GRE Psych - Clinical

Yerkes-Dodson law

Says that performance rises with arousal up to a point, then falls (an inverted-U); connects clinical anxiety to performance.

What is the primary purpose of using projective tests in psychological assessment?

To assess underlying personality structures and possible psychopathology.

Egosyntonic

Behaviors and feelings that are perceived as natural and consistent with one's self-image.

Conversion disorder

Loss of sensory or motor function without a standard medical cause.

Transference

A psychoanalytic concept where patients project feelings about important people in their lives onto the therapist.

What is the primary focus of 'Interpersonal Therapy' (IPT) in clinical settings?

Improving interpersonal relationships and communication patterns.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)?

Linehan’s therapy that combines acceptance and change skills to enhance interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and mindfulness; first developed for borderline personality disorder.

Big Five of the trait model of personality

Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Humanistic/client-centered therapy

Rogers’ therapy that emphasizes empathy, genuineness, acceptance, unconditional positive regard, and growth.

Behavioral therapy

Change behavior via conditioning; systematic desensitization for phobias.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

A structured, present-focused therapy that changes distorted thoughts and behaviors (Beck, Ellis).

Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapy

Freud’s therapy aimed at surfacing unconscious conflict through free association and dream analysis.

Repression

The defense mechanism of pushing threatening thoughts out of awareness.

Generalized anxiety disorder

Chronic, excessive worry across many areas of life.

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Flashbacks, hyperarousal, and avoidance after trauma.

Bipolar disorder

A mood disorder alternating between depressive and manic episodes.

Antisocial personality disorder

A pattern of disregard for others’ rights and a lack of remorse.

Defense mechanism

An unconscious strategy, such as repression and projection, that reduces anxiety from conflict.

Major depressive disorder

A mood disorder marked by persistent sadness, loss of interest, and related symptoms.

Positive symptoms

Added experiences in schizophrenia such as hallucinations and delusions.

Negative symptoms

Reductions in schizophrenia such as flat affect and social withdrawal.

Unconditional positive regard

Rogers’ attitude of full acceptance integral to client-centered therapy.

Superego

The internalized moral standards and conscience.

Id

The unconscious source of basic drives operating on the pleasure principle.

Ego

The reality-oriented mediator between the id and superego.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Characterized by intrusive obsessions and compulsive rituals performed to reduce anxiety.

Borderline personality disorder

Marked by instability in mood and relationships, often involving splitting.

Schizophrenia

A psychotic disorder with delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thought.

Phobia

An intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation.

DSM-5-TR

The APA’s standard classification of mental disorders and their diagnostic criteria.

Self-actualization

Realizing one’s full potential - the top of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Systematic desensitization

A behavioral therapy pairing relaxation with a hierarchy of feared situations to treat phobias.

Splitting

Viewing people or situations as all good or all bad, common in borderline personality disorder.

Projection

Attributing one’s own unacceptable impulses to someone else.

Bipolar I disorder

Defined by the presence of at least one full manic episode lasting at least 7 days.

Bipolar II disorder

Requires at least one hypomanic episode lasting at least 4 days and at least one major depressive episode.

Cyclothymia

Chronic, milder form of bipolar disorder with subthreshold fluctuations of hypomanic and mild depressive symptoms that never meet full episode criteria.

Sublimation

Channels socially unacceptable impulses into productive and acceptable activity.

Intellectualization

A defense mechanism in which people reason about a problem to avoid uncomfortable or distressing emotions.

Regression

A defense mechanism involving reverting to earlier developmental behaviors.

Reaction formation

A defense mechanism characterized by an exaggerated performance of the opposite of one's beliefs or feelings.

Displacement

Redirects an impulse onto a safer target rather than assigning it to another person.

Diathesis-stress model

Proposes that psychopathology results from the interaction between genetic vulnerability and specific stressful life events.

Panic disorder

Involves recurrent, unexpected panic attacks plus persistent concern about further attacks or maladaptive behavior change.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

A standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology; helps in diagnostic mental disorders and forming treatment plans

What distinguishes the ABC model in rational emotive behavior therapy from other explanations?

Holds that the activating event (A) does not directly cause the emotional consequence (C); rather, it is the person's beliefs (B), especially irrational beliefs, that drive the emotional response.

Narcissistic personality disorder

Characterized by grandiosity, a need for excessive admiration, and a lack of empathy towards others.

Autism spectrum disorder

Combines persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction with restricted, repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities, with symptoms present from early development.

Humanism

Theory of personality psychology that emphasizes humans’ free will and focuses on therapy that is client-centered.

Preconscious

Just below the level of conscious awareness; contains thoughts, memories, feelings, and images that are easily recalled.

Conscious

Contains all of the thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment.

Unconscious

The reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness.

Womb envy

Men’s inherent envy towards women’s ability to nurture and sustain life.

What is important in Horney’s theory of personality in forming the basis of the adult personality?

Interactions between the child and the parent as the child deals with basic anxiety, the feeling of being alone in an unfamiliar or hostile world.

Carl Jung’s theory of personality

Based on the idea that the mind comprises pairs of opposing forces

Persona

The mask that each person presents to the outside world.

Shadow

The dark, passionate, more primordial parts of someone.

Anima/animus

The female/male side of each person’s personality.

Personal unconsciousness

Comprises of repressed memories and clusters of thought

Collective unconsciousness

Comprises of behavior and memory common to all humans and passed down from our ancient and common ancestors.

Adler’s theory of personality

Posits that children develop feelings of inferiority due to their size and level of competence, and they spend the rest of their lives trying to overcome it.

According to Rogers, what distorts our self-concept?

Conditions of worth

What do social-cognitive theories assume about personality?

That cognitive constructs are the basis of the personality.

What is the difference between those with an internal locus of control and those with an external locus of control?

Attributing successes or failures to a direct result of their efforts versus luck or chance.

Personal construct theory

George Kelly’s theory that we make sense of the world by generating, testing, and revising hypotheses about our social reality.

Stage theories

Believe people develop in stages, or steps, in the same order, without skipping a step, and one stage can be distinguished from all other stages.

Barnum effect

The tendency to accept really general or vague statements and personality descriptions as if they were unique or individualized.

Fictional finalism

Adler’s idea that people are more motivated by their fictional expectations for the future than they are by past experiences.

Object-relations theory

A psychodynamic system in which children create and develop internalized symbols or objects which are significant representations of their personalities.

Countertransference

The emotions a therapist develops toward a patient.

Rational-emotive theory

A combination of emotion, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of psychology that operates from the belief that thoughts, together with feelings, create behaviors.

How does William James describe personality?

An interplay of instincts, habits, and personal choices.

Test-retest reliability

The consistency of results when a test is administered at different points in time.

Inter-rater reliability

The degree of agreement among different raters evaluating the same phenomenon.

Construct validity

Whether a test measures what it claims to measure.

Criterion validity

Examines how well one measure predicts an outcome based on another, established measure.

NEO-PI-R inventory

Measures personality based on the Five Factor Model of Personality.

What is one controversy surrounding the labeling of personality disorders?

Labeling can lead to stigma and self-fulfilling prophecies.

What is a key difference between ‘trait’ and ‘state’ in personality psychology?

Traits are enduring characteristics, while states are temporary conditions.

Behavioral signatures

Unique patterns of behavior that an individual exhibits in response to specific situations.

Incidence

The number of new cases that appear in a population in a given period of time.

Prevalence

The total number of active cases (old and new) present in a population in a given period of time.

Necessary cause vs sufficient cause

Something that must be present for a particular illness to occur; something that by itself may cause a particular illness to occur.

What are 3 important factors to consider when determining whether or not an individual’s behavior is abnormal?

Whether the behavior causes subjective distress/suffering to the person, causes impairment/dysfunction, and is atypical/deviant with respect to the person’s current cultural context.

Primary prevention

Attempts to prevent disease or disorder onset.

Anhedonia

An unusually low level of positive mood; inability to feel pleasure, including loss of interest in usually enjoyable activities.

Beck’s Negative Cognitive Triad

Negative views of the self, the world, and the future.

Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia)

Depressed mood for most days for at least 2 years, with symptoms causing clinically significant distress or impairment.

What changes in the brain are associated with Alzheimer’s disease?

Dementia, progressive losses in memory and cognition, social withdrawal, lapses in judgement, and eventual loss of self care abilities.

Which diagnosis has the highest risk for the patient dying due to the illness?

Anorexia nervosa

Phenylketonuria

A disorder in which a baby lacks a liver enzyme necessary to process phenylalanine, an amino acid found in breast milk and cow’s milk.

Personality disorder

A disorder characterized by the pervasive expression of extreme, abnormal personality constructs that interfere with normal social functioning.

Histrionic personality disorder

Excessive emotional reactions to everyday stimuli; preoccupied with the constant need for attention

Paranoid personality disorder

Characterized by extreme distrust and suspicion of others.

Schizoid personality disorder

Associated with little emotional expression and a lack of social interactions.

Dependent personality disorder

A pervasive and excessive need to be cared for that leads to submissive and clinging behavior as well as fears of separation.

Expressed emotion

Helps explain the role of stress in the home environment in relapse for people who have schizophrenia.

Schizoaffective disorder

Used to describe individuals who have features of both schizophrenia and severe mood disorder.

Neologism

Used to describe non-words that seem word-like.