Psych 350 Test 1

Front 1

1. In Bergner's (1993) article, what are the advantages of the given definition of
“psychopathology?”

Back 1

Clear, positive therapeutic focus:
• Ultimate goal becomes that of enhancing the ability of individuals to participate in available social practices-“love and work” (freud)
• Secondary goals- establishing a working alliance, eliminating competing maladaptive modes of behavior, or medically relieving distress of paralyzing proportions
Avoidance of a priori etiological commitments:
• Articulates with pathology is, not what causes it
• Do not have to decide whether or not a given case of paralysis, blindness, or depression is physically or psychologically the cause before decided that it is a case of pathology
• Failure to distinguish definitional matters from causal ones creates danger that once the practitioner informs their client as pathological, they are already committed to explain pathology in a certain way-being correct is a matter of chance not of competence
Avoidance of problems with equating pathology with behavior
• Behavior that is counted pathological in one culture may be counted normal in other cultures
• A given behavior being “maladaptive” many feel has to do with pathology-abusing sunstance, binging and purging
• Many pathological conditions mistaken for behavior-depression, narcissism, anxiety states

Front 2

2. According to humanist theorists, what contributes to the development of GAD?

Back 2

• When people stop looking at themselves honestly and acceptingly
• Repeated denials of their true thoughts, emotions, and behavior make these people extremely anxious and unable to fulfill their potential as human beings
• Rogers-children who fail to receive unconditional positive regard from other may become overly critical of themselves and develop harsh self-standards; conditions of worth

Front 3

3. What drugs are used to treat anxiety? What neurotransmitter do they affect?

Back 3

• Benzodiazepines; Xanax, Ativan, Valium
• Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

Front 4

4. From a behavioral perspective, how does modeling cause phobias? How do specific
learned fears develop into GAD?

Back 4

• Through observation and imitation; person may observe that others are afraid of certain objects or events and develop fears of the same things
• Stimulus generalization; responses to one stimulus are also elicited by similar stimuli
 Specific fears will blossom into a generalized anxiety disorder when a person acquired a large number of them
 Ex: fear of running water can be generalized to milk poured in a glass

Front 5

5. According to the sociocultural perspective, what is one of the strongest forms of societal stress that may lead to higher rates of GAD?

Back 5

• Poverty;people without financial means are likely to have less equality, less power, and greater vulnerability

Front 6

6. What is client-centered therapy? How is it used to treat GAD? Has it shown to be effective?

Back 6

• Try to show unconditional positive regard for their clients and to empathize with them
• Therapists hope that an atmosphere of genuine acceptance and caring will help clients feel secure enough to recognize their true needs, thoughts, and emotions; when clients eventually are honest and comfortable with themselves, their anxiety or other symptoms will subside
• No; although suggested that it is better than no treatment, approach is only sometimes superior to placebo therapy

Front 7

7. What are the fears of people with social phobia?

Back 7

• Interacting with others/performing in front of others
• Embarrassment may occur

Front 8

8. According to the behavioral-evolutionary explanation of phobias, what "prepares"
people to be afraid of certain things more than others?

Back 8

• Human beings have a predisposition to develop certain fears
• Preparedness: human beings are “prepared” to acquire some phobias and not others
 Girl thought she saw a snake in the park; ran to parents car and accidently slammed door on her hand which cause severe damage-scared of snakes-not car or door

Front 9

9. Describe the 3 major behavioral approaches to treating phobias.

Back 9

• Systematic desentization: learn to relax while gradually facing the objects or situations they fear
 Therapist offer relaxation training to clients teaching them how to bring on a state of deep muscle relaxation at will
 In vivo desentization: an actual confrontation
 Covert desensitization: confrontation is imagined; therapist describes it
• Flooding: people will stop fearing things when they are exposed to them repeatedly and made to see that they are actually quite harmless; without relaxation training or gradual buildup
• Modeling: therapist confronts the feared object or situation while the fearful person observes; therapist acts as a model to demonstrate that the persons fear is groundless
 Perticipent modeling: client is encouraged to join in with the therapist

Front 10

10. Which therapies for phobia have been found to be effective? ineffective?

Back 10

• In vivo desentization more affective than covert desensitization
• Vivo flooding more effective than covert flooding
• Participant modeling more helpful than observational modeling

Front 11

11. People with panic disorder also have what other disorder due to the fear of having
panic attacks in public places?

Back 11

• Agoraphobia: people are afraid to leave the house and travel to public places or other locations where escape might be difficult or help unavailable should panic symptoms develop

Front 12

12. What is anxiety sensitivity and how does it relate to panic disorder?

Back 12

• Anxiety sensitivity: focused on their bodily sensations much of the time, are unable to assess them logically, and interpret them as potentially harmful
• People who scored high on an anxiety sensitivity survey were five times more likely than other people to develop panic disorder
• Individuals with panic disorder typically earn higher anxiety sensitivity scores than other persons do

Front 13

13. What occurs in the process of habituation training?

Back 13

• Habitual training; directing clients to call forth their obsessive thoughts will lose their power to frighten or threaten the clients, and thus will produce less anxiety and trigger fewer new obsessive thoughts and compulsive acts

Front 14

14. What is exposure and response prevention (or exposure and ritual prevention)? What
perspective does it follow? What are its benefits and limitations to treating OCD?

Back 14

• Clients are repeatedly exposed to objects or situations that produce anxiety, obsessive fears, and compulsive behaviors, but they are told to resist performing the behaviors they feel so bound to perform
• Behavioral perspective
• Benefits; Between 55 to 85 improve with exposure and response prevention
• Limitations; few clients who receive the treatment overcome all their symptoms; ¼ don’t improve at all/many people drop out because they consider it too demanding or threatening/limited to help those who have obsessions but no compulsions

Front 15

15. What is a cognitive therapeutic technique used to treat OCD?

Back 15

• Provide psychoeducation; teaching clients about their misinterpretations of unwanted thoughts, excessive sense of responsibility, and neutralizing acts
• Habitual training; directing clients to call forth their obsessive thoughts will lose their power to frighten or threaten the clients, and thus will produce less anxiety and trigger fewer new obsessive thoughts and compulsive acts

Front 16

16. What is acute stress disorder, and how does it differ from PTSD?

Back 16

• Symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as other kinds of symptoms, persist well after the upsetting situation is over; patterns that arise in reaction to a psychologically traumatic event
• If symptoms begin within four weeks of the traumatic event and less for less than a month=acute stress disorder
• If symptoms continue longer than a month=PTSD

Front 17

17. What kind of factors make a person more likely to suffer from PTSD?

Back 17

• Combat and stress disorders/disasters and stress disorders/victimization and stress disorders-sexual assault, terrorism, torture

Front 18

18. What is psychological debriefing or critical incident stress debriefing? What have studies shown about its effectiveness?

Back 18

• A form of crisis intervention that has victims of trauma talk extensively-a session typically lasts three to four hours-about their feelings and reactions within days of the critical incident
• Not too effective; some cases worse

Front 19

19. How have veterans been treated for symptoms of PTSD?

Back 19

• Drug therapy, behavioral exposure techniques, insight therapy, family therapy, and group therapy; usually all combined as no one of them successfully reduces all the symptoms
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR); clients move their eyes in saccadic (rhythmic) manner from side to side while flooding their minds with images of the objects and situations they ordinarily try to avoid

Front 20

According to the text, what factors made a person more likely to have lingering stress
symptomsafter the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001?

