Psychology Chapter Summaries: Anxiety, Mood, and Dissociative Disorders

Illness anxiety disorder

a disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease

Somatic Symptom Disorder

A condition where a person experiences physical symptoms that are inconsistent with or cannot be fully explained by a medical condition.

Conversion Disorder

A mental health condition where a person experiences neurological symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation.

Factitious Disorder by Proxy

A condition in which a caregiver deliberately produces or feigns symptoms in another person, usually a child, to gain attention.

Dissociative Disorders

Mental disorders characterized by a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness, and memory.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A severe form of dissociation characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states.

Fugue State

A dissociative disorder where a person suddenly travels away from home and cannot recall their past.

Mood Disorders

A category of mental disorders that primarily affect a person's emotional state.

Major Depressive Disorder

A mood disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest in activities.

Bipolar I Disorder

A mood disorder characterized by manic episodes that last at least seven days or by manic symptoms that are so severe that immediate hospital care is needed.

Bipolar II Disorder

A milder form of bipolar disorder characterized by a pattern of depressive episodes and hypomanic episodes.

Cyclothymia

A mood disorder characterized by periods of hypomanic symptoms and periods of depressive symptoms lasting for at least two years.

Persistent Depressive Disorder

A chronic form of depression where a person's mood is regularly low for at least two years.

OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

A mental health disorder characterized by persistent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviors (compulsions).

Suicide

The intentional act of ending one's own life.

anxiety

Mood state characterized by marked negative affect and bodily symptoms of tension in which a person apprehensively anticipates future danger or misfortune.

fear

Emotion of an immediate alarm reaction to present danger or life-threatening emergencies.

panic

Sudden, overwhelming fright or terror.

panic attack

Abrupt experience of intense fear or discomfort accompanied by several physical symptoms, such as dizziness or heart palpitations.

behavioral inhibition system (BIS)

Brain circuit in the limbic system that responds to threat signals by inhibiting activity and causing anxiety.

fight/flight system (FFS)

Brain circuit in animals that when stimulated causes an immediate alarm-and-escape response resembling human panic.

generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

intense, uncontrollable, unfocused, chronic, and continuous worry that is distressing and unproductive, accompanied by physical symptoms of tenseness, irritability, and restlessness.

Panic Disorder (PD)

Recurrent unexpected panic attacks accompanied by concern about future attacks and/or a lifestyle change to avoid future attacks.

Agoraphobia (anxiety disorder)

about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult.

panic control treatment (PCT)

Cognitive-behavioral treatment for panic attacks, involving gradual exposure to feared somatic sensations and modification of perceptions and attitudes about them.

specific phobia

Unreasonable fear of a specific object or situation that markedly interferes with daily life functioning.

blood-injection-injury phobia

Unreasonable fear and avoidance of exposure to blood, injury, or the possibility of an injection. Victims experience fainting and a drop in blood pressure.

situational phobia

Anxiety involving enclosed places (for example, claustrophobia) or public transportation (for example, fear of flying).

natural environment phobia

Fear of situations or events in nature, especially heights, storms, and water.

animal phobia

Unreasonable, enduring fear of animals or insects that usually develops early in life.

separation anxiety disorder

Excessive, enduring fear in some children that harm will come to them or their parents while they are apart.

social anxiety disorder (SAD)

Extreme, enduring, irrational fear and avoidance of social or performance situations.

social phobia

Extreme, enduring, irrational fear and avoidance of social or performance situations.

trauma and stressor-related disorders

A group of mental disorders distinguished by their origin in stressful events (e.g., traumatic experience, major life stressor, childhood neglect)

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Enduring, distressing emotional disorder that follows exposure to a severe helplessness-or fear-inducing threat.

acute stress disorder

disorder Severe reaction immediately following a terrifying event, often including amnesia about the event, emotional numbing, and derealization.

adjustment disorders

Clinically significant emotional and behavioral symptoms in response to one or more specific stressors.

attachment disorders

Developmentally inappropriate behaviors in which a child is unable or unwilling to form normal attachment relationships with caregiving adults.

Reactive Attachment Disorder

in which a child with disturbed behaviour neither seeks out a caregiver nor responds to offers of help from one; fearfulness and sadness are often evident.

disinhibited social engagement disorder

Condition in which a child shows no inhibitions whatsoever in approaching adults.

trichotillomania

People's urge to pull out their own hair from anywhere on the body, including the scalp, eyebrows, and arm.

