AP PSYCH (UNIT 13) – Flashcards

The process of treating psychological disorders and mental distress.

A trained therapist who uses psychological techniques to assist someone to overcome a psychological disorder or mental distress. Example: Systematic Desensitization - A behavioural technique whereby a person is gradually exposed to an anxiety-producing object, event, or place while being engaged in some type of relaxation at the same time in order to reduce the symptoms of anxiety.

Mental health therapies that involve prescribed drugs or other procedures that act directly on a patient's nervous system. Example: Schizophrenia is a disorder that is treated with this.

A therapy approach that uses a variety of psychological theories and therapeutic approaches. Example: As a therapist, Dr. Cioffi often uses systematic desensitization. She also considers active listening to be an invaluable therapeutic tool, and she frequently makes use of free association.

Therapists who seek to combine intervention strategies into a single coherent treatment system.

The first psychological therapy was introduced by him.

Helps people gain insight into the unconscious origins of their disorder. They try to understand an adult's psychological disorder by exploring that person's childhood experiences. Example: Mr. Choi's therapist wants to help him become aware of his conflicting childhood feelings of love and hate for his parents.

Psychoanalytic techniques are designed to help patients become aware of their these and impulses.

Introduced by Sigmund Freud, it involves the uncensored reporting of any thoughts that come to mind. Example: You tell your therapist about a frightening car accident. Your therapist instructs you to close your eyes and verbalize any further thoughts stimulated by this experience, even if they are scary or embarrassing.

Refers to the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material during therapy. A patient's hesitation to free associate is most likely a sign of resistance. This during therapy supports and maintains the process of repression. Example: During psychotherapy, you begin to stutter whenever you begin to discuss personally sensitive thoughts.

The interpretation of dreams is closely associated with psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic interpretation is designed to promote insight. To understand his patients' repressed conflicts, Freud sought to identify the _________ of their dreams.

Refers to a client's expression toward a therapist of feelings linked with earlier life relationships. Psychoanalysts view patient's ______ as a helpful aid in the process of therapy. Psychoanalysts attend to patients' positive and negative feelings toward their therapists. Example: Lynn has begun to buy small gifts for her therapist and she feels extremely jealous of the time he spends with his other patients.

_______ is criticized for offering interpretations that cannot be proven or disproven and for being too expensive and time-consuming.

A therapy approach that tries to understand patients' current symptoms by focusing on interpersonal relationships. It helps patients gain awareness of their unconscious conflicts and defensive behaviours by suggesting interpretive insights regarding patients' difficulties. this is briefer that traditional psychoanalysis. Example: Nate's past relationships with his mother, his former wife, and his previous employer have been characterized by common patterns of resentment and emotional detachment. Helping Nate gain insight into these recurring relationship patterns would be the goal of the this therapist.

A variation on psychodynamic therapy, it helps people to improve their relationship skills. It is effective in treating depression in that it teaches depressed patients how to resolve disagreements with their friends.

Emphasizes the importance of self-awareness for psychological adjustment. Instead of focusing on the cure of psychological disorders, these therapies seek to promote personal growth and self-fulfillment. they teach clients to take more responsibility for their own feelings and actions. It is an insight therapy which aims to improve psychological functioning by increasing patients' awareness of their own motives and defenses.

A nondirective therapeutic approach that relies heavily on patients' discovering their own ways of effectively dealing with their difficulties. Developed by Carl Rogers. A major goal of a this is empathic understanding of the patient's subjective experiences. Therapists are encouraged to express their own true feelings during the process of therapy. An important feature of client-centered therapy is active listening. Example: During a marriage counselling session, the therapist suggests to Mr. and Mrs. Gallo that they each restate their spouse's comments before making their own.

A caring, nonjudgmental attitude. Client-centered therapy emphasizes the importance of providing patients with feelings of unconditional acceptance.

Therapy that is concerned with reinforcing desirable behaviours and eliminating unwanted or maladaptive ones. Principles of learning such classical and/or operant conditioning directly influenced the development of this. Old learning led to the development of a problem, new learning can fix it. This is action based. It is not rooted in providing special insights into the personality of the client. Example: Cindy suggests that her nail biting might be a symptom of unconscious resentment toward her parents. Her therapist indicates that her problem isn't unconscious hostility; it's nail biting.

In this , maladaptive symptoms are usually considered to be conditioned responses. Example: In one treatment for bed-wetting, the child sleeps on a liquid-sensitive pad that when wet triggers an alarm and awakens the child.

A procedure that trains people to make new responses to stimuli that currently trigger unwanted responses. These techniques were derived from principles first developed by Ivan Pavlov. These techniques for replacing unwanted responses include aversive conditioning and exposure therapy. Example: Benny's mother tries to reduce his fear of sailing by giving him his favourite candy as soon as they board the boat.

Repeatedly introducing people to things they fear and avoid. Example: In 1924, Mary Cover Jones reported that 3-year-old Peter lost his fear of rabbits when a rabbit was repeatedly presented while Peter was eating a tasty snack. Joseph Wolpe refined Mary Cover Jones counterconditioning technique and developed systematic desensitization.

Involves associating a pleasant relaxed state with anxiety-arousing stimuli. It is based on the idea that relaxation facilitates the elimination of fear. With this, the therapist constructs an anxiety hierarchy and replaces a fearful response with a relaxation response. It involves the use of progressive relaxation; relaxing one muscle group after another until one achieves a completely relaxed state of comfort.

A form of exposure therapy that is effective in the treatment of phobias. Example: Behaviour therapists use this therapy to help people overcome a fear of flying.

Involves associating unwanted behaviours with unpleasant experiences. It involves replacing a positive response with a negative response. Clients' awareness of this contributes to the limited effectiveness of this therapy. Example: In treating alcohol dependency, therapists have clients consume alcohol that contains a nausea-producing drug. To treat nail biting, one can paint a patient's fingernails with a bitter-tasting nail polish.

Patients' actions are influenced by controlling the consequences of those actions. The practice of this is based on the application of operant conditioning principles. Therapists practice this by reinforcing closer and closer approximations of desired behaviours and withholding reinforcement for undesired behaviours. Example: Praising socially withdrawn children when they have eye contact with others and ignoring them after a temper tantrum.

Clients are allowed to earn tokens that can be exchanged for special privileges or desired items. Proponents suggest that institutionalized patients can be weaned from token economies by shifting them to other rewards common to life outside of the institution. Proponents argue that maintaining appropriate patient behaviours with positive rewards is more humane than relying on punishment. Critics argue that token economies undermine human freedom and reduce people to puppets controlled by therapists. Example: A ________ is helpful for encouraging adults with intellectual disability to make their beds every morning.

Emphasize that people are often disturbed because of their negative interpretations of events. These tehrapists emphasize the emotional disturbances result from self-blaming and overgeneralized explanations of bad events. Example: Peter is depressed because he thinks his teacher's study suggestions mean he's going to fail her course. He would benefit from this.

Although originally trained in Freudian techniques, Aaron developed a cognitive therapy for depression. He uses gentle questioning intended to reveal depressed clients' irrational thinking. His therapy persuades depressed patients to reverse their catastrophizing beliefs about themselves and their futures. It encourages depressed clients to stop blaming themselves for negative circumstances beyond their control. Example: Stress Inoculation Training focuses on helping people to replace negative self-talk with more positive comments.

An integrated therapy that aims to modify both self-defeating thinking and maladaptive actions. In one study, people were taught to attribute their compulsive urges to abnormal brain functioning. Instead of giving into an urge, they participated in an alternative activity that engaged other parts of the brain. Example: Melanie's therapist suggests that when she feels anxious, Melanie should attribute her arousal to her highly reactive nervous system and shift her attention to reading with her child.

Emphasizes the importance of examining a person's role within a social system. The belief that no person is an island is a fundamental assumption of this. Example: To help Mrs. Otsuki lose weight, her therapist first attempted to assess whether her weight loss might be personally threatening to her husband.

Encourages clients to improve their communication skills. This is more effective than individual therapy for enabling people to discover that others have problems similar to their own. Most self-help and support groups focus on stigmatized illnesses. Example: Many self-help groups have emulated the use of a 12-step program by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Since people enter psychotherapy during a period of life crisis, they tend to overestimate the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Clients satisfy their motivation for self-justification; they often need to convince themselves that they didn't waste their money on therapy. Research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy indicates that clients are generally satisfied with the effectiveness of therapy. Example: In an experiment potentially delinquent boys were assigned to a 5-year treatment program that included professional counseling and family assistance. Many years later, Joan McCord's investigation of this program's effectiveness revealed that clients' accounts of the program's effectiveness were often misleading and overly positive.

Therapists tend to overestimate the effectiveness of psychotherapy because they keep in touch with clients that are satisfied with the treatment they received.

Therapists perceptions of the effectiveness of psychotherapy are likely to be misleading because clients typically emphasize their problems at the start of therapy and their well-being at the end of therapy.

The beneficial consequence of a person's expecting that a treatment will be therapeutic.

Refers to the tendency for extraordinary or unusual events to be followed by more ordinary events. This phenomenon contributes to inflated perceptions of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Example: Unusual ESP subjects who defy chance when first tested nearly always lose their "psychic powers" when retested.

Compare treatment groups with control groups. The best psychotherapy outcome studies are these.

Refers to a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different studies. The most convincing evidence for the effectiveness of psychotherapy comes from these of psychotherapeutic outcome studies. Example: After performing a this of some 475 psychotherapy outcome studies, Smith et. al reported in 1980 that evidence supports the efficacy of psychotherapy.

Statistical summaries of psychotherapy outcome studies indicate that no single form of therapy proves consistently superior to the others. Research has shown that clients' level of satisfaction with psychotherapy is unrelated to the level of training and experience of their therapist.

__________ is effective in coping with depression and reducing suicide risk.

_______ is a scientifically unsupported treatment approach and should be avoided.

___________ have received little or no scientific support.

___________ is clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and an understanding of patient characteristics.

Rapidly moving one's eyes while recalling traumatic experiences. This was originally developed for the treatment of anxiety. This is similar to systematic desensitization. Controlled research studies indicate that the value of This is due to the effectiveness of exposure therapy. The placebo effect contributes to inflated estimates of the value of This. Example: Kammy vividly imagines being abused by her partner while her therapist triggers eye movements by waving a finger in front of Kammy's eyes.

