AP PSYCHOLOGY UNIT 8: Clinical Psychology Set l

Psychological disorder

A syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior.

ADHD

A psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

Medical Model

The concept that disease, in this case 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; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

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 experiences 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.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Intense fear of social situations, leading to avoidance of such (formerly called social phobia).

Agoraphobia

Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide-open spaces, where one has felt loss of control and panic.

OCD

A disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions).

PTSD

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Posttraumatic Growth

Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.

Mood Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

Mania

A mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state.

Bipolar Disorder

A mood disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the over-excited state of mania (formerly called manic-depressive disorder).

Rumination

Compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes.

Schizophrenia

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

Psychosis

A psychological disorder in which a person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted principles.