Appendix C - Glossary Flashcards

Flashcards for reviewing key vocabulary from a psychology lecture on substance abuse and therapy.

Attribution(s)

An individual's explanation of why an event occurred, influenced by internal/external, stable/unstable, and global/specific dimensions.

Authenticity

In existential therapy, the honest expression and communication of one's conscious feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, achieved through courage.

Classical conditioning

A learning theory where a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus when paired with an unconditioned stimulus, leading to a conditioned response.

Cognitive restructuring

The process of changing a client's thought patterns by identifying distorted thoughts and encouraging more rational perspectives.

Contact

In Gestalt therapy, it refers to meeting oneself and what is other than oneself. Without appropriate boundaries, there is no world meeting.

Contingency management

An approach that changes environmental factors influencing substance abuse behavior by reinforcing behaviors incompatible with use and weakening those that prompt use.

Core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT)

In Supportive-Expressive Therapy, it is how a client interacts with others and themselves, stemming from early childhood experiences.

Core response from others (RO)

In SE therapy, an individual's expectations or experiences of others' reactions to them.

Core response of the self (RS)

In SE therapy, a combination of somatic experiences, affects, actions, cognitive style, self-esteem, and self-representations.

Counterconditioning

A method using classical conditioning to make behaviors associated with positive outcomes less appealing by pairing them with negative consequences.

Countertransference

A phenomenon where the therapist transfers their emotional needs and feelings onto their client, potentially harming the therapeutic relationship.

Covert sensitization

A counterconditioning technique pairing negative consequences with substance-related cues through visual imagery.

Cue exposure

A classical conditioning principle where repeated behavior without reinforcement diminishes the cue and the behavior itself.

Defence mechanisms

Measures taken by an individual's ego to relieve excessive anxiety by denying, distorting, or falsifying reality.

Deliberate exception

A situation where a client has intentionally maintained sobriety or reduced substance use for a specific reason.

Directive approach

A group therapy approach with structured goals and therapist-directed interventions for desired change.

Effect expectancies

Cognitive expectancies developed by the client about the anticipated effects of substance use on their feelings and behavior.

Family sculpting

A family therapy technique where family members enact typical roles and significant situations related to substance abuse patterns.

Functional analysis

In behavioral therapy, a process examining the relationships among stimuli that trigger substance use and the consequences that follow.

Insight

Self-realization or knowledge regarding connections of past experiences/conflicts with present behavior, and recognition of repressed feelings/motivations.

Miracle question

A solution-focused strategy where the therapist asks the client to imagine how their life would be different if their condition were suddenly not a problem.

Operant learning

The process by which behaviors that are reinforced increase in frequency.

Process-sensitive approach

A group therapy approach examining the unconscious processes of the group to help individuals see themselves more clearly.

Psychodrama

A method of psychotherapy in which clients act out their personal problems by spontaneously enacting specific roles in dramatic performances before fellow clients.

Random exception

An occasion upon which a client reduces substance use or abstains because of circumstances that are apparently beyond his control.

Self object

In self psychology, something or someone that is experienced and used as if it were part of one's own self.

Therapeutic alliance

The relationship between the therapist and client, serving as the vehicle through which change occurs.

Transference

The client's transference of characteristics of unresolved conflicted relationships onto the therapist.

Transpersonal awakening

The process of awakening from a lesser to a greater identity in transpersonal psychotherapy.