Chapter 1: Psychopathology: Past and Present

Psychopathology

The scientific study of mental difficulties or disorders

The four D's of psychopathology:

Deviance, distress, dysfunction, and danger

Norms

A society's stated and unstated rules for proper conduct

Culture

A people's common history, values, institutions, habits, skills, technology, and arts

Cultural humility

A process in which clinical scientists or practitioners continuously examine their own beliefs and cultural identities, explore individuals' cultures and historical realities that differ from their own, seek to understand the cultural context of each person's mental health challenges, and respond accordingly

Treatment/therapy

A systematic procedure designed to change dysfunctional behavior into more functional behavior

Trephination

An ancient operation in which a stone instrument was used to cut away a circular section of the skull to treat severe psychopathology

Humors

According to the Greeks and Romans, bodily chemicals that influence mental and physical functioning

Asylum

A type of institution that first became popular in the sixteenth century to provide care for persons with mental disorders

Moral treatment

A nineteenth-century approach to treating people with mental dysfunction that emphasized moral guidance and humane and respectful treatment

State hospitals

State-run public mental institutions in the United States

Somatogenic perspective

The view that psychopathology has physical causes

Psychogenic perspective

The view that the chief causes of psychopathology are psychological factors

Psychoanalysis

Either the theory or the treatment of psychopathology that emphasizes unconscious psychological forces as the cause of psychological dysfunction

Psychotropic medications

Drugs that mainly affect the brain and reduce many symptoms of mental dysfunction

Deinstitutionalization

The practice, begun in the 1960s, of releasing hundreds of thousands of patients from public mental hospitals

Private psychotherapy

An arrangement in which a person directly pays a therapist for counseling services

Prevention

Interventions aimed at deterring mental disorders before they can develop

Positive psychology

The study and enhancement of positive feelings, traits, and abilities

Multicultural psychology

The field that seeks to understand how the varied histories, opportunities, and barriers experienced by people of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, languages, and other such factors affect behavior, emotion, and thought

Intersectionality

The cumulative experiences and psychological effects that result from interactions and intersections between multiple factors, such as race, sexual orientation, gender, discrimination, and socioeconomic class, for a given person

Managed care program

Health care coverage in which the insurance company largely controls the nature, scope, and cost of medical or psychological services

Telemental health

The use of remote technologies, such as long-distance videoconferencing, to deliver mental health services without the therapist being physically present

Scientific method

The process of systematically gathering and evaluating information, through careful observations, to understand a phenomenon

Case study

A detailed account of a person's life and psychological problems

Confound

In an experiment, a variable other than the independent variable that is also acting on the dependent variable

Control group

In an experiment, a group of participants who are not exposed to the independent variable

Experimental group

In an experiment, the participants who are exposed to the independent variable under investigation

Masked design

A feature of an experiment in which participants do not know whether they are in the experimental condition or the control condition.

Placebo therapy

A pretend treatment that the participant in an experiment believes to be genuine

Matched design

A research design that matches the experimental participants with control participants who are similar on key characteristics

Analogue experiment

A research method in which the experimenter produces psychopathology-like behavior in laboratory participants and then conducts experiments on the participants

Single-case experimental design

A research method in which a single participant is observed and measured both before and after the manipulation of an independent variable

Epidemiological study

A study that measures the incidence and prevalence of a problem, such as a disorder, in a given population

Incidence

The number of new cases that emerge in a population during a given period of time

Prevalence

The total number of cases in the population during a given period

Qualitative methods

Natural and unfiltered research methods intended to seek out each participant's direct perspective — gathering information that is offered in the participant's own words

Mixed-methods research

A research tradition that combines, or mixes, both quantitative and qualitative approaches within the same research project

Community-based participatory research

A research tradition that has members of an affected community work collaboratively with academically trained researchers at all stages of the research process

Institutional Review Board

An ethics committee in a research facility that is empowered to protect the rights and safety of human research participants