PSYC 300 - Textbook Notes - Ch. 1 Flashcards
(27 cards)
What is Psychopathology?
The field focusing on the nature, development and treatment of psychological disorders.
Psychopathology encompasses various psychological disorders and their treatment options.
What two factors can reduce stigma associated with psychological disorders?
- Contact with others
- Familiarity
Greater familiarity can sometimes increase stigma due to family burden or job burnout.
What are the criteria for defining a mental disorder according to DSM-5-TR?
- Occurs within the individual
- Involves clinically significant difficulties in thinking, feeling, or behaving
- Typically involves personal distress
- Involves dysfunction in psychological processes
- Not a culturally specific reaction
- Not primarily a result of social deviance
The DSM-5-TR is a widely used classification system for mental disorders.
What is personal distress in the context of psychological disorders?
Behaviour may be classified as disordered if it causes a person great distress.
Not all psychological disorders cause distress (e.g., ASPD) and not all distress is disordered (e.g., grief).
What does disability refer to in psychological disorders?
Impairment in some important aspect of life can characterize a psychological disorder.
Not all psychological disorders involve disability (e.g., bulimia nervosa).
What is dysfunction in the context of psychological disorders?
Dysfunction refers to the impairment in psychological, developmental, and/or neurobiological processes that support mental functioning.
What supernatural explanations existed for mental illness in early history?
Mental illness was believed to be caused by the displeasure of the gods or possession by demons.
Exorcism was commonly used as a treatment method.
Who is considered the father of American psychiatry?
Benjamin Rush
Rush believed psychological disorders were caused by excess blood in the brain and treated patients by drawing blood.
What significant reform did Philippe Pinel advocate for?
More humane treatment of people in asylums.
Pinel treated individuals with dignity and respect, contrasting the common practices of his time.
What is Moral Treatment?
A practice developed in the 19th century encouraging engagement in purposeful activity for those with psychological disorders.
This practice declined in the latter part of the 19th century.
What occurred during the deinstitutionalization movement in the late 1960s?
Many people with psychological disorders were deinstitutionalized, leading to reduced mental hospital populations.
This resulted in many mentally ill individuals being treated in emergency rooms or jails.
What is General Paresis?
A condition that causes the steady deterioration of mental and physical abilities, and progressive paralysis, caused by syphilis.
This discovery helped establish a causal link between infection and psychological concerns.
Who coined the terms ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’?
Francis Galton
Galton’s concepts distinguish the influence of genetics (nature) versus environment (nurture).
What is Classical Conditioning?
A learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired.
It involves concepts like unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.
What is the ‘law of effect’ principle?
Behaviour followed by satisfying consequences will be repeated; behaviour followed by unpleasant consequences will be discouraged.
This principle was created by Edward Thorndike.
What is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?
A therapy technique aimed at helping clients become more aware of their thoughts to change feelings, behaviours, and symptoms.
What distinguishes clinical psychologists from other psychologists?
Clinical psychologists have a Ph.D. or Psy.D. and learn techniques of assessment and diagnosis, in addition to research.
Psy.D.s focus more on clinical training than research.
What are the three common assumptions of psychoanalysis?
- Childhood experiences shape adult personality
- There are unconscious influences on behaviour
- The causes of human behaviour are not always obvious
What is Transference in psychoanalysis?
How a person’s responses to an analyst may reflect their attitudes towards important people in their past.
What are defence mechanisms?
Strategies used by the ego to protect itself from anxiety.
Examples include repression, denial, projection, displacement, and rationalization.
What is Analytical Psychology?
The psychological theory established by Carl Jung, emphasizing both a personal and a collective unconscious.
Jung introduced the concept of archetypes in this framework.
What is the focus of Behaviourism?
Observable behaviour rather than consciousness or mental functioning.
What is the definition of Extinction in classical conditioning?
The dissolution of a conditioned response due to the omission of the unconditioned stimulus.
Fill in the blank: The act of learning by watching and imitating others is called _______.
Modelling
