Upgrade to remove ads
Only $35.99/year

Psychological Disorders

Terms in this set (61)

Abnormal Behavior
behavior that is personally distressing, dysfunctional, and/or so culturally deviant that other people might judge it to be inappropriate or maladaptive
Vulnerability-stress model
each of us has some degree of vulnerability for developing psychological disorders, given sufficient stress
Anxiety
the state of tension and apprehension that is a natural response to perceived threat
Anxiety Disorders
the frequency and intensity of anxiety responses are out of proportion to the situations that trigger them, and the anxiety interferes with daily life
Phobias
strong and irrational fears of certain objects or situations
Agoraphobia
a fear of open or public places from which escape would be difficult
Social phobias
excessive fear of situations in which the person might be evaluated and possibly harassed
Specific phobias
such as fear of dogs, snakes, spiders, airplanes, elevators, enclosed spaces, water, injections, or germs
Generalized anxiety disorder
chronic (ongoing) state of diffuse, or free-floating, anxiety that is not attached to specific situations or objects
Panic disorder
occur suddenly and unpredictably, and they are much more intense
Obsessions
repetitive and unwelcome thoughts, images, or impulses that invade consiousness, are often abhorrent to the person, and are very difficult to dismiss or control
Compulsions
repetitive behavioral responses that can be resisted only with great difficulty, function to reduce the anxiety associated with the intrusive thoughts
PTSD
severe anxiety disorder that can occur in people who have been exposed to traumatic life events (anxiety, arousal, distress, relives the trauma, numb and avoids stimuli, survivor guilt)
Neurotic anxiety
occurs when unacceptable impulses threaten to overwhelm the ego's defenses and explode into consciousness or action
Safety signal
a place where the person is unlikely to experience a panic attack
Culture-bound disorders
occur only in certain locales
Somatoform disorders
involve physical complaints or disabilities that suggest a medical problem but that have no known biological cause and are not produced voluntarily by the person
Hypochondriasis
people become unduly alarmed about any physical symptom they detect and are convinced that they have or are about to have a serious illness
Pain disorder
experience intense pain that is either out of proportion to whatever medical condition they might have or for which no physical basis can be found
Psychophysical disorders
psychological factors cause or contribute to a real medical condition, such as migraines, asthma, hypertension, or cardiac problems
Conversion disorder
serious neurological symptoms, such as paralysis, loss of sensation, or blindness, suddenly occur
la belle indifference
a strange lack of concern about their symptoms and their implications
glove anesthesia
in which a person loses all sensation below the wrist
Dissociative disorders
involve a break-down of normal personality integration, resulting in significant alterations in memory or identity
psychogenic amnesia
a person responds to a stressful event with extensive but selective memory loss
psychogenic fugue
a person loses all sense of personal identity, gives up his or her customary life, wanders to a new faraway location, and establishes a new identity (ends when the person suddenly recovers original identity and "wakes up", mystified and distressed at being in a strange place under strange circumstances)
dissociative identity disorder (DID)
two or more separate personalities coexist in the same person (multiple personality disorder)
with the primary personality as the host and the others as alters
trauma-dissociation theory
the development of new personalities occur in response to severe stress
mood disorder
include depression and mania (high comorbidity (co-occurence) involving anxiety and mood disorders)
major depression
an intense depressed state that leaves them unable to function effectively in their lives
dysthymia
a less intense form of depression that has less dramatic effects on personal and occupational functioning
bipolar disorder
depression alternates with periods of mania
mania
a state of highly excited mood and behavior that is quite the opposite of depression (mood is euphoric and grandiose)
depressive cognitive triad
involves negative thoughts concerning the world, oneself, and the future
depressive attributional pattern
attributing successes or other positive events or factors outside the self while attributing negative outcomes to personal factors
learned helplessness theory
holds that depression occurs when people expect that bad events will occur and that there is nothing they can do to prevent them or cope with them
suicide
willful taking of one's own life (parasuicide: attempts that do not end in death)
schizophrenia
severe disturbances in thinking, speech, perception, emotion, and behavior (in the family of psychotic disorders, all of which involve some loss of contact with reality, bizarre behavior and experiences)
delusions
false beliefs that are sustained in the face of evidence that normally would be sufficient to destroy them, persecution/grandeur
hallucinations
false perceptions that have a compelling sense of reality (auditory)
paranoid schizophrenia
whose most prominent features are delusions of persecution, in which people believe that others mean to harm them, and delusions of grandeur in which they believe that they are enormously important
disorganized schizophrenia
whose central features are confusion and incoherence, together with severe deterioration of adaptive behavior, such as personal hygiene, social skills, and self-care
catatonic schizophrenia
characterized by striking motor disturbances ranging from muscular rigidity to random or repetitive movements (wavy flexibility: limbs are molded and can be held for hours)
undifferentiated schizophrenia
assigned to people who exhibit some of the symptoms and though disorders of the above categories but who do not have enough of the specific category to be diagnosed
positive symptoms
bizarre behaviors such as delusions, hallucinations, and distorted speech and thinking
negative symptoms
an absence of normal reactions, such as lack of emotional expression, loss of motivation, and an absence of speech
dopamine hypothesis
the symptoms of schizophrenia are produced by overactivity of the dopamine system in areas of the brain that regulate emotional expression, motivated behavior, and cognitive functioning
regression
a person retreats an earlier and more secure stage of psychosocial development in the face of overwhelming anxiety
social causation hypothesis
attributes the higher prevalence of schizophrenia to the higher levels of stress that low income people experience
social drift hypothesis
proposes that as people develop schizophrenia, their personal and occupational functioning deteriorates so that they drift down the socioeconomic ladder into poverty and migrate to economically depressed urban environments
personality disorders
exhibit stable, ingrained, inflexible, and maladaptive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving
antisocial personality disorder
seem to lack a conscience; they exhibit little anxiety and guilt and tend to be impulsive and unable to delay gratification of their needs
borderline personality disorder
refers to a collection of symptoms characterized primarily by serious instability in behavior, emotion, identity, and interpersonal relationship
emotional dysregulation
an inability to control negative emotions in response to stressful life events, many caused by BPD themselves
splitting
the failure to integrate positive and negative aspects of another's behavior into a coherent whole
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
problems may take the form of inattention hyperactivity/impulsivity, or a combination
autistic disorder
long-term disorder characterized by extreme unresponsiveness to others, poor communication skills, and highly repetitive and rigid behavior patterns
reliability
clinicians using the system should show high levels of agreement in their diagnostic decisions
validity
the diagnostic categories should accurately capture the essential features of the various disorders
competency
refers to a defendant's state of mind at the time of the judicial hearing
insanity
refers to the presumed state of mind of the defendant at the time the crime was committed
Students also viewed