Psychological Disorders and Treatments: Key Concepts and Therapies

Psychoactive Drugs

Anxiolytics, Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, Mood Stabilizers

Brain Interventions

Frontal Lobotomy, Electroconvulsive Therapy, rTMS, Deep Brain Simulation

Psychodynamic Therapy

Interpersonal Psychotherapy; focuses on exploring early childhood experiences to gain insight into current relationships.

Humanistic Therapy

Person / Client Centered Therapy; focuses on helping clients move toward an inherent drive for growth.

Behavioral Therapy

Includes Exposure Therapy, systematic desensitization, token economies; focuses on changing symptom behaviors.

Cognitive Therapy

Includes cognitive restructuring, mindfulness meditation; focuses on challenging distorted thinking and replacing it with more accurate views.

Eclectic Therapist

A therapist who draws on techniques from different forms of therapy, depending on the client and the problem.

Psychotherapy

An interaction between a socially sanctioned clinician and someone suffering from a psychological problem, aimed at providing support or relief.

Eclectic Psychotherapy

A form of psychotherapy that involves drawing on techniques from different forms of therapy.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapies

Therapies that explore childhood events and encourage individuals to develop insight into their psychological problems.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy

A form of psychotherapy that focuses on helping clients improve current relationships.

Person-Centered Therapy

Assumes that all individuals have a tendency toward growth, facilitated by acceptance and genuine reactions from the therapist.

Token Economy

A form of behavior therapy that involves giving clients 'tokens' for desired behaviors that can be traded for rewards.

Exposure Therapy

An approach that involves confronting an emotion-arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, leading to a decrease in the emotional response.

Mindfulness Meditation

Teaches individuals to be fully present in each moment and to detect symptoms before they become a problem.

Group Therapy

A type of therapy where multiple participants work on their individual problems in a group atmosphere.

Antipsychotic Drugs

Medications used to treat schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.

Psychopharmacology

The study of drug effects on psychological states and symptoms.

Antianxiety Medications

Drugs that help reduce a person's experience of fear or anxiety.

Antidepressants

A class of drugs that help lift people's moods.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

A treatment that involves inducing a brief seizure by delivering an electrical shock to the brain.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

A treatment that involves placing a powerful pulsed magnet over a person's scalp to alter neuronal activity in the brain.

Schizophrenia Symptoms

Positive: Hallucinations, Delusions, Disorganized Thinking, and Disoriented Movement; Negative: Affect, Avolition, Algolia, Asociality, Anhedonia, Apathy; Disturbed: Disruptions in Memory & Changes in Attention.

DSM

Diagnostic Statistical Manual

General Anxiety Disorder

A disorder characterized by chronic excessive worry accompanied by three or more symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.

Phobic Disorders

Disorders characterized by marked, persistent, and excessive fear and avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations.

Agoraphobia

A specific phobia involving a fear of public places.

Social Phobia

A disorder that involves an irrational fear of being publicly humiliated or embarrassed.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

A disorder in which repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) interfere significantly with an individual's functioning.

Major Depressive Disorder

A disorder characterized by a severely depressed mood and/or inability to experience pleasure that lasts 2 or more weeks and is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness, lethargy, and sleep and appetite disturbance.

Seasonal affective disorder

Recurrent depressive episodes in a seasonal pattern.

Bipolar Disorder

A condition characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent high mood (mania) and low mood (depression).

Schizophrenia

A disorder characterized by the profound disruption of basic psychological processes; a distorted perception of reality; altered or blunted emotion; and disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior.

Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia

Thoughts & behaviors, such as hallucinations and delusions, not seen in those without the disorder.

Negative symptoms of Schizophrenia

Deficits in or disruptions of emotions and behaviors that are missing in those with schizophrenia.

Cognitive symptoms of Schizophrenia

Deficits in cognitive abilities, specifically executive functioning, attention, and working memory, present in those with schizophrenia.

Panic disorder

A disorder characterized by the sudden occurrence of multiple psychological and physiological symptoms that contribute to a feeling of stark terror.

Posttraumatic stress disorder

A disorder characterized by chronic physiological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma, and avoidance of things that call the traumatic event to mind.

Helplessness Theory

The idea that individuals who are prone to depression automatically attribute negative experiences to causes that are internal, stable, and global.

Hallucination

A false perceptual experience that has a compelling sense of being real despite the absence of external stimulation.

Delusion

A false belief, often bizarre and grandiose, that is maintained in spite of its irrationality.

Disorganized symptoms

Disruptions or deficits in abilities of speech, movement, and cognition in those with schizophrenia.

Disorganized speech

A severe disruption of verbal communication in which ideas shift rapidly and incoherently among unrelated topics.

Grossly disorganized behavior

Behavior that is inappropriate for the situation or ineffective in attaining goals, often with specific motor disturbances.

Catatonic behavior

A marked decrease in all movement or an increase in muscular rigidity and overactivity.

Dopamine hypothesis

The idea that schizophrenia involves an excess of dopamine activity.

Autism Spectrum disorder

A condition beginning in early childhood in which a person shows persistent communication deficits as well as restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities.

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

A persistent pattern of severe problems with inattention and/or hyperactivity or impulsiveness that cause significant impairments in functioning.

Conduct disorder

A persistent pattern of deviant behavior involving aggression toward people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, or serious rule violations.

Personality disorders

Enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, or relating to others or controlling impulses that deviate from cultural expectations and cause distress or impaired functioning.

Antisocial personality disorder

A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.

Suicide

Intentional self-inflicted death.

Suicide Attempt

Engagement in potentially harmful behavior with some intention of dying.

Nonsuicidal self-injury

Direct, deliberate destruction of body tissue in the absence of any intent to die.

Obsessions

Thoughts that increase anxiety, such as germs and contamination, doubts, and order and symmetry.

Compulsions

Behaviors that reduce anxiety, including repeated and extensive behaviors like handwashing, checking, and mental acts like counting, praying, or reciting.