Psychopathology Key Terms Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is statistical deviation?
It occurs when an individual has a less common characteristic.
Eg being more depressed or less intelligent than most of the population.
What is deviation from social norms?
If concerns behaviour that is different from the accepted standard of behaviour in a community or society.
What is a failure to function adequately?
It occurs when someone is unable to cope with ordinary demands of day-to-day living.
What is derivation from ideal mental health?
It occurs when someone does not meet a set of criteria for good mental health.
What is a phobia?
It is an irrational fear of an object or situation.
What does behavioural mean?
The ways in which people act.
What does emotional mean?
The ways in which people feel.
What does cognitive mean?
It refers to the process of thinking - knowing perceiving and believing.
What is depression?
It is a mental disorder characterised by low mood and low energy levels.
What does OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) mean?
It is a condition characterised by obsessions and/or compulsive behaviour.
What is classical conditioning?
It is learning by association.
Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together. An unconditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus.
The neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response that was first produced by the unlearned stimulus.
What is operant conditioning?
It is a form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences.
Consequences of behaviour include:
- positive reinforcement.
- negative reinforcement.
- punishment.
What is systematic desensitisation?
It is a behaviour therapy to reduce an unwanted response such as anxiety, to a stimulus.
It involves drawing up a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to the phobic stimulus, teaching the patient to relax, and then exposing them to phobic conditions.
The patient works their way through the hierarchy whilst maintaining relaxation.
What does flooding mean?
It is a behavioural therapy in which a phobic patient is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered by that stimulus.
This take place across a small Humber of long therapy sessions.
What is a negative triad?
Beck proposed that there were three kinds of negative thinking that contributed to being depressed.
- negative views of the world.
- negative views of the future.
- negative views of the
self.
These negative views lead a person to interpret their experiences in a negative way, making them more vulnerable to depression.
What is the ABC model?
Ellis proposed that depression occurs when an activating event (A) triggers an irrational belief (B) which in turn produces a consequence (C).
What is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)?
It is a method for treating mental disorders based on both cognitive and behavioural techniques.
From the cognitive viewpoint the therapy aims to deal with thinking, such as challenging negative thoughts.
The therapy also includes behavioural techniques such as behavioural activation.
What are irrational thoughts?
Irrational thoughts are also called dysfunctional thoughts.
In Ellis’s model and therapy, these are defined as thoughts that are likely to interfere with a personal happiness.
Dysfunctional thoughts lead to mental disorders such as depression.
What are neural explanations?
They are the view that physical and psychological characteristics are determined by the behaviour of the nervous system, in particular the brain as well as individual neurons.
What is drug therapy?
It is a treatment involving drugs (chemicals that have a particular effect on the functioning of the brain or other body systems).
In the case of psychological disorders such drugs usually affect neurotransmitter levels.
