Abnormal Psych (405) exam 1

prof. henriques

Statistically unusual behavior

Behavior that occurs infrequently

Socially unacceptable behavior

Behavior that is considered unacceptable within a given culture

Dysfunctional behavior

Behavior that is ineffective in meeting one's goals

harmful dysfunction employs 2 criteria

1: harm which is a societal judgment that the behavior is undesirable.

2: the system is failing to perform the function...

Personally distressing behavior

Behavior or feelings that are uncomfortable or upsetting to the person experiencing them

4 components of abnormal behavior

1. Statistically unusual behavior
2. Socially Unacceptable Behavior
3. Dysfunctional Behavior
4. Personally Destressing behavior

5 components that define metal illness according to DSM 5

1. The disorder occurs within the individual.


2. involves clinically significant difficulties in thinking, feeling, or behaving.
3. It involves dysfunction in processes that support mental functioning.
4. It is not a culturally specific reaction to an event (e.g., death of a loved one).
5. It is not primarily a result of social deviance or conflict with society

4 Disadvantages of Diagnoses

1. Loss of information
2. stereotype
3. stigma
4. effect on self-concept

4 Advantages of Diagnoses

1. facilitate communication
2. emphasize commonalities in those with disorder & guide treatment
3. assist in making progress
4. aid in conceptualization of disorders
5. \

5 stages of Freud's psychosexual theory

1. oral (birth to 2)
2. anal (2 to 3 years)
3. phallic (3 to 6)
4. latency (7 to puberty)
5. genital (puberty on)

Trust v.s Mistrust

Age Birth to 2. Developing basic trust in self and other's through feeding and caretaking

Autonomy vs. Shame & doubt

1-3. Gaining a sense of competence through success in toileting and mastering environment

Initiative vs. Guilt

3-6. Gaining Parental approval for initiative rather than guilt over inadequacy

Industry vs. Inferiority

5-12. Curiosity and eagerness to learn leads to a sense of competence or inadequacy

Idenitity vs. Role confusion

11-20. Identity crisis is a struggle to answer question "who am I"

Intimacy vs. self-absorption

18-30. Aloneness of young adult resolved by forming friendships and a lasting intimate relationship

Generativity vs. Stagnation

25-79.Success in work but especially in raising the next generation or failure to be productive.

Integrity vs. Despair

65 on. Satisfaction with the life one lived rather than despair over lost opportunities.

Freud is to \__________ as Erikson is to \_________

psychosexual; psychosocial

Difference between Freud & Erikson's theories

Freud's ends in Early Adulthood while Erikson expands his until late life. More differences after ages 3-6.

How are Freud's & Eriksons theories similar?

-both psychoanalytic theories on human development.

-realize importance of unconscious on development

-separate their theories into specific stages that follow similar age patterns.

What is a Defense Mechanism?

When the ego creates strategies to protect itself from anxiety (anxiety happens when Ego can't balance the Id and Super Ego).

Give 3 examples of Defense Mechanisms

1. Denial
2. repression
3. projection

What is the defense mechanism denail?

Blocking external events from awareness. If a situation is too much to handle, the person refuses to experience it

What is the defense mechanism repression?

Unconcious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious

What is the defense mechanism projection?

Individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and motives to another person.

Id (Primary functions)

Unconscious, pleasure principle, immediate gratification, biological urges

Ego (Primary functions)

Primarily Conscious, reality principle (attempt to gratify Id & not provoke Super Ego)

Super Ego (primary functions)

Conscience, moral standards

Genotype vs phenotype

The genotype is the set of genes in our DNA which is responsible for a particular trait. The phenotype is the physical expression, or characteristics, of that trait.

Diathesis-stress model

The notion that hypothetically influenced diathesis creates a vulnerability that leads to disorder only if the individual experiences stressors that activate the vulnerability

Advantages of case studies

•Offer tentative support for a theory

•May challenge support for a theory's assumptions

•May show value of a new assessment or therapy technique

•May offer opportunity to study unusual (rare) problem

Disadvantages of case studies

\-Observers are biased

\-Data collection relies on subjective evidence

\-May provide little basis for generalization (low external validity)

Incidence

NEW cases

Prevalence

Total cases

Epidemiological Study

Study of frequency & distribution of disorders. Large samples very clear operational definitions. No control or manipulation (like case studies).

4 key ingredients for experiment

1. Controlled setting
2. random assignment
3. independent variable manipulated
4. measure effects of treatment

Behaviorism

Relieving symptomatic behavior by suppressing or replacing maladaptive behaviors

Systematic desensitization

Starts with minimal anxiety producing condition and gradually gets to worst fear.

Flooding

Anxiety-eliciting therapeutic technique involving having a client repeatedly experience the actual internal or external stimuli that had been identified as producing anxiety reactions.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement you reward a behavior after it happens

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement you stop an aversive stimuli when something good happens.

Exposure

a type of therapy used to treat anxiety disorders that involves exposing the patient to the feared object or context without any danger in order to overcome the anxiety.

Extinction

Gradual disappearance of a conditioned response when it is no longer enforced

Free Association

Method for probing the unconscious by having patients talk freely about themselves, their feelings, and their motives

Structured Interview

Follow a predetermined set of questions. More reliable than unstructured but may take longer to administer with some tangential questions.

Unstructured Interview

Typically subjective and do not follow predetermined set of questions. Important criteria for DSM 5 diagnosis may be skipped, responses are difficult to quantify, or compare. Up-side may be more sensitive to client's needs/problems, follow-up questions may provide more info.

Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS)

Provides a structured and quantifiable format for rating clinical symptoms such as overconcern with physical symptoms, anxiety, emotional withdrawal, guilt, hostility, suspiciousness, and unusual thought patterns.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

taps a subject's unconscious to reveal repressed aspects of personality, motives and needs for achievement, power and intimacy, and problem-solving abilities. Popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject is asked to tell a story. The subject is asked to tell as dramatic a story as they can for each picture presented

Objective Personality Tests

structured (typically use questionnaires, self-report inventories, or rating scales). Enhanced reliablity

NEO-PI

Objective. Provides info on the major dimensions in personality. Widely used in evaluating personality factors in the normal-range population.

MCMI-III (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory)

Objective. Developed to evaluate the underlying personality dimensions among clients in psychological treatment or before therapy.

MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)

over 500 true or false items. Has 10 clinical scales (Empirical keying). Used in several ways to evaluate patient's personality characteristics and clinical problems. diagnostic standard, but can be difficult or long test to take

Advantages of Objective personality tests

cost effective, highly reliable, and objective, can be scored/interpreted by computer.

Disadvantages of Objective personality test

Considered too mechanistic to portray complexity of human beings, illiterate or confused patients can't take test, relies on compliance of person (can try to lie)

Rorschach Inkblot test

Use of 10 inkblot pictures to which a subject responds with associations that come to mind. Analysis of these responses enables a clinician to infer personality characteristics.

Beck Depression Inventory

21-item, self-report rating inventory that measures characteristic attitudes and symptoms of depression

ACIPS (The Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale)

a measure designed to assess hedonic capacity for social and interpersonal pleasure. A brief, self-report measure of hedonic capacity for social interaction and interpersonal engagement in both nonclinical and clinical samples

ABAB Design

Experimental design, often involves one subject, whein a baseline period (A) is followed by a treatment (B). To confirm that the treatment resulted in a change in behavior, the treatment is then withdrawn (A) and reinstated (B).

Analogue Studies

Studies where a researcher attempts to imitate the conditions hypothesized as leading to abnormality

Comorbidity

Occurrence of two or more identified disorders in the same person.

External validity

The extent to which the findings from a study are relevant to other populations, contexts, or times.

Internal Validity

Extent to which a study is free of confounds, is methodologically sound, and allows the researcher to have confidence in the findings.

Dorothea Dix

A leader of the asylum (mental hospital movement) during the 1830s and Civil War period.

John Watson

an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism

B.F. Skinner

one of the most influential of American psychologists. A behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning \-- the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again.

Classical Conditioning

Basic form of learning in which a neutral stimulus is paired repeatedly with an unconditioned stimulus(US) that naturally elicits an unconditioned response (UR). After repeated pairings the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that elicits a conditioned response (CR).

Operant Conditioning

the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again

Genotype environment correlation

Genotypic vulnerability that can shape a child's environmental experiences

Genotype-environment interaction

Differential sensitivity or susceptibility to their environments by people who have different genotypes.

Schema

Underlying representation of knowledge that guides current processing of info and often leads to distortions in attention, memory, and comprehension.

Attribution

Process of assigning causes to things that happen

Synapse

Site of communication form the axon of one neuron to the dendrites or cell body of another neuron- a tiny filled space between neurons.

Neurotransmitter

Chemical substance that is released into a synapse by a presynaptic neuron and that transmits nerve impulses from one neuron to another.

Axon

The function of the axon is to transmit information to different neurons, muscles and glands. The long skinny connection between cells.

Dendrite

a short branched extension of a nerve cell, along which impulses received from other cells at synapses are transmitted to the cell body.

Dopamine

Neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them. Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson's Disease. Schizophrenia & addictive disorders

Norepinephrine

Norepinephrine is a chemical released from the sympathetic nervous system in response to stress

GABA

A is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means that it weakens or slows down signals. Because of its inhibitory function, GABA plays an important role in anxiety.

Serotonin

Neurotransmitter thought to be involved in a wide range of psychopathological conditions. regulate mood, appetite, sleep, memory and learning, also involved in SSRIs. Anxiety/depression/suicide

Therapeutic Alliance

The therapeutic relationship (also therapeutic alliance, the helping alliance, or the working alliance) refers to the relationship between a healthcare professional and a client (or patient). It is the means by which a therapist and a client hope to engage with each other, and effect beneficial change in the client.

Randomized Clinical Trial

A study in which the participants are assigned by chance to separate groups that compare different treatments; neither the researchers nor the participants can choose which group. Using chance to assign people to groups means that the groups will be similar and that the treatments they receive can be compared objectively. At the time of the trial, it is not known which treatment is best.

Antabuse

Drug used in treatment of alcoholism (Makes you nauseous when you drink alc)

Token Economy

Reinforcement techniques often used in hospital or institutional settings where patients are rewarded for socially constructive behaviors with tokens that can be exchanged for good things.

Transference

In psychodynamic therapy, a process whereby clients project onto the therapist attitudes and feelings that they have had for a parent or others close to them

Manifest Content

In psychoanalytic theory, the apparent (obvious) meaning of a dream; masks the latent or hidden content

Latent content

The repressed actual motives of a dream in psychoanalytic theory, that are seeking expression but are so painful or unacceptable they are disguised by manifest content.

Behavioral Activation

Treatment for depression in which the patient and the therapist work together to help the patient find ways to become more active and engage with life.

Contingency Management

most-widely used in the field of substance abuse, often implemented as part of clinical behavior analysis. CM refers to the application of the three-term contingency (or operant conditioning), which uses stimulus control and positive reinforcement to change behavior.

Glutamate

excitatory neurotransmitter implicated in schizophrenia

what type of defense mechanism is this: Sally recently lost her mom in a scary accident, but she does not want to address it or think about it so she does everything she can to avoid think about.

denial

what type of DF is this: Megan one day got humiliated by her entire lecture hall in hopes of completely forgetting about she shoves it down whenever she remembers it

repression

what type of DF is this: Sam is super mad about her grade in her english class, but instead of trying to understand what she could’ve done wrong she blames it on the fact that the teacher does not like her.

projection

what type of DF is this: Ally had a long hard day teaching and instead of working through her anger she gets into a fight with her husband

displacement

What type of DF is this: after a recent earthquake that really scared ben he has resorted to sleeping with his favorite childhood stuffed animal

regression

what type of DF is this: shelly likes to smoke every night before bed, her friends call her out but she quickly fights back and makes it seem less abnormal

rationalization

what type of DF: Nicki just lost her job so she spends all day long making a spreadsheet of different types of jobs she could apply for.

Intellectualization