Contemporary Psychological Perspectives and OCD

Vocabulary flashcards covering anxiety disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), clinical insights, treatments like ERP and SSRIs, and the Diathesis-Stress model based on class notes.

Fear

An emotion triggered by a present threat that is adaptive and necessary for survival, experienced physically, emotionally, and cognitively, which disappears once the threat is gone.

Anxiety

A physical, emotional, and cognitive reaction to an anticipated future threat, centered around uncertainty.

Catastrophize

The act of going to the worst-case scenario when facing anxiety or uncertainty.

Obsession

An intrusive or distressing thought, image, or impulse that a person cannot control despite attempting to do so.

Contamination Obsession

An obsession characterized by fears of germs or body concerns that will lead to illness.

Symmetry Obsession

An obsession characterized by the compelling feeling that things must be placed in order or balanced.

Compulsion

A ritualistic behavior performed the same way every time that a person feels a strong need to execute in order to decrease anxiety or prevent a bad event.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)

A disorder characterized by extensive preoccupation with perfectionism, organization, and control, lacking true obsessions or compulsions.

Insight

An awareness that one has a psychological problem and that one's thoughts are irrational, while remaining in touch with reality.

Psychosis

A state, such as in schizophrenia, characterized by a lack of insight where false beliefs are accepted as reality.

Delusions

False beliefs that are not based in reality.

Exposure plus Response Prevention (ERP)

A behavioral treatment where a person is exposed to an obsession and prevented from engaging in their compulsion, forcing them to learn they can survive uncomfortable emotions.

SSRIs

Antidepressant medications often used to treat anxiety disorders and depression (both related to decreased levels of Serotonin) by dampening the effects of Sympathetic Nervous System arousal.

Diathesis-Stress Model

An integrative model proposing that a psychological disorder requires both an inherited genetic predisposition (diathesis) and an environmental stressor (stress) to be expressed.

Diathesis

An inherited genetic or biological predisposition (nature) toward developing a disorder.

Stress (Diathesis-Stress Model)

An external environmental stressor (nurture) required to trigger the expression of a disorder in a predisposed individual.