AP Psychology Unit 8 - Clinical Psychology

Diagnosis

Distinguishing one illness from another

Deviant/deviance

• Criteria of abnormal behavior

• People are often said to have a disorder because their behavior deviates from what their society considers acceptable

Distress

• Criteria of abnormal behavior

• The diagnosis of a psychological disorder is sometimes based on an individual’s report of great personal distress

• Usually the criterion for people with anxiety and depression

Medical model

The view that it is useful to think of abnormal behavior as disease

Diathesis stress model

disorders develop due to a combination of genetic vulnerability and risk factors in an environment

Maladaptive behavior (dysfunction)

• Criteria of abnormal behavior

• People are sometimes judged to have a psychological disorder because their every everyday adaptive behavior is impaired

• Key criterion in the diagnosis of substance use disorders

DSM-5

• The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

• The classification system for psychological disorders

• Has a categorical approach overall, with a dimensional approach in some areas

• 541 specific diagnoses

Prevalence

The percentage of a population that exhibits a disorder during a specified time period

Panic disorder

A type of anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of overwhelming anxiety that usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly

Social anxiety disorder

A type of anxiety disorder in which social interactions cause irrational anxiety

Generalized anxiety disorder

A psychological disorder characterized by a chronic, high level of anxiety that is not tied to specific threat

Specific phobia

Irrational fear of a specific object or situation

Agoraphobia

fear of public places

OCD

disorder marked by persistent, uncontrollable intrusions of unwanted thoughts and urges to engage in senseless rituals

Hoarding

Persistent difficulty parting with or discarding possessions due to perceived need to save them

Body dismorphia

Obsessive focus on perceived flaw in appearance

Trichotillomania

Recurrent, irresistible urges to pull out body hair

Acute stress disorder

fear and related symptoms are experienced soon after a traumatic event, and last less than a month

PTSD

Disturbed behavior that is attributed to a major stressful event but that emerges after stress is over

Major depressive disorder

Mood disorder characterized by persistent feeling of sadness and despair, and a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure

persistent depressive disorder (dysthymic disorder)

chronic but mild depressive state that has been present in an individual for more than two years

Bipolar disorder

Made disorder marked by the experience of depressed and manic periods

Cyclothymic disorder

disorder marked my mood swings between short periods of mild depression and hypomania, but is not a severe as major depression and mania

Schizophrenia

delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech, and deterioration of adaptive behavior

Schizoaffective disorder

Mental health condition including schizophrenia and mood disorder symptoms

Schizotypal personality disorder

Severe social anxiety disorder, paranoid ideation, derealization, transient psychosis, and often unconventional beliefs

Positive symptoms

schizophrenic symptoms that involve behavioral excesses or peculiarities, such a hallucinations, delusions, incoherent thought, agitation, bizarre behavior, and wild flights or ideas

Hallucinations

Sensory perceptions that occur in the absence of a real, external stimulus, or gross distortions of perceptual input

Delusions (Persecutory, referential, grandiose)

false beliefs that are maintained even though they are clearly out of touch with reality

disorganized speechand thought

disorganized speech and thought

Negative symptoms

schizophrenic symptoms that involve behavioral deficits such as flattened emotions, social withdrawal, apathy, Impaired attention, poor grooming, lack of persistence at work or school, and poverty of speech

Catatonic immobility

disturbance of motor behavior, in which a person remains motionless, sometimes an awkward posture, for extended periods of time

Reduced emotional expression

A reduction of emotional expression

Flat effect

A lack of emotional expressiveness

Poverty of speech

A general lack of additional, unprompted content seen in normal speech

Dissociative disorders

disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A person exhibits 2 or more distinct and alternating personalities (pka multiple personality disorder)

Personality disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning

paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal

Cluster A personality disorders

Borderline personality disorder

Extreme instability in mood, identity, and impulse control

histrionic personality disorder

excessive emotionality and preoccupation with being the center of attention; emotional shallowness; overly dramatic behavior

Narcissistic personality disorder

inflated sense of self importance, and a deep need for admiration

Somatic symptom disorder

psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause

Conversion disorder

rare somatoform disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms, for which no physiological basis can be found

Illness anxiety disorder

A person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease

Psychotherapy

treatment Involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth

Biomedical therapy

prescribed medication or medical procedures that act directly on the patient’s nervous system

Eclectic approach

an approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client’s problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorder by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Resistance

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety laden material

Interpretation

The analyst’s noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight

Transference

The patient’s transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships

psychodynamic therapy

therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self insight

insight therapies

a variety in therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing person’s awareness of underlying motives and defenses

client-centered therapy

A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques, such as active listening, within a genuine, accepting, empathetic, environment to facilitate patient growth (aka person-centered therapy)

active listening

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, relates, and clarifies. A feature of client-centered therapy

unconditional positive regard

an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

behavior therapy

therapy that applies to the elimination of unwanted behaviors

counter conditioning

A behavior therapy procedure that uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; includes exposure therapies aversive conditioning

exposure therapy

an approach the treatment that involves confronting an emotion–arousing stimulus directly and repeatedly, ultimately leading to a decrease in the emotional response

systematic desensitization

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increased anxiety-triggering stimuli (commonly used to treat phobias)

VR exposure therapy

an anxiety treatment that progressively exposes people to simulations of their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking

aversive conditioning

a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol)

token economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats

cognitive therapy

therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions

rational emotive behavior therapy

a confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions

cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)

a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior)

group therapy

therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction

family therapy

therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members

psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior

antipsychotic drugs

drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder

anti anxiety drugs

drugs used to control anxiety and agitation

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s)

a group of second-generation antidepressant drugs that increase serotonin activity specifically, without affecting other neurotransmitters

electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS)

the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity

psychosurgery

surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior

lobotomy

A now-rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

meta-analysis

a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies

evidence-based practice

clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences

therapeutic alliance

a bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem

resilience

the personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma