Chapter 2 Understanding and Treating Mental Disorders Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards generated from Psychopathology Chapter 2 lecture glossary.

Model

A conceptual framework used to organize observations, explain why abnormal behavior develops, and guide assessment and treatment.

One-dimensional model

Explains behavior mainly through one type of influence, such as biology, psychology, social relationships, or sociocultural conditions.

Biological model

Emphasizes brain structure and function, neurotransmitters, hormones, genetics, and other bodily processes.

Psychological model

Emphasizes learning, thoughts, emotions, motives, personality, and internal conflicts.

Social-relational model

Emphasizes close relationships, family patterns, social roles, and interpersonal systems.

Sociocultural model

Emphasizes culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic conditions, discrimination, and social context.

Biopsychosocial model

George Engel’s 1977 framework proposing that biological, psychological, and social factors interact in health and illness.

Multipath model

A broad framework in which biological, psychological, social, and sociocultural factors combine through different pathways to produce similar or different outcomes.

Heterogeneity

People with the same diagnosis may have different symptoms, causes, risk factors, and treatment responses.

Protective factor

A characteristic or condition that reduces the effect of risk or helps prevent a poor outcome.

Resilience

The capacity to adapt and recover despite adversity or significant risk.

Cerebral cortex

The brain’s outer layer, involved in complex perception, thought, language, memory, and voluntary behavior.

Forebrain

A major brain region that includes structures important for emotion, thought, motivation, and sensory integration.

Prefrontal cortex

The frontal cortical region involved in planning, judgment, decision-making, impulse control, and regulation of emotion.

Limbic system

A network of brain structures involved in emotion, motivation, memory, and responses to threat and reward.

HPA axis

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system that coordinates the body’s hormonal response to stress and leads to cortisol release.

Neuron

A specialized cell that receives, processes, and transmits information in the nervous system.

Dendrites

Branch-like parts of a neuron that receive signals from other cells.

Cell body

The part of a neuron containing the nucleus and integrating incoming signals.

Axon

The long extension that carries electrical signals away from a neuron’s cell body.

Neurotransmitter

A chemical messenger released by a neuron that affects another cell across a synapse.

Acetylcholine

A neurotransmitter involved in muscle action, attention, learning, memory, and sleep.

Dopamine

A neurotransmitter involved in reward, motivation, movement, attention, and learning; dysregulation is associated with several disorders.

Epinephrine and norepinephrine

Chemical messengers involved in arousal, alertness, attention, and the fight-or-flight response.

Glutamate

The brain’s primary excitatory neurotransmitter and an important contributor to learning and memory.

GABA

The brain’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitter; it reduces neural firing and helps regulate anxiety and arousal.

Serotonin

A neurotransmitter involved in mood, sleep, appetite, pain, and impulse regulation.

Cortisol

A hormone released during stress through the HPA axis that mobilizes energy and influences many body systems.

Ghrelin

A hormone that increases hunger and helps signal the need to eat.

Leptin

A hormone released mainly by fat cells that helps signal satiety and energy stores.

Melatonin

A hormone involved in regulating the sleep-wake cycle and circadian rhythms.

Oxytocin

A hormone and neurotransmitter involved in childbirth, lactation, attachment, trust, and social bonding.

Neuroplasticity

The nervous system’s ability to change its structure or function in response to experience, learning, injury, or treatment.

Neurogenesis

The creation of new neurons; it occurs in limited areas and can be influenced by experience and environment.

Genetics

The study of heredity and how biological information is transmitted and expressed.

Heredity

The transmission of biological characteristics from parents to offspring.

Genotype

A person’s genetic makeup.

Phenotype

Observable characteristics produced by the interaction of genotype and environment.

Mutation

A change in DNA that can alter gene function.

Polymorphism

A common variation in a gene or DNA sequence within a population.

Allele

One alternative form of a gene.

Critical or sensitive period

A developmental window in which a biological system is especially responsive to particular environmental input.

Epigenetics

Changes in gene activity caused by mechanisms that regulate gene expression without changing the DNA sequence.

Vulnerability-stress model

Disorder develops when underlying vulnerability combines with sufficient stress; protective factors can reduce overflow.

Psychopharmacology

The study and clinical use of medications that alter mood, thought, or behavior.

Pharmacogenomics

The study of how genetic differences influence medication response, effectiveness, and adverse effects.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

A treatment performed under anesthesia that uses controlled electrical stimulation to produce a therapeutic seizure; often used for severe or treatment-resistant depression.

Psychosurgery

Rare brain surgery intended to alter dysfunctional neural circuits when severe symptoms have not responded to other treatments.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS)

Implanted electrodes deliver electrical stimulation to selected brain regions.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)

A device stimulates the vagus nerve to influence brain activity.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)

Repeated magnetic pulses stimulate targeted cortical areas without surgery.

Psychodynamic perspective

Explains behavior through unconscious processes, early relationships, internal conflict, and defenses.

Id

The instinctual part of personality that seeks immediate gratification according to the pleasure principle.

Ego

The reality-oriented part of personality that mediates among impulses, moral demands, and external conditions.

Superego

The internalized moral standards and ideals of parents and society.

Fixation

Persistent attachment to an earlier developmental stage because its conflict was not adequately resolved.

Defense mechanism

An automatic, usually unconscious strategy used by the ego to reduce anxiety or internal conflict.

Repression

Keeping distressing thoughts, memories, or impulses outside conscious awareness.

Reaction formation

Expressing the opposite of an unacceptable impulse or feeling.

Projection

Attributing one’s own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to someone else.

Rationalization

Creating a plausible explanation that hides the true or threatening reason for behavior.

Displacement

Redirecting an emotion or impulse from a threatening target to a safer one.

Regression

Returning to behavior associated with an earlier developmental level when stressed.

Attachment theory

Bowlby’s view that early bonds with caregivers create expectations about safety and relationships that affect later functioning.

Separation-individuation

Mahler’s account of the child gradually developing a distinct identity while separating psychologically from the caregiver.

Psychoanalysis

Intensive therapy designed to make unconscious conflicts conscious and work through them.

Free association

Saying whatever comes to mind with minimal censorship to reveal underlying themes and conflicts.

Dream analysis

Exploring dream material for symbolic expressions of unconscious wishes, fears, or conflicts.

Resistance

Avoidance or blocking that interferes with therapy when threatening material approaches awareness.

Transference

Redirecting feelings and expectations from important past relationships onto the therapist.

Interpersonal psychotherapy

A structured, time-limited treatment focused on current relationships, role transitions, grief, and interpersonal conflict.

Behavioral perspective

Explains abnormal behavior as learned through conditioning, reinforcement, and observation.

Classical conditioning

Learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to trigger a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces it.

Operant conditioning

Learning in which consequences change the future probability of behavior.

Reinforcement

A consequence that increases the likelihood of the behavior it follows.

Observational learning

Learning by watching other people and the consequences they receive.

Exposure therapy

Treatment involving planned contact with feared cues until avoidance decreases and new learning occurs.

Graduated exposure

Exposure begins with less-feared situations and progresses through a hierarchy.

Flooding

Exposure begins with a highly feared stimulus or situation and continues without escape.

Systematic desensitization

Graduated exposure traditionally paired with relaxation to make fear and relaxation compete.

Social skills training

Behavioral rehearsal, modeling, feedback, and practice used to improve interpersonal effectiveness.

Cognitive perspective

Explains distress partly through maladaptive beliefs, interpretations, expectations, and information-processing patterns.

Maladaptive assumption

A rigid or inaccurate underlying belief that biases how situations are interpreted.

ABC model

A = activating event, B = beliefs about the event, and C = emotional or behavioral consequences. Beliefs mediate the response.

Schema

An organized cognitive framework that shapes attention, memory, interpretation, and expectations.

Cognitive therapy

A structured approach that identifies, evaluates, and changes distorted thoughts and maladaptive beliefs.

Third-wave therapies

Newer behavioral and cognitive approaches emphasizing mindfulness, acceptance, context, values, and the person’s relationship to thoughts.

Mindfulness

Purposeful, present-focused, nonjudgmental awareness of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and surroundings.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)

A structured program using mindfulness meditation and related practices to reduce stress and improve coping.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)

A treatment combining acceptance and change strategies with mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal skills.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

A therapy that promotes acceptance of internal experiences, mindful awareness, values clarification, and committed action.

Psychological flexibility

The ability to stay in contact with the present, allow internal experiences, and act according to values when circumstances change.

Humanistic perspective

Emphasizes growth, choice, authenticity, self-concept, and the drive toward realizing human potential.

Self-actualization

The ongoing process of developing and expressing one’s capacities and potential.

Free will

The capacity to make meaningful choices rather than being completely determined by unconscious forces or conditioning.

Existential perspective

Emphasizes freedom, responsibility, meaning, isolation, mortality, and authentic choice.

Person-centered therapy

A nondirective therapy in which a genuine, empathic, accepting relationship supports growth and self-understanding.

Unconditional positive regard

Accepting and valuing the person without making worth dependent on particular behavior.

Existential therapy

Helps clients confront freedom, responsibility, meaning, mortality, and choices in order to live more authentically.

Family systems theory

Views the family as an interdependent system in which a change in one member affects every other member.