psychopathology test 1

criteria for adults (abnormality)

statistical deviancy, culturally deviant, distress, and impairs function (maladaptive)

statistical deviancy

the behavior must be comparatively rare

culturally deviant

outside of cultural norm, different from what would be expected from a person in that culture

distress

the behavior must cause significant discomfort to the individual (or others)

impairs function (maladaptive)

the behavior “gets in the way” of otherwise normal activity, impairs health

criteria for children (abnormality)

criteria for adults + pervasive, persistent, and stunts normal development

pervasive

the behavior must be present across contexts (home, school, etc.)

persistent

behavior does not dissipate over time

stunts normal development

the behavior must obstruct otherwise ‘normal’ growth and the child does not meet developmental milestones

abnormal

deviation from normality in an ‘undesirable’ way

pathology

implies the existence of a diagnosis

nomothetic

all the persons with the diagnosis have in common

nomothetic approach

identify feature(s) that are common to all cases

idiographic (s)

individual symptoms that are unique to the person

idiographic approach

identify features that are unique to the case

establishing causality

1. temporal precedence

2. correlation

3. nonspuriousness

temporal precedence

the cause must come before the effect

correlation

there must be a relationship between the presence of the effect (necessary but not efficient)

spurious correlation

outwardly similar or corresponding to something without having its genuine qualities, falsely attributed origin

nonspuriousness

the effect cannot be the result of an extraneous, third variable

internal validity

how confident you can be in the results of a particular given study

external validity

extent to which you can generalize finding beyond the study itself

hypothesis

effort to explain, predict, or explore something

etiology

causes of disorders

trepanation

cutting holes in the skull allow the demon to escape

hippocrates

balance of bodily humors was the source of illness (including mental illness), shifted the hypothesized ‘cause’ of psychopathology from the natural world to the individual

avicenna (ibn sina)

'“the canon of medicine”, 7 rules for judging the effectiveness of medications

robert burton

“the anatomy of melancholy”, foreshadowed a treatment called “behavioral activation”

phrenology

gall claimed to determine personality and mental abilities by measuring bumps and depressions on the skull

asylum

essentially prisons and patients often physically restrained

institutionalization

primary ‘treatment’ for most psychiatric disorders

phillippe pinel

1st psychiatrist to “unshackle” patients (advocate for humane treatment)

dorothea dix

staunch critic of cruel/neglectful practices toward the mentally ill (founded over 30 hospitals)

wilhelm wundt

distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, father of experimental psychology

DSM I

all disorders thought to be a product of environment, described most disorders “reactions”

DSM III

1980, atheoretical and no assumption of etiology, marked beginning of a “modern” approach to classification

proximal causes

the immediate, direct mechanisms—biological, environmental, or psychological—that trigger a behavior or mental process in the moment

distal causes

foundational, "upstream" factors—such as genetics, early life trauma, culture, or social structures—that indirectly shape behavior and mental processes over a long period

necessary cause

a condition that must exist for a disease to occur

sufficient cause

a condition that guarantees the occurrence of a disorder

contributory cause

a condition that increases the probability of developing a disorder (neither sufficient nor necessary)

diathesis-stress model

1. diathesis: vulnerability factor

2. stress: environmental event that depletes personal resources

3. diathesis + stress = pathology

neurotransmitter

chemical substance transmitted across synaptic cleft

glutamate

primary excitatory neurotransmitter in mammalian CNS

GABA

primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in CNS

neuromodulator

a class of NT that regulates the function of a neuron by throttling its excitatory or inhibitory function

grey matter

primarily unmyelinated (cell bodies)

white matter

primarily myelinated (myelin sheath)

HPA axis

hormonal feedback system that is activated by stress → production of cortisol

temperament

baby’s characteristic ways of reacting to the environment and ways of self regulation

• strongly influenced by genetic factors

• forms the basis of our adult personality

• influences our vulnerability to different disorder

psychic determinism

everything we do has a meaning, purpose, and is goal directed

sigmund freud

father of “psychoanalytic theory”

interpretation

therapist interprets client’s thoughts to uncover the ‘hidden’ meaning

oedipus complex

development of sexual (id-based) desire for mother

• thwarted by the presence of the father → results in aggression, resentment of father

• only solution is “identification with aggressor”

• trying to explain that our personalities turn into our parents

id

“pleasure principle”

ego

“reality principle”

superego

conscience and ideal self (not everybody develops this)

psychosexual stages of development

stages of psychosexual development each characterized by a dominant mode of achieving sexual pleasure

1. oral stage

2. anal stage

3. phallic stage

4. latency stage

5. genital stage

defense mechanisms

psychic mechanisms that discharge or soothe anxiety rather than coping with it directly (usually unconscious and reality distorting)

karl popper

“the problem of induction”

problem of induction

induction is a bad way to ‘do science’, it will lead you to the wrong answer far more often than the right answer

inductive reasoning

takes specific instances and generalizes them (“all swans are white”)

deductive reasoning

statement → prediction → data

behaviorism

school of psychology that formerly restricted itself primarily to the study of overt behavior

learning

a modification of behavior as a consequence of experience

extinction

gradual disappearance of a conditioned response when its no longer reinforced

classical conditioning

a form of associative learning, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, triggering an automatic, conditioned response

operant conditioning

form of learning where a behavior either is reinforced or punished

aaron (tim) beck

founder of cognitive perspective

schema

underlying representation of knowledge that guides current processing of information and often leads to distortions in attention, memory, and comprehension

rosenhan experiment (clinical overconfidence)

the normal were not detectably sane, doctors/nurses never noticed patients didn’t have schizophrenia

clinical judgement

using clinical intuition to make a decision

actuarial judgement

using a “formula” to make a decision (superior)

reliability

the extent to which a test yields a consistent result (between 0 and 1, positively correlates with the number of measurements)

validity

extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure

MMPI-II

widely used and empirically validated personality scales

projective assessment

techniques that use various ambiguous stimuli that a subject is encouraged to interpret and from which the subject’s personality characteristics can be analyzed

construct

• a concept that is:

  1. hypothetical

  2. idealized

  3. unobservable (latent)

  • borrowed from philosophy

  • all psychological disorders are constructs

operationalization

an observable feature of a latent construct

criterion

an observable phenomenon (indisputable)

convergent validity

do multiple measures of the same construct yield similar results

discriminant validity

does a single measure yield different results for different constructs

DSM-IV

used a multiaxial classification system and N.O.S.

multiaxial classification

DSM conceptualizes a patient along 5 “axes”, each axis describes a feature of the patient’s functioning

axis I

acute disorders (OCD, depression)

axis II

chronic (personality disorders)

NOS designation

added to diagnosis if the pt does not FIT, but the clinician feels a diagnosis is appropriate

DSM-5-TR

no multi-axial system and eliminated N.O.S.

comorbidity

presence of two or more disorders in the same person (especially high in people who have severe forms of mental disorders)

structured clinical interview

highly scripted interview administered by a trained clinician

differential diagnosis

systematically ruling out alternative explanations

principal diagnosis

the patients “main” diagnosis

dimensional classification system

categorizes traits or disorders not as "yes/no" but along continuums or spectrums, using numerical values to show severity

clinical severity rating

4-5 point scales that clinicians use to quantify the intensity of psychiatric conditions