Ch. 1 - Introduction

Question 1

Psychopathology

Answer 1

The field concerned with the nature and development of mental disorders

Question 2

Abnormal Behaviour

Answer 2

Patterns of emotion, thought, and action deemed pathological for one or more of the following reasons: infrequent occurrence, violation of norms, personal distress, disability or dysfunction, and unexpectedness

Question 3

Normal Curve

Answer 3

As applied in psychology, the bell-shaped distribution of a measurable trait depicting most people in the middle and few at the extremes.

Question 4

Clinicians

Answer 4

A health professional authorized to provide services to people suffering from one or more pathologies

Question 5

Clinical Psychologist

Answer 5

An individual who has earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology or Psy.D. and whose training has included an internship in a mental hospital or clinic

Question 6

Assessment

Answer 6

Finding out what is wrong with a person, what may have caused a problem or problems, and what steps may be taken to improve the person’s condition

Question 7

Diagnosis

Answer 7

The determination that a patient’s set of symptoms or problems indicates a particular disorder

Question 8

Psychotherapy

Answer 8

A primarily verbal means of helping troubles individuals change their thoughts, feelings, and behaviour to reduce distress and to reduce distress and to achieve greater life satisfaction

Question 9

Psychiatrist

Answer 9

A physician (MD) who has taken specialized post-doctoral training, called a residency, in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders

Question 10

Psychoactive Drugs

Answer 10

Chemical compounds having a psychological effect that alters mood or thought process. Valium is an example

Question 11

Psychoanalyst

Answer 11

A therapist who has taken specialized post-doctoral training in psychoanalysis after earning an MD or Ph.D. degree

Question 12

Social Worker

Answer 12

A mental health professional who holds a master of social work (M.S.W.) degree

Question 13

Counselling Psychologist

Answer 13

A doctoral-level mental health professional whose training is similar to that of a clinical psychologist, though usually with less emphasis on research and severe psychopathology

Question 14

Prescriptive Authority

Answer 14

The right to prescribe drugs. The current controversy is the extent to which psychologists should have the right to prescribe drugs even though this is usually restricted to medical doctors and, in some cases, nurse practitioners

Question 15

Demonology

Answer 15

The doctrine that a person’s abnormal behaviour is caused by an autonomous evil spirit

Question 16

Exorcism

Answer 16

The casting out of evil spirits by ritualistic chanting or torture

Question 17

Trepanning

Answer 17

The act of making a surgical opening in a living skull. This act was sometimes performed because of the belief that it would allow evil spirits to leave the body

Question 18

Somatogenesis

Answer 18

Development from bodily origins, as distinguished from psychology origins

Question 19

Psychogenesis

Answer 19

Development from psychological origins, as distinguished from somatic origins

Question 20

Asylums

Answer 20

Refuges established in western Europe in the fifteenth century to confine and provide for the mentally ill; the forerunners of the mental hospital

Question 21

Badlam

Answer 21

A scene or place involving a wild uproar or confusion. The term is derived from the scenes at Bethlehem Hospital in London, where unrestrained groups of mentally ill people interacted with each other

Question 22

Moral Treatment

Answer 22

A therapeutic regimen, introduced by Pinel during the French Revolution, whereby mental patients were released from their restraints and were treated with compassion and dignity rather than with contempt and denigration

Question 23

Transinstitutionalization

Answer 23

The tendency to reduce the number of people in psychiatric hospitals by transferring them to other institutions. Most typically, this results in increasing the number of people with mental health problems in general hospitals

Question 24

Provincial Psychiatric Hospitals

Answer 24

A facility where chronic patients are treated. Such hospitals provide protection, but treatment is often custodial and may involve little psychosocial treatment

Question 25

Community Treatment Order (CTO)

Answer 25

A legal tool that specifies the terms of treatment that must be adhered to in order for a mentally ill person to be released and live in the community. Recent court decisions emphasize the intent of protecting the mentally ill person

Question 26

Syndrome

Answer 26

A group or pattern of symptoms that tend to occur together in a particular disease

Question 27

General Paresis

Answer 27

Mental illness characterized by paralysis and “insanity” that typically lead to death within five years, Now known to be cause by syphilis of the brain

Question 28

Germ Theory of Disease

Answer 28

The general view in medicine that disease is caused by infection of the body by minute organisms and viruses

Question 29

Cathartic Method

Answer 29

A therapeutic procedure introduced by Breuer and developed further by Freud in the late nineteenth century whereby a patient recalls and relives an earlier emotional catastrophe and re-experiences the tension and unhappiness, the goal being to relieve emotional suffering

Question 30

Schizophrenia

Answer 30

A group of psychotic disorders characterized by major disturbances in thought, emotion, and behaviour; disordered thinking in which ideas are not logically related; faulty perception and attention; bizarre disturbances in motor activity; flat or inappropriate emotions; and reduced tolerance for stress in interpersonal relations. The patient withdraws from people and reality, often into a fantasy life of delusions and hallucinations

Question 31

Stereotyping

Answer 31

A fixed belief that typically involves a negative generalization about a group or class of people. Members of the general public often endorse a number of negative beliefs about mentally ill people, and thus engage in stereotyping

Question 32

Stigmatization

Answer 32

A reduction in the status of a group of people, such as mentally ill people, due to perceived deficiencies

Question 33

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Answer 33

A rare dissociative disorder in which two or more fairly distinct and separate personalities are present within the same individual, each with his or her own memories, relationships and behaviour patterns, with only one of them dominant at any given time. Formerly called “multiple personality disorder”

Question 34

Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA)

Answer 34

A national organization that provides information about mental illness and acts as an advocate for mentally ill people

Question 35

Self-Stigma

Answer 35

The tendency for distressed people to internalize negative views of the self for not being well-adjusted. In essence, people high in self-stigma are seeing themselves according to negative stereotypes

Question 36

Mental Health Literacy

Answer 36

The knowledge that a person develops about mental illness, including its causes and treatments

Question 37

Medicare

Answer 37

The system of health care in Canada.

Question 38

Accountability

Answer 38

A requirement that Canada’s health care system and provinces be held responsible for the quality of the care provided as part of a new Health Care Act, as recommended in the Romanow report

Question 39

Evidence-Based Treatment

Answer 39

Treatments and interventions that have been shown to be effective according to controlled experimental research

Question 40

Deinstitutionalization

Answer 40

The increasing tendency for treatment to take place in the community, perhaps on an outpatient basis, rather than having patients reside in a public institution, such as a provincial mental hospital

Question 41

Community Psychology

Answer 41

An approach to therapy that emphasizes prevention and the seeking out of potential difficulties rather than waiting for troubled individuals to initiate consultation. The location for professional activities tends to be in the person’s natural surroundings rather than in therapist’s office

Question 42

Prevention

Answer 42

Primary prevention comprises efforts in community psychology to reduce the incidence of new cases of psychological disorder by such means as altering stressful living conditions and genetic counselling; secondary prevention includes efforts to detect disorders early, so that they will not develop into full-blown, perhaps chronic, disabilities; and tertiary prevention attempts to reduce the long-term consequences of having a disorder, equivalent in most respects to therapy