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Abnormal Psych
review for abnormal psychology final
116
Psychology
Undergraduate 3
12/12/2009

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Term
abnormal behavior
Definition
patterns of thouht, emotion, and actions that are devient, unexpected, or away from teh standard based on statistical, social- cultural, and/or functional standards
Term
abnormal psychology
Definition
scientific study of abnormal behavior in order to describe, predict, explain, and ultimatly change abnormal patterns of functioning
Term
acute stress disorder
Definition
an anxiety disorder in which fear and related symptoms are experienced soon after a traumatic event, often including amnesia about the event, emotional numbing, and derealization, and lasting les than a month. many later develop PTSD
Term
addiction
Definition
physical dependence on a substance arked by tolerance, withdrawal symptoms during abstinence, or both
Term
affect
Definition
a subjective feeling of emotion or mood often accompanied by bodily expressions noticeable to others
Term
age of onset
Definition
persons age when he or she develops or exhibits symptoms of a disorder
Term
agnosia
Definition
inability to recognize and name objects; may be a symptom of demetia or other brain disorders
Term
agoraphobia
Definition
anxiety about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult or help unavailable if panic symptoms were to occur
Term
alogia
Definition
deficiency in the amount or content of speech, a disturbance often seen in people with schizophrenia, AKA poverty of speech
Term
alternate personalities
Definition
in dissociative identity disorder, the additional identities along with the host identity. also known as subpersonalities
Term
american law institute
Definition
a legal test for insanity that holds a person to be insane at the time of committing a crime, if during criminal conduct, the individual could not judge right from wrong or control his or her behavior as required by law
Term
amnestic disorders
Definition
organic disorders in which the primary symptom is memory loss
Term
anhedonia
Definition
inability to experience pleasure, associated with some mood and schizophrenic disorders
Term
antisocial personality disorder
Definition
a personality disorder marked by pevasive pattern of disregard for an violation of the rights of others. deceitful,unremorseful, manipulative, lacks anxiety and guilt
Term
anxiety disorders
Definition
a varied group of disorders that all have anxiety, fear or tension as an essential feature. includes specific phobias, social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and PTSD
Term
aphasia
Definition
impairment or loss of language skills resulting from brain damage cause by stroke, alzheimers, or other illness or trauma
Term
apraxia
Definition
loss of motor activities; one of signs of dementia
Term
aspergers disorder
Definition
a pervasive developmental disorder in which individuals display profound social impairment and restricted or unusual behavior, but without language delays seen in autism
Term
attributional style
Definition
relatively consistent explanations a person forms about why personal stressors or other negative life events occur, taking the form of internal vs external, stable vs unstable, and global vs. specific
Term
autistic disorder
Definition
pervasive developmental disorder characterized by significant impairment in social interactions, extreme unresponsiveness to others, poor communication skills, and highly repetitive and rigid behavior
Term
avoidant personality disorder
Definition
a personality disorder featuring a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extremely sensitive to criticism
Term
avolition
Definition
symptom of schizophrenia marked by apathy, and an inability to initiate or complete important activities
Term
behavior therapy
Definition
a group of therapy methods based on the brincipals of behavioral and cognitive science as well as principles of learning as applied to clinical problems. it considers specific behaviors rather than inferred internal factors as targets for change. AKA behavior modification
Term
behavioral medicine
Definition
interdisciplinary approach applying behavioral science to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of medical problems
Term
behaviorism
Definition
view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior, including dysfunction, without reference to mental processes
Term
biological paradigm
Definition
explanation of psychological dysfunction that primarily emphasizes biological process in the brain or illness as the cause
Term
biopsychosocial model
Definition
model that psychological disorders are not caused by one or two factors in a linear way; rather they are a product of a continual interaction of a number of biological, psychological, and social factors
Term
bipolar disorder 1
Definition
Mood disorder characterized by the alternation of major depressive episodes with full manic episodes
Term
bipolar disorder 2
Definition
Mood disorder characterized by the alternation of major depressive episodes with hypomanic (not full manic)
episodes.
Term
body dysthymic disorder
Definition
A somatoform disorder marked by preoccupation with an imagined or exaggerated defect in appearance, for
example, facial blemishes, size or shape of nose or ears.
Term
borderline personality disorder
Definition
A personality disorder involving a pervasive pattern of erratic moods, unstable self-image and relationships,
cannot stand to be alone; intense anger, depression, and extremely impulsive behavior, including self-mutilation.
