Clinical Psychology Lecture Review

Flashcards for reviewing key vocabulary from clinical psychology lectures.

Clinical Assessment

Systematic evaluation and measurement of psychological, biological, and social factors in an individual presenting with a possible psychological disorder.

Diagnosis

Process of determining whether the particular problem afflicting the individual meets all criteria for a psychological disorder, as set forth in DSM5.

Reliability (in assessment)

The degree to which measurement is consistent.

Validity (in assessment)

The degree to which a technique measures what it is designed to measure.

Standardization (in assessment)

Application of certain standards to ensure consistency across different measures.

Clinical Interview

The core of clinical work, used to assess presenting problems, current/past behaviors, history, and attitude/emotions.

Mental Status Exam

Systematic observation of an individual's behavior, covering appearance, thought processes, mood/affect, intellectual functioning, and sensorium.

Mood

The predominant feeling state of the individual.

Affect

The feeling state that accompanies what we say at a given point.

Sensorium

Our general awareness of our surroundings.

Semistructured Clinical Interview

An interview made up of questions that have been carefully phrased and tested to elicit useful information in a consistent manner.

Behavioral Assessment

Uses direct observation to assess formally an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behavior in specific situations or contexts.

ABCs of Observation

Antecedents (what happened before), Behavior (the behavior), and Consequences (what happened after).

Self-Monitoring

Observing own behavior to find patterns.

Reactivity

Changes in behavior due to being observed.

Projective Tests

Tests, rooted in psychoanalytic tradition, used to assess unconscious processes by having individuals project aspects of their personality onto ambiguous stimuli (e.g., Rorschach, TAT).

Personality Inventories

Self-report questionnaires (e.g., MMPI) used to assess personality traits.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

A score that estimates how much a child's performance in school will deviate from the average performance of others of the same age.

Neuropsychological Testing

Measures abilities in areas such as language, attention/concentration, memory, motor skills, perceptual abilities, learning, and abstraction to make inferences about brain functioning.

Neurons

Transfers information through the nervous system.

Neurotransmission

The process of transferring information through the nervous system.

Brain Stem

The lower part of the brain which is responsible for automatic functions.

Hindbrain

Includes Medulla, Pons and cerebellum. Responsible for different automatic activities.

Midbrain

Responsible for sensory input and movement, and wake-sleep patterns.

Forebrain

Includes limbic system, basal ganglia and cerebral cortex.

Limbic System

Regulates emotional experiences and expressions, to some extent our ability to learn and to control our impulses. Also involved with the basic drives of sex, aggression, hunger and thirst. Includes structures such as the hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, septum and amygdala.

Brain Lobes

Frontal lobe, occipital lobe, parietal, temporal lobe.

Neurotransmitters

Chemical messengers that transmit messages between neurons.

Serotonin

Regulates behaviors, moods, thought processes.

Norepinephrine

Increases alertness, arousal and attention.

Dopamine

Pleasure neurotransmitter.

Glutamate

Excitatory transmitter that turns on many different neurons, learning to action.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid

Inhibitory transmitter to regulate transmission of information and action potentials.

Peripheral Nervous System

Somatic nervous system: controls voluntary muscles and conveys sensory information to the CNS.
Autonomic nervous system: controls involuntary muscles. Sympathetic; expends energy. Parasympathetic; conserves energy

Neuroimaging

A method of picturing the brains structure or functions.

Psychophysiological Assessment

Measures changes in indicators of the nervous system functioning that reflect emotional or psychological events.

Idiographic Strategy

Tailoring treatment to the person based on their personality, cultural background or circumstances.

Nomothetic Strategy

Determining a general class of problems to which the presenting problem belongs (basically classifying the problem).

Classification

Any effort to construct groups or categories and to assign people to the categories based on their shared attributes.

Taxonomy

Classification of entities for scientific purposes.

Nosology

Application of a taxonomic system to psychological or medical phenomena or other clinical areas.

Nomenclature

The names or labels of the disorders that make up the nosology.

Categorical Approach

Assumes that each disorder is unique and there is one set of causative factors per disorder.

Dimensional Approach

Psychological symptoms are constantly changing and can be placed on a continuum (scale).

Prototypical Approach

Identifies certain essential characteristics so that can classify, but it also allows certain nonessential variations that do not necessarily change the classification.

Comorbidity

Individuals being diagnosed with more than one psychological disorder at the same time.