PSY 280: Psychopathology

Psychopathology

scientific study of mental difficulties or disorders

Four D’s

Deviance: Different, extreme, bizarre

Distressing: Unpleasant or unsettling

Dysfunctional: Interfering w/ a person’s ability to live daily life

Dangerous

Norms

A society’s stated and unstated rules for proper conduct.

Culture

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

Eccentricities

Unusual patterns in which people have no right to interfere (not psychopathological)

Cultural humility

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

Treatment/therapy

procedure designed to change pathological behavior into less disturbed, 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 early Greeks and Romans, bodily chemicals that influence mental and physical functioning.

• yellow bile

• black bile

• blood

• phlegm

Asylums

Institutions with purpose of caring for mentally ill

Somatogenic perspective

The view that psychopathology has physical causes.

Psychogenic perspective

The view that the chief causes of psychopathology are psychological.

Psychotropic medications

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

Positive Psychology

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

Multicultural psychology

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

intersectionality

A multicultural framework that examines how each individual’s memberships in multiple cultural groups and social identities-combine to shape their particular experiences, opportunities, outlook, and functioning.

Managed care programs

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.