AP Psych: CH13 Key Terms

Trephining

Early process involving making holes in the skull that was supposed to let harmful spirits escape

Deinstitutionalization

Many people were released from mental institutions following the development of drugs in the 1950s

Psychotherapy

Any kind of therapy that treats the mind and not the body

Psychoanalysis

Therapeutic technique developed by Freud focusing on identifying the underlying cause of the problem; psychoanalysts assert that patients suffer from symptom substitution

Free association

To say whatever comes to mind without thinking

Dream analysis

Where patients are asked to describe their dreams, as the ego’s defenses are relaxed during sleep

Manifest content

What the patient reports during dream analysis

Latent content

What is of interest and is revealed as a result of the therapist’s interpretive work

Resistance

When patients disagree with their therapists’ dream interpretations

Transference

One final aspect of psychoanalysis where patients begin to have strong feelings towards their therapists such as love (parent-child or romantic) or hate

Insight therapies

Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic treatments and the humanistic therapies are sometimes referred to as this, highlighting the importance of the patients gaining understanding of their problems

Humanistic therapies

Therapy focusing on helping people to understand and accept themselves with the strive to self-actualize

Client or person-centered therapy

Providing the patient with unconditional positive regard

Unconditional positive regard

Active or reflective listening

Gestalt therapy

Existential therapies

Behaviorist therapies

Counterconditioning

Systematic desensitization

Anxiety hierarchy

Flooding

Aversive conditioning

Token economy

Cognitive therapies

Attributional style

Cognitive therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Rational emotive behavior therapy

Group therapies

Somatic therapies

Psychopharmacology

Antipsychotic drugs

Antidepressants

Antianxiety drugs

Electroconvulsive therapy

Psychosurgery

Psychiatrists

Clinical psychologists

Counseling psychologists

Psychoanalysts

Primary prevention

Attempts to reduce the incidence of societal problems, such as joblessness and homelessness, that can give rise to mental health issues

Secondary prevention

Working with people at-risk for developing specific problems

Tertiary prevention

Efforts aiming to keep people’s mental health issues from becoming more severe

Preventative efforts

The idea that if psychological problems can be treated proactively, or before they become severe, the suffering of the client as well as the cost of providing care can be reduced

Symptom substitution

After a person is successfully treated for one psychological disorder, that person begins to experience a new psychological problem

Self-actualization

To reach one’s highest potential