Chapter 14 Terms Flashcards
Mental Disorder
A persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behavior, thoughts, or emotions that causes significant distress or impairment.
Medical Model
An approach that conceptualizes abnormal psychological experiences as illnesses that, like physical illnesses, have biological and environmental causes, defined symptoms, and possible cures.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
A classification system that describes the features used to diagnose each recognized mental disorder and indicates how that disorder can be distinguished from other, similar problems.
Comorbidity
The co-occurrence of two or more disorders in a single individual.
Biopsychosocial Perspective
A view that explains mental disorders as the result of interactions among biological, psychological, and social factors.
Diathesis-Stress Model
A model that suggests that a person may be predisposed to a psychological disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.
Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC)
An initiative that aims to guide the classification and understanding of mental disorders by revealing the basic processes that give rise to them.
Anxiety Disorder
The class of mental disorders in which anxiety is the predominant feature.
Phobic Disorders
Disorders characterized by marked, persistent, and excessive fear and avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations.
Specific Phobia
A disorder that involves an irrational fear of a particular object or situation that markedly interferes with an individual’s ability to function.
Social Phobia
A disorder that involves an irrational fear or being publicly humiliated or embarrassed.
Preparedness Theory
The idea that people are instinctively predisposed toward certain fears.
Panic Disorder
A disorder characterized by the sudden occurrence of multiple psychological and physiological symptoms that contribute to a feeling of stark terror.
Agoraphobia
A specific phobia involving a fear of public places.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
A disorder characterized by chronic excessive worry accompanied by three or more of the following symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension, ad sleep disturbance.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
A disorder in which repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) designed to fend off those thoughts interfere significantly with an individual’s functioning.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
A disorder characterized by chronic physiological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma, and avoidance of things that call the traumatic event to mind.
Mood Disorders
Mental Disorders that have mood disturbances as their predominant feature.
Major Depressive Disorder (or Unipolar Depression)
A disorder characterized by a severely depressed mood and/or inability to experience pleasure that lasts 2 or more weeks and is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness, lethargy, and sleep and appetite disturbances.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Recurrent depressive episodes in a seasonal pattern.
Helplessness Theory
The idea that individuals who are prone to depression automatically attribute negative experiences to causes that are internal (i.e., their own fault), stable (i.e., unlikely to change), and global (i.e., widespread).
Bipolar Disorder
A condition characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent high mood (mania) and low mood (depression).
Schizophrenia
A psychotic disorder characterized by the profound disruption of basic psychological processes; a distorted perception of reality; altered or blunted emotion; and disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior.
Positive Symptoms
Thoughts and behaviors, such as delusions and hallucinations, present in schizophrenia but not seen in those without the disorder.
