clinical psychology
Active listening
empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies
ADHD
a chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness
Agoraphobia
fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open spaces
Anorexia nervosa
an eating disorder in which a person maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight
Antianxiety drugs
drugs used to control anxiety and agitation
Antidepressant drugs
drugs used to treat depression and other types of mental disorders
Antipsychotic drugs
drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorders
Antisocial personality disorder
a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others
Anxiety disorders
psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety
Aversive conditioning
a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state with an unwanted behavior
Behavior therapy
therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behavior
Bipolar disorder
a mental health condition that that causes extreme mood swings and alternating between depression and a state of mania
Bulimia nervosa
an eating disorder in which a person alternates between binge eating and purging or fasting
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
a form of psychotherapy that focuses on modifying dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts by interrogating and uprooting negative or irrational beliefs
Client-centered therapy
a humanistic therapy, where a therapist uses active listening with a genuine, accepting, empathetic environment to help clients’ growth
Conversion disorder
a condition in which a person experiences physical symptoms of a health problem but no injury or illness to explain them
Counterconditioning
behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors
Delusions
false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders
Dissociative identity disorder (DID)
a rare dissociative disorder where a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities
Dissociative disorders
disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings
DSM-5
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders
electroconvulsive therapy
a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electrical current is sent through the brain
Evidence-based practice
clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and and patient characteristics and preferences
Exposure therapies
behavioral techniques that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid
family therapy
therapy that treats the family as a system
Generalized anxiety disorder
an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal
Group therapy
therapy conducted with groups, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction
Hallucination
false sensory experiences
Illness anxiety disorder
a disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease
Insight therapies
a variety of therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person’s awareness of underlying motives and defenses
Lobotomy
a surgical operation involving incision into the prefrontal lobe of the brain, formerly used to treat mental illness
Major depressive disorder
A mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life
Mania
a mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state
Medical Model
the concept that diseases have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated and cured through treatment in hospital
Meta-analysis
a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies
Mood disorders
psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes
OCD
a disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts and/or actions
Panic disorder
an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable long episodes of dread in which a person experiences terror and frightening sensations
Personality disorder
psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning
Phobia
an anxiety disorder marked by persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation
Posttraumatic growth
positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and and life crisis
Psychological disorder
a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior
psychopharmacology
the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior
Psychosis
a psychological disorder in which a person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions
Psychotherapy
treatment involving psychological techniques
PTSD
A disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event
REBT (rational-emotive behavior therapy)
a confrontational cognitive therapy that vigorously challenges people’s illogical, self defeating attitudes and assumptions
Regression toward the mean
the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)
the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain
Rumination
compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes
Schizophrenia
a psychological disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished or inappropriate emotional expression
Social anxiety disorder
intense fear of social situations, leading to avoidance of such
Somatic symptom disorder
a psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apartments physical cause
Systematic desensitization
a type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli
Token economy
an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats
Transference
in psychoanalysis, the patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships