AP Psych Unit 8 - Clinical Psychology

A therapy that aim’s to boost people's self-fulfillment by helping them grow in self-awareness and self-acceptance. Promoting growth, not curing illness, is the therapy focus. Individuals in therapy are referred to as "clients" rather than "patients."

A syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior.

The concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cared, often through treatment in a hospital.

The study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

A psychological disorder marked by extreme inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

Intense fear and avoidance of social situations. (formerly called Social Phobia.)

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next attack.

Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one has felt loss of control and panic.

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation.

A disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both.

A disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

A disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms at least one.

A disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania. (Formerly called Manic-Depressive Disorder).

A hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgement is common.

Compulsive fretting; overthinking our problems and their causes.

A disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished, inappropriate emotional expression.

A group of disorders marked by irrational ideas, distorted perceptions, and a loss of contact with reality.

False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

A false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

(Also called process schizophrenia), it is a form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood. As people age, psychotic episodes last longer and recovery periods shorten.

(Also called reactive schizophrenia), it is a form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age; frequently occurs in response to a traumatic event.

A psychological disorder in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause (formerly called somatoform disorder; see Conversion Disorder and Illness Anxiety Disorder).

A disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person experiences very specific, physical symptoms that are not compatible with recognized medical or neurological conditions. (Also called Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder).

A disorder related to somatic symptom disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease. (Formerly called Hypochondriasis).

Controversial, rare disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. (Formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder).

Inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impede social functioning.

A personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members; may be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist.

An eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight, sometimes accompanied by excessive exercise.

An eating disorder in which a person's binge eating (usually of high-calorie foods) is followed by inappropriate weight-loss promoting behavior, such as vomiting, laxative use, fasting or excessive exercise.

Significant binge-eating episodes, followed by distress, disgust, or guilt, but without the compensatory behavior that marks bulimia nervosa.

Treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth.

Prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology.

An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy.

Sigmund Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believed the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences - and the therapists's interpretations of them - released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight.

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material.

In psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight.

In psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer of the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent).

therapy deriving from the psycho-analytic tradition; views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences seeks to enhance self-insight.

Therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person's awareness of underlying motives and defenses.

A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within an accepting, genuine empathetic environment to facilitate clients' growth. (Also called person-centered therapy).

Empathetic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers' Client-Centered therapy.

a caring accepting nonjudgemental attitude, which Carl Rogers believe would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors.

Behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that that are triggering unwanted behaviors; include exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

Behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imaginary or actual situations) to the things they fear and avoid.

A type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

A counterconditioning technique that treats anxiety through creative electronic stimulations in which people can safely face their greatest fears, such as airplane flying, spiders, or public speaking.

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol).

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats.

Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.

A confrontational cognitive therapy, developed by Albert Ellis, that vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions.

A popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior).

Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, proving benefits from group interaction.

Therapy that treats people in the context of their family system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members.

A procedure for statistically combing the results of many research studies.

Clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and patient characteristics and preferences.

A bond of trust and natural understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem.

The study of the effect of drugs on mind and behavior.

Drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder.

Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

Drugs used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. (Several widely used antidepressant drugs are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors - SSRIs.)

A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity.

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior.

A psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain.

The personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.

Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life growth.