Unit 5

Subfield of psych that explores the impact of psychological, behavioural, and cultural factors on health and wellness

Study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect our immune system and resulting health

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging

The drive to move toward (approach) or away from (avoid) a stimulus

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive responses to stress in three phases: alarm, resistance, exhaustion

Under stress, people (especially women) may nurture themselves and others (tend) and both with and seek support from others (befriend)

The clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; a leading cause of death in many developed countries

Competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people

Easygoing, relaxed people

Idea that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges

Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioural methods

Attempting to alleviate stress directly by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor

Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction

Our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless

The hopelessness and passive resignation humans and other animals learn when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

The perception that outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate

The perception that we control our own fate

The ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of promoting strengths and virtues that foster well-being, resilience, and positive emotions, and that helps individuals and communities to thrive

Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life

People's tendency to be helpful when in a good mood

Our tendency to form judgements (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience

The perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves

Proposes that positive emotions broaden our awareness, which, over time helps us build novel and meaningful skills and resilience that improve well-being

A classification system to identify positive traits: organized into categories of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence

The personal strength that helps people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma

Sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; also helps alleviate depression and anxiety

A reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner

An appreciative emotion people often experience when they benefit from other's actions or recognize their own good fortune

A disturbance in people's thoughts, emotions, or behaviours that causes distress or suffering and impairs their daily lives

The concept that diseases---in this case, psychological disorders---have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hopsital

The concept that genetic predispositions (diathesis) combine with environmental stressors (stress) to influence psychological disorders

"Above" or "in addition to" (epi) genetics; the study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments can influence genetic expressions (without a DNA change)

Widely used system for classifying psychological disorders

A group of disorders characterised by excessive fear and anxiety and related maladaptive behaviours

Intense fear and avoidance of social situations

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal

An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next attack

Fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one may experience a loss of control and panic

An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation

A disorder characterised by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both

A persistent difficulty parting with possessions, regardless of their value

A disorder characterised by haunting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for 4 weeks or more after a traumatic experience

A group of disorders in which exposure to a traumatic or stressful event is followed by psychological distress

A group of disorders characterised by an enduring sad, empty, or irritable mood, along with physical and cognitive changes that affect a person's ability to function

A group of disorders in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania

A disorder in which a person experiences five or more symptoms lasting two or more weeks, in the absence of drug use or a medical condition, at least one of which must either (1) depressed mood of (2) loss of interest or pleasure

A disorder in which people experience a depressed mood on more days than not for at least two years

The most severe form, in which people experience a euphoric, talkative, highly energetic, and overly ambitious state that lasts a week or longer

A hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgement is common

A less severe form of bipolar in which people move between depression and a milder hypomania

Compulsive fretting; overthinking our problems and their causes

A group of disorders characterised by delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thinking or speech, disorganised or unusual motor behaviour, and negative symptoms (such as diminished emotional expression)

A group of disorders marked by irrational ideas, distorted perceptions, and a loss of contact with reality

A false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders

A form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood. As people age, psychotic episodes last longer and recovery periods shorten

A form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age, frequently occurs in response to a traumatic event, and from which recovery is much more likely

A controversial, rare group of disorders characterised by a disruption of or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behaviour

A rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating identities

A disorder in which people with intact brains reportedly experience memory gaps; people with dissociative amnesia may report not remembering trauma-related specific events, people, places, or aspects of their identity and life history

A group of disorders characterised by enduring inner experiences or behaviour patterns that differ from someone's cultural norms and expectations, are pervasive and inflexible, begin in adolescence or early adulthood, are stable over time, and cause distress or impairment

A personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience or wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members; may be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist

A group of disorders characterised by altered consumption or absorption of food impairs health or psychological functioning

An eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly underweight and has an inaccurate self-perception; sometimes accompanied by excessive exercise

An eating disorder in which a person's binge eating (usually of high-calorie foods) is followed by inappropriate weight-loss-promoting behaviour, such as vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise

Central nervous system abnormalities (usually in the brain) that start in childhood and alter thinking and behaviour (as in intellectual limitations or a psychological disorder)

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by limitations in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviours

A psychological disorder marked by extreme inattention and/or hyperactivity and impulsivity

The process, begun in the late twentieth century, of moving people with psychological disorders our of instituional facilities

Treatment involving psychological techniques consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth

Perscribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology

An approach to psychotherapy that uses techniques from various forms of therapy

Patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences---and the analyst's interpretations of them---released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight

In psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material

In psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting of supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behviours and events in an effort to promote insight

In psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parrent)

Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight

Therapies that aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing a person's awareness of underlying motives and defenses

A humanistic therapy where the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within an accepting, genuine, empathic environment to facillitate cilents' growth

Empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and seeks clarification

A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients develop self-awareness and self-acceptance

Therapy that uses learning principles to reduce unwanted behaviours

Behaviour therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviours, including exposure therapies and aversive conditioning

Behavioural techniques, such as systematic desensitisation and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people to the things they fear and avoid

Type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli

A counterconditioning technique that treats anxiety through creative electronic simulations in which people can safely face specific fears, such as flying, spiders, or public speaking

Associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behaviour (such as drinking alcohol)

An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token for exhibiting a desired behaviour and can later exchange tokens for privileges or treats

Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions

Confrontational cognitive therapy that vigorously challenges people's illogical, self-defeating attitudes and assumptions

A popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behaviour therapy (changing behaviour)

Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, providing benefits from group interaction

Therapy that treats people in the context of their family system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviours as influenced by, or directed at, other family members

A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

A statistical procedure for analyzing the results of multiple studies to reach an overall conclusion

Clinical decision making that integrates the best available research with clinical expertise and client characteristics and preferences

A bond of trust and mutual understanding between a therapist and client, who work together constructively to overcome the client's problem

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behaviour

Drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorders

Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation

Drugs used to treat depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder

A biomedical therapy for severe depression in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized person

The application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity

Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue to change behaviour

A psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotional-controlling centers of the inner brain

A social interaction in which one person (the hyponist) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviours will spontaneously occur

Split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviours to occur simultaneously with others

A suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotised

Positive Psychological changes following a struggle with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises