| Term | Definition |
|---|
| American Psychiatric Association | APA. The largest professional association of psychologists in the world. It is divided into dozens of divisions and focuses on counseling and therapy rather than on purely scientific pursuits, as does the APS(American Psychological Society). |
| Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) | a book published by the APA that lists the criteria of mental illnesses. |
| Psychotic disorder | severe problems in which a person experiences perceptions and thoughts that are not real, that are out of touch with reality. Schizophrenia is the most common type. |
| Schizophrenia | Contrary to popular view, this is not multiple personality. Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder in which a person loses touch with reality and lives in a mental world full of confusion and falsity. |
| Hallucination | A false perception experiences by people with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. |
| Delusion | False beliefs that are held despite clear evidence to the contrary. |
| Clanging | a symptom of schizophrenia in which a person talks in rhymes. |
| Neologism | any word made up by a person with schizophrenia. |
| Catatonia | a symptom of schizophrenia that involves body movements. Sometimes a sufferer will stand perfectly still for hours and then suddenly will run wild. |
| Positive symptoms | Symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations and delusions that we want to reduce, as opposed to negative symptoms. |
| Negative symptoms | Symptoms of schizophrenia such as social withdrawal, that are absent and that we want to increase, as opposed to positive symptoms. |
| Social withdrawal | The most common negative symptom of schizophrenia. Sufferers stay away from other people and keep to themselves. |
| Flat or blunted affect | A negative symptom of schizophrenia. Sufferers don’t respond emotionally as much as they should. Emotional reactions are stunted and faces are mask-like. |
| Paranoid schizophrenia | Hallucinations and delusions are the most prominent feature. Primary symptoms are delusions of persecution and/or grandiosity. |
| Delusions of persecution | irrationally believing that other are trying to harm you. |
| Delusion of grandiosity | the belief that someone is out to harm you because of some great power or knowledge that you possess. |
| Disorganized type | disorganized speech and behavior. When the behavior is childlike it is called hebephrenia, and the prognosis is often worse. |
| Catatonic type | essential features include motor immobility, sometimes excessive motor activity, extreme negativism, mutism, or peculiarities of voluntary movement. |
| Waxy flexibility | a symptom of catatonic schizophrenia. While in hours long trances of non-movement, sufferers’ bodies can be repositioned, as if made of wax. |
| Undifferentiated type | individuals do not meet qualifications of the other three subtypes. Usually a mix of above symptoms. Common diagnosis. |
| Residual type | suitable for individuals with a prior episode of schizophrenia who are currently not experiencing any severe positive symptoms. The person still experiences negative symptoms such as flat affect, poverty of speech, and social withdrawal. |
| Lifetime incidence | the lifetime incidence of schizophrenia is 1%, meaning that in one’s lifetime, the odds of being diagnosed with schizophrenia are about 1%. 1 in 100 people will be diagnosed with it. |
| Neuroleptic drugs | the most common and effective treatments for schizophrenia. They block dopamine receptors, thereby reducing the amount of dopamine that can get from cell to cell. Typically results in a reduction of positive symptoms. Not a cure to schizophrenia. Doesn’t affect negative symptoms. |
| Manic-depressive disorders | Mood disorders. When moods get so high or so low for long periods of time and interfere with people’s lives. |
| Bipolar disorder | People who experience both low moods (depression) and high moods (mania) at various times. |
| Hypomania | mild manic episode. |
| Clinical depression | People who experience 5 of the 9 symptoms of depressions as listed in the DSM over a period of 2 weeks. Aka Major Depression. |
| Dsythymia | When 2 of the 9 symptoms of depression as listed in the DSM persist for 2 years. |
| Unipolar | Depressive Disorders. Alternating between normal and low moods, with no manic phases. |
| Antidepressants | Most common treatment for depression. Improvement typically occurs in 60%-80% of patients. |
| Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | controversial treatment that has had some success with mood disorders. Relatively safe and effective. |
| Generalized anxiety disorder | GAD: when a person complains of experiencing anxiety at all times. Nothing brings it on. About 5% of the population has it, 2/3s of these are women. |
| Panic disorder | PD: term used when a person has attacks of extreme anxiety that seem to come out of nowhere. May feel like a heart attack. |
| Panic attack | unpleasant recurrent experiences one has when ones has a Psychological Disorder. Happens when an overly sensitive portion of the brain triggers the physiological response to danger. |
| Phobia | An irrational fear of something that is not harmful. |
| Specific phobia | a fear of a particular thing such as snakes, spiders, small spcaes, heights, etc. |
| Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) | Involves 2 things, the obsession and the compulsion. |
| Obsession | is an idea or thought that intrudes uncontrollably into a person’s mind. The thought is something horrible that causes a person great anxiety. |
| Compulsion | behavior (not thoughts) that people feel they must perform lest something horrible happen. A common once is excessive hand washing. Ritualistic and perfectionist behavior is common. |
| Somatoform disorders | not consciously controlled or real physical problem in the patient’s body, but rather unconscious brain problems in which a person’s brain leads them to believe that there is something wrong with his or her body. |
| Conversion disorder | replaced the term hysteria, a reference to the idea that a person’s psychological problems have been converted into simulated physical problems. |
| Somatization disorder | when a person has many physical complaints (12 or more) without organic causes for them and these complaints persist for years. |
| Hypochondriasis | best known of the somatoform disorders. Patients show an intense fear and worry and developing many varied health problems. |
| Pain disorder | Pain comes from the mind and has no organic origin in the body. |
| Body dysmorphic disorder | people complain that they are extremely ugly and repugnant to others. Preoccupied with their appearance and believe that one of their physical characteristics is excessively unattractive. |
| Dissociative disorders | a group of disorders in which people experience a dissociation, a split or break, in the conscious awareness or identity. |
| Dissociative fugue | (fugue means flight) a person with dissociative fugue might suddenly and unexpectedly move to another city and mentally block out his or her past-in fact, they might even assume a new identity. |
| Multiple personality disorder | the most interesting, rare and mysterious form of dissociative disorders. A person’s identity suddenly shifts from one personality to another. APA calls it Dissociative Identity Disorder. |
| Dissociative identity disorder | the APA’s term for multiple personality disorder or “split personality.” |
| Depersonalization disorder | A type of dissociative disorder where a person reports feelings of detachment or estrangement from himself or herself. |
| Alzheimer’s disease | The most common of the dementia diseases, affects about 4 million people in the US. Normally diagnosed on the basis of a patients symptoms (cognitive loss), but can also be detected by PET scans. Caused by a buildup of proteins that damage brain cells and cause problems with memory. |
| Plaques | brain cell clumps seen in Alzheimer’s disease and caused by the buildup of amyloid protein. |
| Paraphilia | a sexual disorder in which a person an unusual way of achieving sexual gratification. |
| Gender identity disorder | when a person’s biological sexual characteristics do not match the person’s mental idea of his or her gender. |
| Comorbidity | the condition when psychological disorders occur together. Common with eating disorders overlapping with OCD or Depression. |
| Personality disorders | Ingrained development problems that are relatively lifelong, inflexible, and enduring. There are 3 clusters: 1) odd, eccentrics 2) dramatic, erratic, emotional 3) anxious, nervous, fearful. People typically deny having them, cause problems in the lives of people they love. |
| Sigmund Freud:. | 1856-1939, psychiatrist |
| Psychoanalysis | Freud’s approach to therapy that involved various techniques that analyze what was going on inside a patient’s unconscious and then to aid the patient in becoming aware of those unconscious elements. |
| Psychotherapies | various treatments for psychological disorders. |
| Neuroleptic drugs | used to treat psychoses, particularly schizophrenia. Blocks chemical receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. |
| Tardive dyskinesia | a side effect of commonly used neuroleptic drugs in which a person’s body writhes and twitches, eyes blink, lips smack, and face, mouth, and limbs move uncontrollably. |
| Antidepressants | medicines that increase the activity of certain brain neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine; used in he treatment of depression and other disorders. |
| Serotonin | one of the most common neurotransmitters in the brain; implicated in mood disorders. |
| Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) | a category of antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, that decrease the reuptake process hereby increasing the activity of serotonin. |
| Lithium | a naturally occurring element that has good success in the treatment of bipolar disorder. |
| Antianxiety drugs | minor tranquilizers. Medicines that slow down the nervous system. |
| Benzodiazepines | a subtype of antianxiety drugs that includes valium. Can cause drowsiness or death if taken with alcohol and users can develop tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal symptoms. |
| Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) | commonly called shock treatment. A treatment for mood disorders that uses electrical current to cause a brain seizure. |
| Psychodynamic | The grouping of therapies developed by Freud that is meant to help a person become aware of unconscious conflicts and resolve them. |
| Talk therapies | goal is to help patients gain insight into the causes and dynamics of their disorders. |
| Dream interpretation | what Freud called the “royal road to the unconscious” because he thought dreams are the best way to find out about a patient’s unconscious mind. |
| Projective | a personality test in which the test taker can give any possible answer, as opposed to a structured test. |
| Word association | a projective technique developed by Carl Jung in which the patient quickly responds to words in the hopes that clues to the unconscious will be blurted out before they can be prevented. |
| Inkblot test | another projective assessment tool in which patients rapidly respond to ink blots. |
| Analysis of resistance | a therapist assumes that if a patient resists talking about something, it is because that idea, thought, or feeling is being held in the unconscious. |
| Analysis of transference | psychoanalysts believe that a patient will transfer some of the feelings that he has for significant people in his life to the therapist. |
| Humanistic psychology | rooted in the belief that psychological disorders are sometimes caused by disturbances in a person’s self-concept and their drive towards self-actualization. |
| Abraham Maslow | a founding father of humanistic psychology. |
| Self-concept | our subjective feelings and beliefs about ourselves, the basis of the personality theory of Carl Rogers. |
| Self-actualization | the highest human motivation, according to humanistic psychology. The process of self-fulfillment, of finding our true inner self, of becoming true to our inner identity. |
| Client-centered therapy | A major part of humanistic therapy in which the therapy focuses on the client (not called “patient” which implies medical illness). |
| Unconditional positive regard | an attitude of respect and positive feelings for the client regardless of the client’s behavior or personality. |
| Reflection | The therapist repeats back what the client said so the client can consider what he or she said, contemplating its truth and value to him or her. |
| Nondirective | the therapist does not give directions to the client. |
| Existential therapy | a variation of humanistic therapy that attempts to help people who are struggling with philosophical ideas about existence. |
| Behavior therapies | therapies that focus on changing observable behavior. |
| Systematic desensitization | a behavior therapy that is used in the treatment of phobias and other similar disorders. |
| Operant conditioning therapies | uses reinforcement to change behaviors. |
| Cognitive therapies | centered on the assumption that many psychological disorders are influenced by a patient’s perceptions, illogical reasoning, irrational beliefs, and other inaccurate cognitive functions. |
| Albert Ellis | believed emotional distress is caused by perception. |
| Aaron Beck | developed a newer form of cognitive therapy called Cognitive Behavior Therapy. |
| Cognitive restructuring | the focus of cognitive behavior therapy. |
Combine with other sets
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