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Flashcards in Conceptualizing Psychopathology Deck (106)
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1
Q

Who was the first Professor of Psychology in Australia?

A

Henry Tasman.

2
Q

Abnormal psychology is commonly defined as the field of psychology that:

A

Aims to understand, explain, and modify abnormal behaviors.

3
Q

What is statistical rarity used to define?

A

Abnormality.

4
Q

Explain statistical rarity.

A

Individuals who possess characteristics that differ from the majority of the population can be seen as abnormal.

5
Q

What is a disadvantage of statistical rarity?

A

Not limited to mental disorders, and can class the gifted as abnormal.

6
Q

Explain deviance or norm violation.

A

A behavior is abnormal if it is deemed socially unacceptable.

7
Q

What is an issue with using norm violation to define abnormality?

A

Oppressing any non-conformist behaviors.

8
Q

What is deviance or norm violation used to define?

A

Abnormality.

9
Q

What is distress used to define?

A

Abnormality.

10
Q

What is used to differentiate abnormal psychology from criminology or forensic psychology?

A

Abnormal behavior causes stress to the person.

11
Q

What does distress allow the individual to do regarding their behaviors?

A

Self-define them as abnormal or not.

12
Q

Give some limitations of using distress as a way to define abnormality. (2)

A

Some individuals cause themselves great personal suffering for socially acceptable reasons, and many people that experience abnormal behaviors do not feel distress.

13
Q

Define maladaptive.

A

Behavior that interferes with a person’s ability to meet the requirements of everyday life.

14
Q

Give the four elements for identifying abnormality.

A

Statistical rarity, deviance or norm violation, distress, and dysfunction.

15
Q

Define clinically significant.

A

The disorder causes substantial impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning.

16
Q

What is a mental disorder according to the DSM?

A

A syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.

17
Q

What are mental disorders usually associated with?

A

Significant distress of disability in social, occupational, or other important activities.

18
Q

Explain Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis.

A

The concept of a mental disorder involves both a factual component and a value component.

19
Q

What is Wakefield’s factual component?

A

Dysfunction.

20
Q

What is Wakefield’s value component?

A

Harmful.

21
Q

What does Wakefield’s factual component specify?

A

There is an internal dysfunction present, where an internal psychological mechanism has failed to carry out its natural function.

22
Q

What does Wakefield’s internal dsyfunction specification allow?

A

Differentiation between mental disorder and social deviation or non-conformance.

23
Q

How does Wakefield conceptualize mental disorders?

A

Between the concept of physical disorder and social deviance.

24
Q

Give some criticisms of Wakefield’s analysis.

A

Difficulty ascertaining the normal evolutionary function of psychological processes and difficulty identifying failure of these processes.

25
Q

Define mental illness.

A

Severe abnormal thoughts, behaviors and feelings caused by a physical illness.

26
Q

Define dementia.

A

A neurological disorder in which a gradual decline of intellectual functioning occurs.

27
Q

What is affect?

A

Experience of feeling or emotion.

28
Q

What was Heinrich Neumann’s view of insanity?

A

It was a single disease that progresses from one major symptom to another over time, with increasingly severe symptoms.

29
Q

Give Heinrich Neumann’s symptoms of insanity.

A

Depression, agitation, confusion, paranoia, and dementia.

30
Q

Define syndrome.

A

A set of symptoms that tend to occur together.

31
Q

Give another name for symptom clusters.

A

Disorders.

32
Q

What is the ultimate goal of psychiatric classification?

A

To describe symptom clusters that have common causes and respond to common treatments.

33
Q

Give Paracelsus’ three classes of mental illness.

A

Vesania, lunacy, and insanity.

34
Q

Explain vesania.

A

Caused by poisons.

35
Q

Explain lunacy.

A

Influenced by the phases of the moon.

36
Q

Explain insanity.

A

A disease caused by heredity.

37
Q

What did Broca identify?

A

An area of the brain damaged in patients with expressive aphasia.

38
Q

What is expressive aphasia?

A

An inability to produce meaningful speech.

39
Q

What did Wernicke identify?

A

Damage in an area of the brain associated with receptive aphasia.

