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Definition
| Any pattern of emotions, behaviors, or thoughts innapropriate to the situation and leading to personal distress or the inability to acheive important goals. Other terms having essentially the same meaning include Mental Illness, Mental Disorder, and psychological disorder |
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| A false sensory experience that may suggest mental disorder. Hallucinations can have other causes, such as drugs or sensory isolation |
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| An extreme disorder of thinking, involving persistent false beliefs. Delusions are the hallmark of paranoid disorders |
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| The view that mental disorders are diseases that, like ordinary physical diseases, have objective physical causes and require specific treatments |
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| Social-cognitive-behavioral approach |
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Definition
| A psychological alternative to the medical model that views psychological disorder through a combination of the social, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives |
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Definition
| A legal term, not a psychological or psychiatric one, referring to a person who is unable, because of a mental disorder or defect, to conform his or her behavior to the law |
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Definition
| The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association; the most widely accepted psychiatric classification system in the United States |
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Definition
| Before the DSM-IV, this term was used as a label for subjective distress or self-defeating behavior that did not show signs of brain abnormalities or grossly irrational thinking |
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Definition
| A disorder involving profound disturbances in perception, rational thinking, or affect |
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| Abnormal disturbance in emotion or mood, including bipolar disorder and unipolar disorder. Mood disorders are also called affective disorders |
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Definition
| A form of depression that does not alternate with mania |
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| Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) |
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Definition
| A form of depression believed to be caused by deprivation of sunlight |
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Definition
| A condition in which depressed individuals learn to attribute negative events to their own personal flaws or external conditions that the person feels helpless to change. People with learned helplessness can be thought of as having an extreme form of external locus of control. |
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Definition
| A mental abnormality involving swings of mood from mania to depression |
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Definition
| Mental problem characterized mainly by anxiety. Anxiety disorders include panic disorder, specific phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder |
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| Generalized Anxiety Disorder |
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Definition
| A psychological problem characterized by persistent and pervasive feelings of anxiety, without any external cause |
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Definition
| A disturbance marked by panic attacks that have no obvious connection with events in the person's present experience. Unlike generalized anxiety disorder, the victim is usually free from anxiety between panic attacks |
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| A fear of public places and open spaces, commonly accompanying panic disorder |
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Definition
| One of a group of anxiety disorders involving a pathological fear of a specific object or situation |
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Definition
| The notion that we have an innate tendency, acquired through natural selection, to respond quickly and automatically to stimuli that posed a survival threat to our ancestors |
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| Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) |
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Definition
| A condition characterized by patterns of persistent, unwanted thoughts and behaviors |
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Definition
| Psychological problem appearing in the form of bodily symptoms of physical complaints, such as weakness or excessive worry about disease. The somatoform disorders include conversion disorder and hypochondriasis |
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| A type of somatoform disorder, marked by paralysis, weakness, or loss of sensation but with no discernible physical cause |
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| A somatoform disorder involving excessive concern about health and disease; also called hypochondria |
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| A psychologically induced loss of memory for personal information, such as one's identity or residence |
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Definition
| One of a group of pathologies involving "fragmentation" of the personality, in which some parts of the personality have become detached, or dissociated, from other parts |
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Definition
| Essentially the same as dissociative amnesia but with the addition of "flight" from one's home, family, and job. Fugue means flight |
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| Depersonalization Disorder |
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Definition
| An abnormality involving the sensation that mind and body have separated, as in an "out-of-body" experience |
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| Dissociative Identity Disorder |
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Definition
| A condition in which an individual displays multiple identities, or personalities; formerly called "multiple personality disorder" |
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Definition
| A psychotic disorder involving distortions in thoughts, perceptions, and/or emotions |
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| Diathesis -Stress Hypothesis |
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Definition
| In reference to schizophrenia, the proposal that says that genetic factors place the individual at risk while environmental factors transform this potential into an actual schizophrenic disorder |
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| A developmental disorder marked by disabilities in language, social interaction, and the ability to understand another person's state of mind |
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| A reading disability, thought by some experts to involve a brain disorder |
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| Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) |
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Definition
| A developmental disability involving short attention span, distractibility, and extreme difficulty in remaining inactive for any period |
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| A common temperamental condition, but not a disorder recognized by the DSM-IV |
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| Refers to the undesirable practice of attaching diagnoses of mental disorders to people and then using them as stereotypes - treating the afflicted individuals as if the labels explained their whole personalities. Psychiatric labels can also stigmatize people |
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| Depriving people of their identity and individuality by treating them as objects rather than individuals. Depersonalization can be a result of labeling |
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Definition
| Similar to the social-cognitive-behavioral model but with an emphasis on the social and cultural context |
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