuals from institutional care to community-based care.

Delusions

False beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

Delusions of Grandeur

A false belief that one is more important or influential than they really are.

Delusions of Persecution

The belief that others are out to get one.

Dependent Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by psychological dependence on other people.

Depressive Disorders

Disorders that involve the presence of sad, empty, or irritable mood, accompanied by physical and cognitive changes that significantly affect the individual's capacity to function.

Deviation

In psychology, typically refers to departing from the norm, which can either be statistical, social, or functional in nature.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR)

The updated manual that describes and categorizes mental disorders in order to improve diagnoses, treatment, and research.

Diathesis-Stress Model

Suggests that a person may be predisposed for a psychological disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.

Disorganized Motor Behavior

Includes a variety of unusual behaviors including problems with goal-directed behavior leading to difficulties performing activities of daily living.

Disorganized Speech

A style of talking involving incoherence and a lack of typical logical patterns.

Disorganized Thinking

A symptom of psychosis, manifested as illogical or incoherent thought and speech.

Dissociative Amnesia

A disorder characterized by the sudden and extensive inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.

Dissociative Disorders

Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

Dissociative Fugue

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person loses awareness of their identity or other important autobiographical information and also engages in some form of unexpected travel.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

A disorder characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states.

Distress

Negative stress that can lead to anxiety, depression, and potentially to physical problems.

Distress (debilitating)

Negative stress that can make a person sick or keep a person from reaching a goal.

Dopamine Hypothesis

The theory that schizophrenia results from an excess of dopamine activity.

Dysfunction

Abnormal functioning, as opposed to normal functioning, often used to refer to individual behaviors or the functioning of social systems.

Eclectic Approach

An approach to clinical practice that involves selecting the best treatment techniques from various disciplines based on the client's unique problems, strengths, and preferences.

Eustress (motivating)

Positive stress which results from striving toward a challenging goal.

Evidence-Based Interventions

Treatments based on scientific evidence.

Evolutionary Perspective

How the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one's genes.

Feeding and Eating Disorders

Disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits, which negatively affect a person's health.

Flat Affect

A lack of emotional responsiveness.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

The three-stage process (alarm, resistance, exhaustion) that describes the physiological changes the body goes through when under stress.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

Hallucinations

False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

Histrionic Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by excessive emotionality and attention seeking.

Hoarding Disorder

A disorder characterized by the persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value.

Humanistic Perspective

Focuses on the importance of being your true self in order to lead the most fulfilling life.

International Classification of Mental Disorders (ICD)

A standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management, and clinical purposes. It is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO) and covers a broad range of health conditions, including psychological conditions.

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder causing a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance.

Negative Symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia that are marked by deficits in functioning, such as apathy, lack of emotion, and slowed speech and movement.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

A group of conditions with onset in the developmental period, often before school age, that are characterized by developmental deficits that produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning.

Obsessions

Persistent ideas, thoughts, or impulses that are unwanted and inappropriate and cause marked distress.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

Disorders involving intrusive obsessions and compulsions which impede daily life.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by preoccupation with orderliness, perfection, and control.

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder that consists of sudden, overwhelming attacks of terror.

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Type of personality disorder characterized by extreme distrust and suspicion of others.

Persistent Depressive Disorder

A form of depression that is less severe than major depressive disorder but more chronic.

Personality Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning.

Positive Symptoms

Symptoms of schizophrenia that are excesses of behavior or occur in addition to normal behavior; hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

A disorder characterized by failure to recover after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event.

Psychodynamic Perspective

Emphasizes the influence of the unconscious mind on behavior and the importance of childhood experiences.

Psychology Student Syndrome

A phenomenon where psychology students begin to believe they have the disorders they are studying.

Schizoid Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by persistent avoidance of social relationships and little expression of emotion.

Schizophrenic Spectrum Disorders

A range of disorders that involve psychosis, including schizophrenia.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

A personality disorder characterized by severe social anxiety, thought disorder, paranoid ideation, derealization, transient psychosis, and often unconventional beliefs.

Social Anxiety Disorder

A chronic mental health condition in which social interactions cause irrational anxiety.

Sociocultural Perspective

Examines how the social environments and cultural upbringing influence an individual's behavior and thoughts.

Specific Phobia

An anxiety disorder characterized by irrational and persistent fear of a specific object, situation, or activity.

Stigma

Disapproval or discrimination against a person based on perceivable social characteristics that serve to distinguish them from other members of society.

Taijin Kyofusho

A Japanese culture-specific syndrome characterized by an intense fear that one's body, body parts, or bodily functions give others a negative impression.

Therapeutic Alliance

The relationship between a healthcare professional and a client.

Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders

Disorders related to the exposure to a traumatic or stressful event.

Word Salad

A confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases.