Psychological Disorders and Treatments

Psychological disorder

A syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognitions, emotion regulation, or behavior.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]

A psychological disorder marked by extreme inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Medical model

Concept that diseases, psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured often through treatment in a hospital.

DSM-5

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth edition. Widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

A group of disorders characterized by excessive fear and anxiety and related maladaptive behaviors.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

Panic Disorder

An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next attack.

Phobia

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder [OCD]

Disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]

Characterized by haunting memories, nightmares that linger for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Post-traumatic growth

Positive psychological changes following a struggle with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.

Somatoform Disorder

Feeling genuine physical symptoms (pain, fatigue, etc.) that cause significant distress but lack a fully explained organic medical cause.

Conversion Disorder

Related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person experiences very specific physical symptoms that are not compatible with recognized medical or neurological conditions.

Hypochondriasis

Where a person is excessively worried about having a serious illness despite having no or only mild symptoms.

Dissociative Disorders

Controversial group of disorders characterized by a disruption of or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.

Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]

A dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities.

Mood disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Major depressive disorder

Which a person experiences five or more symptoms lasting two or more weeks, in the absence of drug use or a medical condition, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

Mania

A hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgment is common.

Bipolar disorder

Group of disorders in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania.

Schizophrenia

A disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished, inappropriate emotional expression.

Delusions

A false belief often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

Personality disorders

A group of disorders characterized by enduring inner experiences or behavior patterns that differ from someone's cultural norms and expectations.

Antisocial personality disorder

A personality disorder in which a person exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members; may be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist.

Eclectic approach

An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy.

Psychotherapy

Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.

Psychoanalysis

(1) Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; (2) Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique.

Resistance

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

Interpretation

In psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting of supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.

Transference

In psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships such as love or hatred for a parent.

Psychodynamic therapy

Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight.

Insight therapies

Therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person's awareness of underlying motives and defenses.

Client-centered therapy

A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within an accepting, genuine, emphatic environment to facilitate clients' growth.

Active listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and seeks clarification. A feature of Roger's person-centered therapy.

Unconditional positive regard

A caring, accepting, non-judgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Behavior therapy

Therapy that uses learning principles to reduce unwanted behaviors.

Counter conditioning

Behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

Exposure therapies

Behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing individuals to the things they fear and avoid.

Systematic desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat specific phobias.

Virtual Reality exposure therapy

A counter conditioning technique that treats anxiety through creative electronic simulations in which people can safely face specific fears, like flying or spiders.

Aversive conditioning

Associates unpleasant stimuli (nausea) with unwanted behavior (drinking alcohol).

Token economy

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn tokens for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats.

Cognitive therapy

The therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

A popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

Family therapy

Therapy that treats people in the context of their family system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, and directed at, other family members.

Regression toward the mean

Tendency for extreme or unusual scores or events to fall back (regress) toward the average.

Meta-analysis

A statistical procedure for analyzing the results of multiple studies to reach an overall conclusion.

Evidence-based practice

Clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences.

Biomedical therapy

Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology.

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Antipsychotic drugs

Drugs used to treat schizophrenic and other forms of severe thought disorders.

Tardive dyskinesia

Side effect often caused by long-term use of neuroleptic drugs, used to treat psychiatric disorders. Involves involuntary movement.

Antianxiety drugs

Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

Antidepressant drugs

Drugs used to treat depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The drugs most used are selective reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

A biomedical therapy for severe depression in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized person.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain used to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

Psychosurgery

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

Lobotomy

Psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

Resilience

The personal strength that helps people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.