Back 20

• closer to the disaster

Front 21

21. What are the symptoms of somatoform disorders and what may they often be confused with?

Back 21

• Problems that appear to be medical but are actually caused by psychosocial factors; pattern of physical complaints with largely psychosocial causes
• Often confused with biological disorders

Front 22

22. How do hysterical somatoform disorders differ from factitious disorder?

Back 22

• Hysterical somatoform; individuals are purposefully producing or faking medical systems
• Factitious disorder; patient may intentionally produce or fake physical symptoms simply out of a wish to be a patient; that is, the motivation for assuming the sick role may be the role itself

Front 23

23. People with body dysmorphic disorder are overly concerned with what?

Back 23

• Imagined or minor defect in their appearance; wrinkles, spots on skin, facial hair etc

Front 24

24. What is dissociative fugue?

Back 24

• Person not only forget their personal identities and details of their past lives but also flee to an entirely different location; fugue may be brief a matter of hours or days and end suddenly; some display new personality characteristics

Front 25

25. What is dissociative identity disorder?

Back 25

• Have two or more separate identities that may not always be aware of each others thoughts, feelings, or behaviors

Front 26

26. What is depersonalization disorder?

Back 26

• People with this problem feel as though they have become detached from their own mental processes or body and are observing themselves from the outside

Front 27

28. What is state dependent learning and how does this relate to dissociative disorders?

Back 27

• If people learn something when they are in a particular situation or state of mind, they are likely to remember it best when they are again in that same condition; arousal levels will have a set of remembered events, thoughts, and skills attached to it
• In dissociative disorders different arousal levels may produce entirely different groups of memories, thoughts and abilities; different subpersonalities

Front 28

30. What are the leading treatments for dissociative amnesia and fugue?

Back 28

• Psychodynamic therapy: guide patients to search their unconscious in the hope of brining forgotten experiences back to consciousness
• hypnotic therapy: therapist hypnotize patients and then guide them to recall forgotten events
• drug therapy: barbiturates Amytal; help recall anxiety-producing events

Front 29

31. What are the three kinds of relationships that subpersonalities of a person with DID have with one another?

Back 29

• Mutually amnesic relationships: subpersonalities have no awareness of one another
• Mutually cognizant patterns: each subpersonality is well aware of the rest
• One-way amnesic relationships: most common; some subpersonalities are aware of other, but the awareness is not mutual

Front 30

From a behavioral perspective, how does operant conditioning lead to dissociative disorders?

Back 30

• Dissociation grows from normal memory processes such as drifting of the mind or forgetting; people who experience a horrifying event may later find temporary relief when their minds drift to other subjects

Front 31

33. How can self-hypnosis explain DID?

Back 31

• Can behave, perceive, think in ways that would ordinarily seem impossible; can also help people remember events that occurred and were forgotten years ago

Front 32

34. What 3 results do therapists try to help their clients with DID achieve?

Back 32

• Recognize fully the nature of their disorder; therapists try to bond with the primary personality and with each of the subpersonalities; as bonds form therapist educate patients and help them recognize fully of the nature of their disorder
• Recovering memories; psychodynamic therapy, hypnotheraby, and drug treatment
• Integrating the subpersonalities; merge the different subpersonalities into a single, integrated identity

Front 33

1. ACCORDING TO BEHAVIORAL DEFINITIONS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, THIS TERM REFERS TO A CERTAIN KIND OF BEHAVIOR (E.G., DEVIANT OR MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR). WHAT POSITION WAS TAKEN IN LECTURE REGARDING SUCH DEFINITIONS? WHAT SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS WERE RAISED IN FAVOR OR AGAINST THIS KIND OF DEFINITION?

Back 33

• Refers to some kind of behavior
• Strange or unusual behavior: behavior that departs significantly from typical societal behavior
• Deviant behavior (sociology): behavior which violates societal norms or rules for appropriate behavior
• Maladaptive behavior(psychology): behavior that defeats person’s own best interests
• Problems: many consensus pathologies do not involve any distinctive behavior (depression, anxiety states); specific types of behavior specified by behavioral definition don’t hold up => many are common

Front 34

WHAT IS A DISABILITY/DYSFUNCTION DEFINITION OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS AND A BEHAVIORAL DEFINITION?

Back 34

• Refers to disability or dysfunction

Front 35

HOW DOES OSSORIO DEFINE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY? BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT THE DEFINITION MEANS.