Sparks activity in a brain region that influences the body's arousal. This was developed to relieve symptoms of depression. This has been demonstrated to provide relief for those who suffer from seasonal affective disorder.

Three benefits attributed to all psychotherapies are: •Hope (best illustrated by the placebo effect) •A new perspective •A caring relationship A common ingredient underlying the success of diverse psychotherapies is the client's expectation that psychotherapy will make things better. By earning a client's trust, empathic and caring therapists promote a this.

Immigrants from Asia would most likely experience difficulty as clients of American psychotherapists who emphasize the value of individualism. Researchers have found that matching Asian-American clients with counselors who share their cultural values facilitates the therapeutic alliance.

Therapy outcome studies indicate that highly religious people may prefer and benefit from therapists with similar religious beliefs. Psychologists' personal values influence their practice of therapy.

Receive a Ph.D. degree in psychology. Expertise in research, the assessment of psychological disorders, and the practice of psychotherapy.

A physician who specializes in the treatment of psychological disorders. Can prescribe drugs for the treatment of psychological disorders.

Many professionals outside the field of psychology are prepared to offer psychotherapy in the process of completing a graduate program in this.

Biomedical treatments used to treat psychological disorders that result from chemical abnormalities. This has most directly contributed to the sharp reduction in the number of residents in U.S. mental hospitals.

Involves the study of how drugs affect mind and behaviour.

A procedure in which neither patient nor health care staff know whether a given patient is receiving a drug or a placebo. these studies enable researchers to assess the extent to which drug therapy outcomes are attributable to the placebo effect. Example: Dr. Volz is a researcher who wants to distinguish between the direct effects of a new antianxiety medication and effects arising from expectations of the drug's effectiveness.

A drug that has provided the most help to schizophrenia patients experiencing auditory hallucinations and paranoia.

A drug that dampens responsiveness to irrelevant stimuli in schizophrenia patients with positive symptoms.

A drug that helps patients exhibiting negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as apathy and withdrawal. It targets both dopamine and serotonin receptors.

A condition that is the result of long-term use of certain antipsychotic drugs. It can produce involuntary movements of the facial muscles, tongue, and limbs. It is associated with the long-term use of drugs that occupy dopamine receptor sites.

An antianxiety drug. Prescribed in order to help overcome feelings of nervous apprehension and an inability to relax.

An antianxiety drug. Prescribed in order to help clients overcome fears.

An antianxiety drug. Prescribed to enhance the benefits of exposure therapy and helps relieve the symptoms of PTSD and OCD.

An antidepressant drug. A drug that partially blocks the reabsorption and removal of serotonin from synapses.

An antidepressant drug.

Antidepressants that block the reuptake or breakdown of both serotonin and another neurotransmitter norepinephrine. these work by increasing the availability of norepinephrine and serotonin. One possible explanation for the delayed effect of antidepressant drugs is that the increased availability of serotonin promotes neurogenesis.

One good alternatives to This is aerobic exercise.

Antidepressant drugs work, bottom-up on the emotion-forming this.

A natural return to a state of psychological health following an extended period of depression illustrates this.

Inflated estimates of the value of antidepressant drugs are in large part due to the fact that patient recovery often results from this

An effective mood-stabilizing drug. has been found to be especially effective in the treatment of bipolar disorder.

An drug originally used to treat epilepsy that has more recently been found effective in the control of manic episodes.

An effective treatment for depression. The procedure can result in a loss of memory and seizures.

A chest implant that intermittently stimulates the this has been used to treat some patients with chronic depression.

A neurostimulation therapy that shows promise in the treatment of depression. rTMS provides some of the benefits of ECT without triggering seizures and memory loss. An explanation for the effectiveness of rTMS is that it may reduce depression by triggering the long-term potentiation of frontal lobe nerve cells.

Using implanted electrodes to inhibit activity in an area of the cortex that triggers negative emotions. This has been reported to provide relief from depression.

Surgically cutting the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain. Doctors would insert a medical instrument through each eye socket. were designed to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. It resulted in patients becoming permanently lethargic. not used today.

the least used biomedical intervention for changing behaviour. MRI-guided precision surgery is occasionally done to cut the brain circuits involved in severe cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In promoting a therapeutic life-style change, he and his colleagues note that human brains and bodies were designed for physical activity and social engagement. Aerobic exercise, adequate sleep, light exposure and social engagement are important components of therapeutic life-style change.

personal strengths that help people cope with stress.

Assumptions that underlie drug therapy are that psychological disorders result largely from stressful ___________ rather than from disturbances within the individual personality.

This is based on the assumption that psychological disorder result from stressful social situations. This would attempt to minimize psychological disorders by: •Reducing child abuse •Reducing illiteracy •Establishing poverty alleviation programs Example: Bolstering parents' and teachers' skills at nurturing children's achievement and resulting self-esteem best illustrates This.