Personality and Abnormal Psychology Flashcards
E.g. Boring’s Zeitgeist
The idea that the development of psychology is due not primarily to the efforts of great people, but to Zeitgeist, or the changing spirit of the times.
General paresis
A disorder characterized by delusions of grandeur, mental deterioration, eventual paralysis, and death, resulting from brain deterioration induced by syphilis.
Contributed to understanding that physiological factors could underlie psychopathology.
Instinct
An innate psychological representation (wish) of a bodily (biological) excitation (need). Instincts (e.g., life and death) are propelling aspects of Freud’s dynamic theory
Eros
Life instinct. These serve the purpose of survival (hunger, thirst, and sex).
Libido
The form of energy by which the life instincts perform their work
Thanatos
Death instinct. Represents an unconscious wish for the ultimate, absolute state of quiescence.
Adler’s Creative Self
That force by which each individual shapes his or her uniqueness and makes his or her own personality.
Adler’s Style of Life
“Lifestyle” represents the manifestation of the creative self and describes a person’s unique way of achieving superiority (as opposed to inferiority). The person’s family environment is crucial for molding the person’s style of life.
Horney’s neurotic personality
Neurotic needs (need for affection/approval, need to exploit others, need for self-sufficiency/independence) resemble health ones, except they are disproportionate in intensity, they are indiscriminate in application, they partiality disregard reality, and they have a tendency to provoke intense anxiety.
Anna Freud
Considered the founder of ego psychology
Symptom substitution
Belief that new symptoms will replace old symptoms if you don’t treat the underlying cause.
Albert Ellis’ rational-emotive therapy (RET)
This therapy challenges an irrational belief that the client has, helping them recognize these beliefs and change them to more rational ones.
Maslow’s Peak Experience
Profound and deeply moving experience in a person’s life that have important and lasting effects on the individual. Self-actualized people are more likely to have these experiences than non-self actualized ones.
Roger’s non-directive therapy
The objective is to help the client become willing an able to be themselves and to increase the congruence between what the person thinks he or she should be (the ideal self) and what they actually are. Also known as client-centered therapy or person centered therapy.
Allport’s Functional Autonomy
A given activity or form of behavior may become an end or goal in itself, regardless of its original reason for existence (e.g., hunter who originally hunted to eat, but now hunts after there is enough food)
