5.1 Health Psychology and Psychological Disorders

Health psychology

A subfield of psychology that explores the impact of psychological, behavioral, & cultural factors on health & wellness.

Stress

The process by which we perceive & respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Hans Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases - alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Tend-and-befriend response

Under stress, people (especially women) may nurture themselves & others (tend) & bond with & seek support from others (befriend).

Cope

Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods.

Problem-focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress directly - by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor.

Emotion-focused coping

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor & attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction.

Personal control

Our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.

Learned helplessness

The hopelessness & passive resignation humans & other animals learn when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

External locus of control

The perception that outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate.

Internal locus of control

The perception that we control our own fate.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of promoting strengths & virtues that foster well-being, resilience, & positive emotions, & that help individuals & communities to thrive.

Subjective well-being

Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life; used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical & economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life.

Feel good, do good phenomenon

People's tendency to be helpful when in a good mood.

Adaptation-level phenomenon

Our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of incomes) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience.

Relative deprivation

The perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves.

Character strengths & virtues

A classification system to identify positive traits; organized into categories of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, & transcendence.

Resilience

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

Gratitude

An appreciative emotion people often experience when they benefit from other's actions or recognize their own good fortune.

Psychological disorder

A disturbance in people's thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that causes distress or suffering & impairs their daily lives (dysfunction or maladaptive).

Medical model

The concept that diseases - in this case, psychological disorders - have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, & in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital.

Diathesis-stress model

The concept that genetic predispositions (diathesis) combine with environmental stressors (stress) to influence psychological disorders (also called the vulnerability-stress model).

DSM-5-TR

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Test Revision; widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Anxiety disorders

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

Social anxiety disorder

Intense fear & avoidance of social situations (often a symptom of agoraphobia).

Taijin kyofusho

Culture-bound anxiety disorder experienced mainly by Japanese people; generally associated with fear that others are judging their body as undesirable, offensive, or unpleasing.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

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

Panic Disorder

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

Ataque de nervios

Culture-bound anxiety disorder experienced mainly by people of Caribbean or Iberian descent; generally associated with stressful events involving family.

Agoraphobia

Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one may experience a loss of control & panic.

Specific phobia

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

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

A disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions or behaviors (compulsions), or both; often, the compulsions serve to reduce the anxiety felt by the obsessions.

Hoarding disorder

A persistent difficulty parting possessions, regardless of their value (OCD-related disorder).

Trauma- and stressor-related disorders

A group of disorders in which exposure to a traumatic or stressful event is followed by psychological distress.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, hypervigilance, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for 4 weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Depressive Disorders

A group of disorders characterized by an enduring sad, empty, or irritable mood, along with physical & cognitive changes that affect a person's ability to function (includes major depressive disorder & persistent depressive disorder).

Bipolar disorders

A group of disorders in which a person alternates between the hopelessness & lethargy of depression & the overexcited states of mania (formerly called manic-depressive disorder).

Major depressive disorder

A disorder in which a person experiences 5 or more symptoms lasting 2 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.

Persistent depressive disorder

A disorder in which people experience a depressed mood on more days than not for at least 2 years (formerly called dysthymia).

Bipolar I disorder

The most severe form, in which people experience a euphoric, talkative, highly energetic, & overly ambitious state that lasts a week or longer.

Mania

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

Bipolar II disorder

A less severe form of bipolar in which people move between depression & a milder hypomania.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorder

A group of disorders characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or speech, disorganized or unusual motor behavior, & negative symptoms (such as diminished emotional expression); includes schizophrenia & schizotypal personality disorder.

Delusion

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

Chronic schizophrenia

(Also called process schizophrenia) form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood; as people age, psychotic episodes last longer & recovery periods shorten.

Acute schizophrenia

(Also called reactive schizophrenia) form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age, frequently occurs in response to a traumatic event, & from which recovery is much more likely.