Excoriation

Recurrent, difficult-to-control picking of one's skin leading to significant impairment or distress.

dissociative disorders

Disorder in which individuals feel detached from themselves or their surroundings and feel reality, experience, and identity may disintegrate.

Somatic symptom disorder (previously known as somatoform disorder)

involving severe anxiety over belief in having a disease process without any evident physical cause.

psychological factors affecting medical conditions

Psychological factors that seem to influence the course of medical disorders.

conversion disorder

Physical malfunctioning, such as blindness or aralysis, suggesting neurological impairment but with no organic bathology to account for it

malingering

Deliberate faking of a physical or psychological disorder

motivated by gain.

factitious disorder

Non-existent physical or psychological disorder deliberately faked for no apparent gain except, possibly, sympathy and attention.

derealization

Situation in which the individual loses a sense of the reality of the external world.

depersonalization

altered perception including loss of the sense of your reality

dissociative amnesia disorder

featuring the inability to recall personal information; usually of a stressful or traumatic nature.

generalized amnesia

Loss of memory of all personal information, including identity.

localized or selective amnesia

Memory loss limited to specific times and events, particularly traumatic events.

dissociative fugue Dissociative disorder

featuring sudden, unexpected travel away from home, along with an inability to recall the past, sometimes with assumption of a new identity.

dissociative trance

Altered state of consciousness in which people firmly believe they are possessed by spirits; considered a disorder only where there is distress and dysfunction.

dissociative identity disorder (DID)

Multiple personality disorder

alters

Shorthand term for alter ego, one of the different personalities or identities in dissociative identity disorder.

mood disorders

One of a group of disorders involving severe and enduring disturbances in emotionality ranging from elation to severe depression.

major depressive episode

Most common and severe experience of depression, including feelings of worthlessness, disturbances in bodily activities such as sleep, loss of interest, and inability to experience pleasure, persisting at least 2 weeks.

mania

Period of abnormally excessive elation or euphoria associated with some mood disorders.

hypomanic episode

Less severe and less disruptive version of a manic episode that is one of the criteria for several mood disorders.

mixed features

Condition in which the individual experiences both elation and depression or anxiety at the same time. Also known as dysphoric manic episode or mixed manic episode.

major depressive disorder

A mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities.

recurrent

happening repeatedly

Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD)

Mood disorder involving persistently depressed mood, with low self-esteem, withdrawal, pessimism, or despair; present for at least two years, with no absence of symptoms for more than two months.

double depression

Severe mood disorder typified by major depressive episodes superimposed over a background of dysthymic disorder.

integrated grief

grief that evolves from acute grief into a condition in which the individual accepts the finality of a death and adjusts to the loss

complicated grief

Grief characterized by debilitating feelings of loss and emotions so painful that a person has trouble resuming a normal life; designated for further study as a disorder by DSM-5.

premenstrual dysphoric disorder

Clinically significant emotional problems that can occur during the premenstrual phase of the reproductive cycle of a woman.

disruptive mood dysregulation disorder

condition in which a child has chronic negative moods such as anger and irritability without any accompanying mania

Neurohormones

hormones that affect the brain and are increasingly the focus of study in psychopathology

learned helplessness theory of depression

Martin Seligman's theory that people become anxious and depressed when they make an attribution that they have no control over the stress in their lives (whether or not they actually have control).

depressive cognitive triad

thinking errors by depressed people negatively focused in three areas: themselves, their immediate world, and their future

mood stabilizing drugs

a medication used in the treatment of mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorder, that is effective in preventing and treating pathological shifts in mood

electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

a treatment that involves inducing a mild seizure by delivering an electrical shock to the brain

Cognitive Theory

A theory of human development that focuses on changes in how people think over time. According to this theory, our thoughts shape our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT)

Brief treatment approach that emphasizes resolution of interpersonal problems and stressors, such as role disputes in marital conflict, forming relationships in marriage, or a new job. It has demonstrated effectiveness for such problems as depression.

maintenance treatment

combination of continued psychosocial treatment, medication, or both designed to prevent relapse following therapy

primary and secondary gains

primary gains take the initial anxiety a person has and covers it into something somatic. secondary is all attention and benefits they get from being sick

tricyclic antidepressants

block reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine