Clinical Psychology: Somatic, Dissociative, Mood, Eating, Sleep, and Health Disorders

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering somatic symptom disorders, dissociative disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, sleep-wake disorders, and health psychology.

Somatic Symptom Disorder

A disorder characterized by distressing and/or impairing somatic symptoms (such as pain, body aches, or fatigue) that persist for $>6\text{ months}$, with no detected medical cause or distress exceeding expectations, accompanied by excessive thoughts, health anxiety, or time and energy devoted to symptoms.

Illness Anxiety Disorder

A condition previously termed hypochondriasis marked by a persistent preoccupation with having or acquiring a serious disease for at least $6\text{ months}$, featuring no to mild physical symptoms, high health anxiety, and excessive checking, researching, or avoidance behaviors.

Cognitive/Perceptual Model of Somatic Disorders

A causal cycle where a trigger initiates a perceived threat and apprehension, resulting in heightened bodily focus and physiological arousal, preoccupation with perceived bodily abnormalities, and misinterpretation of normal sensations as signs of severe illness.

Dissociation

A disruption, detachment, or alteration in the typically integrated functions of consciousness, identity, or memory, ranging from everyday lapses to trauma-induced amnesia and flashbacks.

Depersonalization

A dissociative experience marked by feelings of unreality, detachment, or feeling like an outside observer of one's own thoughts, body, feelings, or actions, accompanied by diminished agency.

Derealization

A dissociative state involving feelings of detachment or unreality regarding one's external surroundings, which can appear dreamlike, foggy, or lifeless, often accompanied by visual and auditory perceptual distortions.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

A disorder formerly called multiple personality disorder marked by the presence of $2$ or more distinct identities or personality states ("alters") with differences in affect and behavior, accompanied by significant gaps in recalling personal information.

Switch

The transition between different identity states or alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder, frequently provoked by stress and usually occurring instantaneously, though sometimes gradually.

Sociocognitive Model of DID

An explanatory model asserting that alters are created or elicited through suggestive and leading questioning by therapists toward highly suggestible individuals under hypnosis.

Dissociative Amnesia

The inability to recall important personal information—either localized to a specific timeframe or generalized to one's entire life history—that cannot be accounted for by substance use, medical issues, or ordinary forgetfulness.

Dissociative Fugue

A subtype of dissociative amnesia involving sudden, purposeful travel away from home paired with an inability to recall one's past, often culminating in the assumption of a new identity before ending abruptly.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

A mood disorder requiring $1$ or more major depressive episodes, defined by the presence of at least $5$ of $9$ symptoms (including depressed mood or anhedonia) lasting for a minimum of $2\text{ weeks}$.

Anhedonia

The loss of interest or capacity for pleasure in activities normally found enjoyable, presenting as a core defining symptom of a major depressive episode for most of the day, nearly every day.

Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia)

A chronic form of depression marked by a depressed mood lasting for at least $2\text{ years}$, presenting with fewer and milder symptoms than major depression but persisting longer and showing less responsiveness to treatment.

Bipolar I Disorder

A mood disorder characterized by shifts between full manic episodes (lasting at least $1\text{ week}$ or requiring hospitalization) and major depressive episodes.

Flight of Ideas

A manic symptom marked by rapid, continuous, pressured speech that abruptly jumps from topic to topic based on tenuous associations.

Permissive Hypothesis

The biochemical proposition that when serotonin levels fall below a critical threshold, other neurotransmitter systems (such as norepinephrine and dopamine) are permitted to fluctuate more widely, contributing to mood dysregulation.

Learned Helplessness

A psychological state discovered by Martin Seligman in animal models in which exposure to inescapable, uncontrollable negative events leads to a passive failure to seek escape when control is subsequently possible.

Depressive Attribution Style

A cognitive vulnerability where an individual routinely explains negative life events through causes that are internal (one's own fault), stable (unchangeable over time), and global (generalized to all areas of life).

Behavioral Activation

A therapeutic strategy for major depression that aims to break the maladaptive avoidance cycle by scheduling values-based goals and activities using a structured, stepped-up approach.

Binge Eating Disorder

An eating disorder marked by recurrent episodes of consuming an abnormally large quantity of food within a discrete period ($2\text{ hours}$) paired with a subjective feeling of lack of control and marked distress, occurring on average at least once weekly for $3\text{ months}$ without regular compensatory behaviors.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by recurrent binge episodes coupled with inappropriate compensatory behaviors (purging, fasting, or excessive exercise) occurring on average at least once per week for $3\text{ months}$, typically occurring in individuals within $10\%$ of normal weight.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder defined by persistent restriction of energy intake leading to a significantly low body weight (guideline of $\text{BMI} < 18.5$), an intense fear of gaining weight, and disturbances in how one's body shape or weight is experienced.

Semistarvation Neurosis

A cluster of psychological and physiological symptoms observed in the Minnesota Starvation Study—including depression, severe anxiety, distorted body image, and food preoccupation—resulting from cutting caloric intake by half over $6\text{ months}$ to induce a $25\%$ weight loss.

Dyssomnias

A primary category of sleep-wake disorders involving disturbances in the amount, timing, or quality of sleep, encompassing insomnia, narcolepsy, hypersomnia, and circadian rhythm disorders.

Parasomnias

A class of sleep disorders characterized by abnormal behavioral, physiological, or experiential events occurring during sleep or sleep-wake transitions, including nightmare disorder, sleep terrors, and sleepwalking.

Sleep Efficiency

A quantitative measurement of sleep continuity calculated using the formula $\frac{\text{time sleeping}}{\text{time in bed}} \times 100$.

Triple P Model of Insomnia

An etiological model of insomnia identifying three contributing factors: Predisposition (e.g., neuroticism), Precipitate (e.g., acute stress or medical illness), and Perpetuate (e.g., maladaptive sleep hygiene such as daytime napping or evening alcohol use).

Cataplexy

A sudden episode of bilateral loss of muscle tone lasting seconds to minutes with preserved consciousness, typically triggered by strong emotions and associated with hypocretin (orexin) deficiency in narcolepsy.

Hypnagogic Hallucinations

Vivid, realistic, and often frightening sensory experiences that occur while an individual is falling asleep or initiating sleep.

Hypnopompic Hallucinations

Vivid, dreamlike sensory experiences that occur during the transition from sleep to waking.

Sleep Paralysis

A temporary inability to execute voluntary movements or speak that occurs upon awakening or falling asleep, lasting from several seconds to a few minutes.

Arteriosclerosis

A cardiovascular condition characterized by abnormal thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the arterial walls.

Atherosclerosis

A specific form of vascular disease characterized by the narrowing of the arterial lumen due to the buildup of hardened cholesterol and fibrofatty plaques.

Type A Behavior Pattern

A personality profile marked by extreme time urgency, competitive drive, hostility, anger, and high ambition, initially linked to a twofold increase in the risk of coronary heart disease.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

A retrovirus that infects and progressively depletes $CD4$ cells, weakening the immune system's coordination of defenses against opportunistic pathogens.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

The most advanced clinical stage of HIV infection, diagnosed when immune destruction leaves the body vulnerable to life-threatening infections and specific cancers.

Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)

Pharmacological treatment regimens that inhibit HIV replication and achieve viral suppression, preserving immune function and preventing progression to AIDS without eradicating the virus.