Abnormal Psychology: Anxiety, Trauma, Somatic, and Mood Disorders

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering anxiety disorders, trauma-related conditions, somatic disorders, dissociative syndromes, and mood disorders from lecture notes.

Flight or fight response

Physical and psychological responses that help an individual fight or flee from a threat, resulting from the activation of two systems controlled by the hypothalamus: the autonomic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system.

Panic attacks

Short, intense periods of extreme anxiety where an individual experiences extreme discomfort or fear that reaches a peak within minutes.

Panic disorder

A debilitating anxiety disorder characterized by a core symptom of spontaneous and recurrent panic attacks that are severe and persistent.

Interoceptive conditioning

A behavioral process where an individual learns to associate internal bodily sensations or physiological cues with certain emotional or psychological responses.

Exteroceptive conditioning

Classical conditioning linking external stimuli from the environment with emotional or physical responses.

Anxiety sensitivity

The tendency to believe that anxiety and its associated bodily symptoms are harmful to the body.

Adjustment disorder

A condition marked by emotional and behavioral symptoms arising in response to a stressor of any severity that does not meet the diagnostic criteria for acute stress disorder or PTSD.

PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder)

An anxiety disorder characterized by repeated mental images of experiencing a traumatic event, emotional numbing, detachment, hypervigilance, and chronic arousal.

Flashbacks

Uncontrollable, intense, and repeated episodes that force an individual to relive a traumatic experience.

Dissociation

A process where different facets of a person's sense of self or consciousness become disconnected from one another.

Stress-inoculation therapy

A form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that focuses on developing skills that allow an individual to cope effectively with stress.

Social anxiety disorder

An anxiety disorder where an individual experiences an intense fear of public humiliation or rejection and consequently tends to avoid social situations.

Obsessions

Thoughts, images, ideas, or urges that are persistent, intrusive, uncontrollable, unwanted, and cause significant anxiety or distress.

Compulsions

Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual feels driven to perform, often aimed at reducing the anxiety brought on by obsessions.

Exposure and response prevention (ERP)

A treatment method that exposes a client to an obsession or fear while preventing the associated compulsive behavior, demonstrating that the thoughts themselves are not harmful.

Somatic symptom disorder

A syndrome marked by health concerns that are excessive given the individual's actual physical health, persist despite contrary evidence, and interfere with daily functioning.

Conversion disorder (Functional neurological symptom disorder / FND)

A syndrome marked by a sudden loss of functioning in a part of the body, usually following an extreme psychological stressor, associated with significant disability and functional impairment.

Factitious disorder imposed on self

The deliberate faking or induction of illness to gain attention (historically called Munchausen's syndrome).

Factitious disorder imposed on another

The falsification or induction of illness in another person (historically called factitious disorder by proxy).

Malingering

Faking a symptom or mental disorder deliberately in order to avoid an unpleasant situation or to achieve external personal gain.

Illness anxiety disorder

A condition characterized by preoccupation with fears of having or developing a serious medical illness based on misinterpretations of bodily sensations (formerly called hypochondriasis).

Dissociative identity disorder (DID)

A syndrome where an individual develops more than one distinct identity or personality, each exhibiting unique facial expressions, gestures, interpersonal styles, attitudes, and physiological responses.

Dissociative amnesia

A loss of memory for important personal information about one's own life and personality identity, usually accompanied by an awareness of the memory loss.

Organic amnesia

Loss of memory caused by brain injury resulting from physical factors such as disease, drugs, accidents, or surgery.

Psychogenic amnesia

Loss of memory occurring in the absence of any identifiable brain injury or disease, attributed entirely to psychological causes.

Anterograde amnesia

A memory deficit characterized by the inability to learn and retain new information following an event.

Retrograde amnesia

A memory deficit characterized by the inability to recall previously learned information or past events.

Depersonalization/derealization disorder

Frequent episodes of feeling detached from one's own body and mental processes, as if observing oneself from the outside, causing significant distress or functional impairment.

Major depressive disorder

Acute, time-limited depressive symptoms lasting $2$ weeks or more that significantly impact an individual's daily functioning.

Anhedonia

A core symptom of depression characterized by a complete loss of interest or pleasure in all or almost all life activities.

Mania

A distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated or irritable mood and goal-directed activity or energy lasting at least $1$ week.

Bipolar I disorder

A mood disorder characterized by the occurrence of full manic episodes, while depressive symptoms may be less frequent or milder.

Bipolar II disorder

A mood disorder characterized by hypomanic episodes without full mania, accompanied by pronounced major depressive episodes.

Hypomania

A milder form of mania characterized by elevated mood and increased energy that does not reach the severity of a full manic episode.

Cyclothymic disorder

A mood condition that is less severe but more chronic than bipolar I or II disorder, involving alternating periods of hypomanic and depressive symptoms.

Learned helplessness theory

A cognitive model proposing that exposure to uncontrollable negative events leads individuals to feel helpless, contributing to the development of depressive symptoms.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI)

The deliberate act of cutting, burning, puncturing, or significantly injuring one's own skin without any suicidal intent, which places an individual at increased risk for suicide attempts.