40
Q

What is receptive aphasia?

A

An inability to understand speech.

41
Q

What two mental illnesses did Emil Kraepelin initially uncover?

A

Dementia praecox and manic-depressive disorder.

42
Q

What is electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)?

A

Treatment for mood disorders that involves the induction of a brain seizure by passing electrical current through the patient’s brain while anesthetized.

43
Q

What is psychosurgery?

A

Biological treatment for a psychological disorder in which a neurosurgeon attempts to destroy small areas of the brain though to be involved in producing the symptoms.

44
Q

What is the prefrontal cortex? (4)

A

A region at the front of the brain important for language, emotional expression, planning and production of new ideas, and the mediation of social interactions.

45
Q

What is the biological approach?

A

Theories that explain abnormal behaviors in terms of a biological dysfunction.

46
Q

Give the two main areas that contemporary biological theories focus on.

A

Structural brain abnormalities and neurochemical imbalances.

47
Q

Give two main causes for brain abnormalities and neurochemical imbalances.

A

Genetics and trauma.

48
Q

Explain the psychological approach.

A

Theories that explain abnormality in terms of psychological factors such as disturbed personality, behavior and ways of thinking.

49
Q

What is psychoanalysis?

A

A form of treatment pioneered by Freud that focuses on hidden conflicts and the unconscious.

50
Q

What techniques does psychoanalysis use?

A

Dream analysis and free association.

51
Q

What is psychotherapy?

A

Treatment for abnormality that consists of a therapist and client discussing the client’s symptoms.

52
Q

What is the unconscious.

A

The part of the personality of which the conscious ego is unaware.

53
Q

What is the id?

A

The most primitive part of the unconscious which consists of drives and impulses seeking immediate gratification.

54
Q

Explain libido.

A

Psychical energy within the id.

55
Q

Explain the pleasure principle.

A

The drive to maximize pleasure and minimize pain as quickly as possible.

56
Q

What is the ego?

A

Part of the psyche that channels libido acceptable to the superego and within the constraints of reality.

57
Q

What is the superego?

A

Part of the unconscious that consists of the absolute moral standards internalised from parents and the wider views of society.

58
Q

What is the morality principle?

A

The motivational force of the superego, which drives the individual to act strictly in accordance with internalised moral standards.

59
Q

What are defense mechanisms?

A

Strategies the ego uses to disguise or transform unacceptable, unconscious wishes or impulses.

60
Q

Give some examples of defense mechanisms.

A

Repression, denial, projection, reaction formation, rationalisation, displacement, intellectualisation, regression, and sublimation.

61
Q

Explain repression.

A

Avoiding anxiety by not allowing thoughts to become conscious.

62
Q

Explain denial.

A

Avoiding anxiety by refusing to recognise aspects of reality.

63
Q

Explain projection.

A

Avoiding anxiety by attributing their unacceptable thoughts, emotions or desires onto another.

64
Q

Explain rationalisation.

A

Avoiding anxiety by creating a socially acceptable reason for an action, thought or emotion that has acceptable underlying reasons.

65
Q

Explain reaction formation.

A

Avoiding anxiety by acting in the opposite of their impulses.

66
Q

Explain displacement.

A

Avoiding anxiety by shifting unacceptable impulses onto a substitute.

67
Q

Explain intellectualisation.

A

Avoiding anxiety by creating a logical response.

68
Q

Explain regression.

A

Avoiding anxiety by retreating to an earlier developmental stage.

69
Q

Explain sublimation.

A

Avoiding anxiety by expressing urges in ways that are acceptable to society.

70
Q

Define neurosis.

A

A set of maladaptive symptoms caused by unconscious conflict and its associated anxiety.

71
Q

Define psychosis.

A

A state involving a loss of contact with reality in whihc the individual experiences symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations.

72
Q

What are psychodynamic theories?

A

Theories that focus on the interplay between unconscious psychological processes in determining thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

73
Q

Explain separation-individuation.

A

Newborns have no sense of self separate from their mothers. and so undergo a process of developing a sense of self.

74
Q

What is the behavioral approach?

A

Theories that rely on the principles of learning to explain both normal and abnormal behavior.