Term
brief psychotic disorder
Definition
Psychotic disorder involving delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech and behavior, that appear
suddenly after a very stressful event and last anywhere from a few hours to 1 month.
Term
anorexia nervosa, binge eating type
Definition
A variation of anorexia in which the individual turns to bingeing and then goes on to vomiting or other purging as
a way of keeping weight at very low levels.
Term
catatonia
Definition
A pattern of extreme psychomotor symptoms sometimes found in schizophrenia involving immobility, posturing,
or excited agitation.
Term
categorical classification
Definition
A system of placing disorders in categories with the assumption that each disorder is clearly different from every
other disorder (an "all-or-none" approach). Based on the medical model in which every diagnosis has a distinct
set of characteristics and underlying cause. Compare to dimensional classification.
Term
childhood disintegrative disorder
Definition
Pervasive developmental disorder involving severe regression in language, adaptive behavior, and motor
skills after a 2- to 4-year period of normal development.
Term
civil commitment
Definition
Legal proceedings that determine whether a person is mentally disordered and may be hospitalized, even
involuntarily.
Term
clang
Definition
A rhyme used by some persons with schizophrenia as a guide to forming thoughts and statements.
Term
clinical assessment
Definition
Systematic evaluation and measurement of psychological, biological, and social factors in a person presenting
with a possible psychological disorder.
Term
clinical psychology
Definition
The specialty of psychology involving research, assessment, treatment, and prevention of abnormal behavior.
Term
cognition
Definition
The process of knowing; the thinking, remembering, judging, reasoning, and planning activities of the human
mind. Behavior is often explained as depending on these processes.
Term
cognitive-behavioral
paradigm
Definition
The model of human behavior that people can best be understood by studying how they perceive and structure
their experiences and how this influences behavior.
Term
cognitive therapy
Definition
Treatment approach that involves identifying and altering negative thinking styles related to psychological
disorders such as depression and anxiety and replacing them with more positive beliefs and attitudes.
Term
comorbidity
Definition
The presence of two or more disorders in an individual at the same time.
Term
compensatory behavior
Definition
In eating disorders, those behaviors intended to avoid gaining weight from ingesting food. Examples are
purging, forced vomiting, use of laxatives, or excessive exercising.
Term
competency
Definition
Ability of legal defendants to participate in their own defense and understand the charges and the roles of the
trial participants.
Term
compulsions
Definition
Repetitive, ritualistic, time-consuming behaviors or thoughts a person feels driven to perform to reduce anxiety.
Term
conduct disorder
Definition
Pattern of extreme disobedience in children, including theft, vandalism, lying, running away from home, and early
drug use. May be precursor of antisocial personality disorder.
Term
conversion disorder
Definition
A somatoform disorder in which the person reports sensory or motor function impairment (such as blindness or
paralysis), even though there is no detectable neurological explanation for the deficits
Term
course
Definition
The pattern of development and change of a disorder over time.
Term
course modifiers
Definition
Patterns of development in a disorder that help predict its future course. These include recurrence, time
sequences, and seasonal patterns.
Term
criminal commitment
Definition
Legal procedure by which a person who is found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity is confined in a
psychiatric hospital.
Term
cyclothymic disorder
Definition
Chronic (at least 2 years) mood disorder characterized by alternating mood elevation and depression levels that
are not as severe as manic or major depressive episodes.
Term
defense mechanisms
Definition
Common patterns of behavior -- often adaptive coping styles when they occur in moderation -- observed in
response to potentially threatening situations. In psychodynamic theory, they are proposed to be unconscious
processes to reduce anxiety.
Term
deinstitutionalization
Definition
Systematic discharge of people with severe mental illness from long-term institutional care in psychiatric
hospitals so that they might be treated in community programs.
Term
delirium
Definition
Rapid-onset reduced clarity of consciousness and cognition, with confusion, disorientation, and deficits in
memory and language.
Term
delusion
Definition
Psychotic symptom involving disorder of thought content and presence of strong beliefs that are
misrepresentations of reality.
Term
delusion of grandeur
Definition
A person’s unfounded belief that he or she is a great inventor, historical figure, or other specially empowered
person.
Term
delusion of persecution
Definition
A person’s unfounded belief that one is being plotted or discriminated against, or deliberately victimized.
Term
delusion of reference
Definition
A person’s unfounded belief that the actions, thoughts, laughter, and meaningless activities of others are directed
toward or refer to him or her.
Term
delusion of disorders
Definition
Psychotic disorder featuring a persistent belief contrary to reality (non-bizarre delusion) but no other symptoms
of schizophrenia.
Term
dementia
Definition
Gradual-onset deterioration of brain functioning, involving memory loss, inability to recognize objects or faces,
and problems in planning and abstract reasoning.
Term
dementia of alzheimers type
Definition
Gradual onset of cognitive deficits caused by Alzheimer’s disease, principally identified by person’s inability to
recall newly or previously learned material. The most common form of dementia.
Term
dependent personality disorder
Definition
A personality disorder characterized by a person’s pervasive and excessive need to be taken care of, a
condition that leads to submissive and clinging behavior and fears of separation.
Term
depersonalization
Definition
A disorder marked by a persistent and recurring feeling of being detached from one’s own mental processes or
body; the loss of one’s sense of their own reality. Examples: feeling like you are in a dream; sensation of floating
above or beside your body and observing yourself act.
Term
cognitive triad
Definition
Thinking errors in depressed people that are negatively focused in three areas: themselves, their immediate
world, and their future.
Term
derailment
Definition
A thinking disturbance in schizophrenia involving rapid shifts from one topic of conversation to another. Also
called loose associations.
Term
derealization
Definition
The loss of one’s sense of reality of the outside world. Examples: things may seem to change size or shape;
people may seem mechanical.
Term
diathesis stress model
Definition
Hypothesis that both an inherited tendency (vulnerability) and specific stressful conditions are required to
produce a disorder.
Term
dimensional classification
Definition
A system of organizing the attributes of psychological disorders as occurring on a continuum or spectrum (such
as a scale of mild to severe), rather than present or absent. Can specify a cutting point and resemble a
categorical system.
Term
disease medical model of dependence
Definition
The view that drug dependence is caused by a physiological disorder. This implies the user is a blameless victim
of an illness.
Term
disorder of written expression
Definition
Condition in which one’s writing performance is significantly below age norms.
Term
disorganized speech
Definition
Style of talking often seen in people with schizophrenia, involving incoherence and a lack of typical logic
patterns.
Term
dissociation
Definition
The disconnection from full awareness of identity, memory, and/or consciousness of external circumstances.
Occurs along a continuum from normal everyday experiences to severely dysfunctional disorders.
Term
dissociative amnesia
Definition
Inability to recall personal information, usually of a stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by
ordinary forgetfulness.
Term
dissociative disorders
Definition
A group of disorders in which the primary symptoms are a disturbance in the normally integrative functions of
identity, memory, and consciousness.
Term
dissociative fugue
Definition
A dissociative disorder with amnesia in which person leaves familiar surroundings; sudden, unexpected travel
away from home and inability to recall one’s past, sometimes with assumption of new identity.
Term
dissociative identity disorder
Definition
Two or more identities (host + subpersonalities) which regularly take control of the person's behavior. Also
called multiple personality disorder.
Term
distal cause
Definition
In studying the causes of behavior, all causes other than physiological processes in the brain. Compare to
proximal cause.
Term
double depression
Definition
Severe mood disorder typified by major depressive episodes superimposed over a background of dysthymic
disorder.
Term
durham rule
Definition
A legal test for insanity by which an accused person is not responsible if the criminal behavior is judged
attributable to mental disease or defect.
Term
duty to protect
Definition
The principle that therapists must break confidentiality and notify the potential victim whom a client has
specifically threatened.
Term
dysfunction
Definition
Thoughts, feelings, or behavior that is maladaptive or interferes with healthy daily functioning, positive growth,
and fulfillment of potential.
Term
dyslexia
Definition
Learning disability involving marked impairment in the ability to recognize words and to comprehend what they
read.
Term
dysapenuria
Definition
A sexual pain disorder in which severe pain accompanies sexual activity but is not traceable to any medical
cause.
Term
dysthymic disorder
Definition
Mood disorder involving persistently depressed mood, with low self-esteem, withdrawal, pessimism or despair,
present for at least 2 years, with no absence of symptoms for more than 2 months.
Term
eccentricity
Definition
An unusual pattern of behavior (idiosyncrasy, oddity) that others might find strange, but does not meet any other
criteria of abnormality. Psychological disorders, by comparison, are usually based on dysfunction and distress.
Term
echolalia
Definition
A symptom of autism or schizophrenia in which a person responds to statements by repeating the other person’s
words.
Term
enmeshment
Definition
A family pattern in which members are over-involved with each other’s affairs and over-concerned about each
other’s welfare.
Term
epidemiology
Definition
The scientific study of the prevalence, distribution, and consequences of disorders in a given population.
Term
episodic course
Definition
Pattern of a disorder alternating between recovery and recurrence.
Term
etiology
Definition
All the factors that contribute to the development of a disorder.
Term
exhibitionism
Definition
A paraphilia in which persons have repeated sexually arousing urges or fantasies about exposing their genitals
to unsuspecting strangers and may act upon these urges.
Term
expectancy effect
Definition
People’s response to a substance on the basis of their beliefs about it, even if it contains no active ingredient. This phenomenon demonstrates that cognitive as well as physiological factors are involved in drug reaction and dependence.
Term
expert witness
Definition
Person who because of special training and credentials is allowed to offer opinion testimony in legal trials.
Term
expressed emotion
Definition
The hostility, criticism, disapproval, and over-involvement demonstrated by some families toward a family member with a psychological disorder; this can often contribute to the person’s relapse.
Term
exposure and response prevention
Definition
The most widely used and accepted treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which the affected individual is prevented from engaging in compulsive ritual activity and instead faces the anxiety provoked by the stimulus, leading eventually to extinction of the conditioned response (anxiety).
Term
expressive language disorder
Definition
An individual’s problems in spoken communication, as measured by significantly low scores on standardized tests of expressive language relative to nonverbal intelligence test scores. Symptoms may include a markedly limited vocabulary or errors in verb tense.
Term
factitious disorder
Definition
Disorder in which the individual’s physical or psychological symptoms are intentionally faked, under voluntary
control and are adopted in order to assume the role of a sick person. Compare to malingering. Called factitious
disorder by proxy or Munchausen syndrome when a parent produces a physical illness in a child.
Term
fear
Definition
The central nervous system’s physiological and emotional response consisting of an immediate alarm reaction to
a serious present danger.
Term
female orgasmic disorder
Definition
A dysfunction in which a woman rarely has an orgasm or repeatedly experiences a very delayed one following a
normal sexual excitement phase.
Term
female sexual arousal disorder
Definition
Recurrent inability in some women to attain or maintain adequate lubrication or genital swelling during sexual
activity.
Term
fetishism
Definition
Paraphilia involving long-term, recurring, intense sexually arousing urges, fantasies, or behavior involving the use of nonliving, unusual objects, often to the exclusion of all other stimuli.
Term
flat affect
Definition
Apparently emotionless demeanor (including toneless speech and vacant gaze) when a reaction would be
expected. See also: inappropriate affect.
Term
forensic psychology
Definition
The specialty of psychology concerned with intersections between psychological practice and the judicial
system
Term
frotteurism
Definition
Paraphilia in which the person gains sexual gratification by rubbing against non-consenting victims in crowds
from which they cannot escape.
Term
gender dysphoria
Definition
Unhappiness with one’s given gender.
Term
gender identity disorder
Definition
Psychological dissatisfaction with one’s biological gender. A disturbance in one’s identity as a male or female.
The primary goal is not sexual arousal but rather strong wishes to be a member of the opposite sex.
Term
generalized anxiety disorder
Definition
Anxiety disorder characterized by intense, uncontrollable, unfocused, chronic, and continuous worry about
numerous events and activities, accompanied by physical symptoms of tenseness, irritability, and restlessness.
Term
genetic paradigm
Definition
The approach to human behavior that focuses on both heritability of traits and complex interactions between
genes and environment.
Term
GBMI
Definition
An alternative to the verdict Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity which allows for both punishment and treatment.
Term
hallucination
Definition
Psychotic symptom of perceptual disturbance in which things are seen or heard or otherwise sensed although
they are not real or actually present.
Term
histrionic personality disorder
Definition
A personality disorder involving a pervasive pattern of vain, dramatic, extravagant, attention-seeking behavior.
Seductive without taking responsibility; needs immediate gratification and constant reassurance.
Term
hypoactive sexual desire disorder
Definition
Apparent lack of interest in sex and hence a low level of sexual activity.
Term
hypochondriasis
Definition
A somatoform disorder in which the person, misinterpreting rather ordinary physical sensations, is preoccupied
with fears of having a serious disease.
Term
hypomania
Definition
An extremely happy or irritable mood accompanied by symptoms like increased energy and decreased need for
sleep, but without the significant functional impairment associated with mania.
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