Back 35

• A person is in a pathological state when there is a significant restriction in his or her ability to engage in deliberate actopm amd equivalently to participate in the small practices of the community

Front 36

6. WHAT IS A PHOBIA? WHAT ARE THE TYPICAL KINDS OF PHOBIA?

Back 36

• A persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation
• Agoraphobia, specific phobias (animal, inanimate objects or situations (dark)), social phobia

Front 37

7. DOES THE BEHAVIORAL EXPLANATION EXPLAIN EVERYTHING ABOUT HILDA'S SNOW PHOBIA? WHAT DOES IT EXPLAIN? WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DOESN'T IT EXPLAIN?

Back 37

• No; explains because person continues to avoid feared object; due to classical conditioning => USC (Buried Alive)=> Panic/ CS (Snow)=> Panic
• Doesn’t explain; been around snow for 20 years no evidence she has to deal with snow

Front 38

8. WHAT ARE THE TWO PSYCHOANALYTIC EXPLANATIONS OF PHOBIAS? THESE MAY BE TERMED THE "REALLY AFRAID OF SOMETHING ELSE" AND THE "DISGUISED, PARTIAL ERUPTION" EXPLANATIONS. WHAT IS EACH OF THESE EXPLANATIONS SAYING?

Back 38

• Really afraid of something else; apparent feared object is really a “displacement object”
• Stressful events drain energy from ego and/or give additional energy to Id resulting in repressed contents

Front 39

9. WHAT EXPLANATION WAS OFFERED IN CLASS FOR THE DELAYED ONSET OF MANY PHOBIAS?

Back 39

• Freudian explanation; repression=> lifiting of repression under stress => repressed elements emerge in for of symptoms
• Substitute “suppression” for “repression”; too busy worrying about other things/ not mourning => once back to normal, PTSD

Front 40

fixer dans les yeux

Back 40

to stare at

Front 41

11. WHAT IS THE “DANGEROUS WORLD VIEW” HELD MY MANY G.A.D SUFFERERS?

Back 41

• The world is a scary place and should be aware always of their surroundings

Front 42

12. WHAT EXPLANATIONS WERE CONSIDERED IN CLASS REGARDING THE SENSE WHICH (A) OBSESSIONS, AND (B) COMPULSIONS MAKE?
BE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND:
-THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OBSESSIONS AND COMPULSIONS
-THE TWO PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES
-THE COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THEORY

Back 42

• Obsessions: distressing, anxiety provoking thought, images and temptations
• Compulsions: actions, overt or mental which person feels compelled to engage over and over
• Link b/w obsessions and compulsions: in compulsions, person acts on the content of the obsession
• Psychoanalytic theories: 1) general theory of neurotic symptoms again; repressed contents emerge as symptoms 2) displacement theory; perdon defends against more threatening idea by substituting less threatening one
• Cognitive-behavioral thery: 1) most people gave abhorrent thoughts, images (jump off grand canyon) 2) most shrug them off; others cant

Front 43

13. WHY, ACCORDING TO THE CLASS DISCUSSION OF HIS THERAPY, DID BEN F. HAVE A COMPULSION TO TURN OFF ELECTRICAL SWITCHES?

Back 43

• Constant thought about electrical fire =>him to blame => parents would have to pay for it; didn’t want to disappoint them

Front 44

14. WHY, ACCORDING TO PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY, DID "BEAR" DEVELOP A SOMATOFORM DISORDER?

Back 44

• Peer pressured a friend to try ***; friend freaked out jumps off a bridge and is now paralyzed

Front 45

15. WHAT IS BLISS' EXPLANATION FOR MPD?

Back 45

• A) people experience early trauma; 97% found to have traumatic experience; 11 out of 12 cases removied from home b/c of sever child abuse
• B) copes by creating an alternative personality to deal w/ it; first “alter” very acceptable very hard to intergrate; when called upoin to deal w/ something that first personality cant deal with, split off
• C) people gifted at autohypnosis, able to induce amnesia (block it out)
• D) person makes life a pattern in face of difficult situations of creating new personalities to deal w/ them