75
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

A form of learning in which a neutral stimulus, through its repeated association with a stimulus that naturally elicits a certain response, acquires the ability to produce the same response.

76
Q

What is an unconditioned response?

A

The response that naturally follows when a certain stimulus appears.

77
Q

What is a conditioned response?

A

A learned response that is elicited by a conditioned stimulus following classical conditioning.

78
Q

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

A

A stimulus that naturally elicits a reaction.

79
Q

What is a conditioned stimulus?

A

Previously neutral stimulus, that, when paired with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes sufficient to elicit a response.

80
Q

Who discovered operant conditioning?

A

Thorndike.

81
Q

What is the basis of operant conditioning?

A

Behaviors that are rewarded are likely to repeat, while behaviors that are punished are likely to be avoided.

82
Q

What is aversion therapy?

A

Treatment than involves the pairing of an unpleasant stimulus with a deviant or maladaptive source of pleasure in order to induce an aversive reaction to the formerly pleasurable stimulus.

83
Q

Explain systematic desensitization.

A

A behavioural technique that aims to reduce the client’s anxiety through progressive exposure to feared stimuli paired with the induction of a relaxation response.

84
Q

Bandura was the first to describe and explain the mechanisms of:

A

Modelling.

85
Q

What does modelling infer about the learning process?

A

Learning cannot be explained without referring to internal, mental processes like values, beliefs, thoughts, or expectations.

86
Q

What is the cognitive approach?

A

Theories that focus on dysfunctional ways of thinking as the causes of abnormal behavior.

87
Q

Name two of the first cognitive psychologists.

A

Beck and Ellis.

88
Q

What did Ellis develop?

A

Rational-emotive therapy.

89
Q

What does rational-emotive therapy argue?

A

People do not respond to events themselves, but to their own interpretations of events.

90
Q

In Ellis’ ABC model, what do A B and C represent?

A

A represents the event, B the person’s interpretation of the event, and C is the person’s reactions to the event.

91
Q

How did Ellis explain abnormal behavior?

A

Some individuals hold irrational beliefs that influence their reactions to events in unhelpful ways.

92
Q

Give some examples of cognitive distortions.

A

Black and white thinking, setting unrealistic expectations, selective thinking, converting positives into negatives, over-generalising, exaggerating, catastrophising, personalising, mistaking feelings for facts, and jumping to negative conclusions.

93
Q

What is cognitive restructuring?

A

The client learns to identify, challenge, and replace their dysfunctional beliefs with more realistic of helpful beliefs.

94
Q

What is the humanistic approach?

A

Theories based on the view that the natural tendency of humans is towards growth and self-actualisation.

95
Q

According to the humanistic approach, when does abnormality arise?

A

As a result of societal pressures to conform to that clash with a person’s self-actualisation process.

96
Q

What is unconditional positive regard?

A

Part of person-centered therapy, where the therapist expresses full acceptance of the client’s feelings and behaviors without judgement.

97
Q

Give two influential humanistic psychologists.

A

Maslow and Rogers.

98
Q

What are conditions of worth?

A

Standards of behavior imposed on an individual by others that must be met in order to obtain their approval.

99
Q

What does psychopathology refer to?

A

The study of psychological abnormality or manifestations of psychological abnormality.

100
Q

Who developed person-centered therapy?

A

Carl Rogers.

101
Q

Explain person-centered therapy.

A

Consists of an equal relationship between the therapist and client, and in which the client receives unconditional positive regard and empathy from the therapist in order to attain self-actualisation.

102
Q

What did Rogers believe was the core of all psychopathology?

A

Lack of unconditional positive regard.

103
Q

According to Rogers, what causes anxiety or distress?

A

Incongruity between one’s actual and perceived selves.

104
Q

What are some limitations of the humanistic perspective?

A

Concepts are difficult to measure or falsify.

105
Q

What is the biopsychosocial approach?

A

The view that biological, psychological and social factors contribute to the development of abnormality.

106
Q

Explain the Diathesis-Stress model.

A

The view that abnormality is caused by the combination of a vulnerability or predisposition (the diathesis) and life events (the stressor).