TOPIC 1

• Positive Psychology


  -or one that had a

  morepositive conception of human

  potential and nature

  
  

  - utilizes a quanti-

  tativeapproach and aims to help people

  make the mostout of life's setbacks,

  relate well to others, findfulfillment in

  creativity, and find lasting meaningand

  satisfaction
• Humanistic Psychology


  - generally

  relied onqualitative methods
• Abnormal Behavior


  - to be a combination of personal distress, psychological dysfunction,deviance from social norms, dangerousness to self and

  others, and costliness to society
• Dysfunction


  - Includes "clinically significant

  disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion

  regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in

  the psychological, biological, or developmental

  processes underlying mental functioning"
• Distress


  When the person experiences a disabling

  condition "in social, occupational, or other

  important activities"

  -

  can take the form of psychological

  or physical pain, or both concurrently.

  -

  it is not sufficient enough to describe

  behavior as abnormal
• Deviance


  - Closer examination of the word

  abnormal indicates a move away from what is

  normal, or the mean (i.e., what would be considered

  average and in this case in relation to behavior), and

  so is behavior that infrequently occurs (sort of an

  outlier in our data).
• Culture


  - or the totality of socially transmitted

  behaviors, customs, values, technology, attitudes,

  beliefs, art, and other products that are particular to

  a group, determines what is normal.
• Social Norms


  - a person is said to be deviant when

  he or she fails to follow the stated and unstated rules

  of society

  -change over time due to shifts in

  accepted values and expectations.
• Abnormal Psychology


  - the scientific study of

  abnormal behavior, with the intent to be able to

  predict reliably, explain, diagnose, identify the

  causes of, and treat maladaptive behavior
• Psychopathology


  - Abnormal behavior can become

  pathological and has led to the scientific study of

  psychological disorders
• Mental Disorders


  - are characterized by

  psychological dysfunction, which causes physical

  and/or psychological distress or impaired

  functioning, and is not an expected behavior

  according to societal or cultural standards
• Classification


  -is how we organize or categorize things

  -

  or how we organize or categorize things,

  provides us with a nomenclature, or naming

  system, to structure our understanding of

  mental disorders in a meaningful way.
• Epidemiology


  - is the scientific study of the

  frequency and causes of diseases and other

  health-related states in specific populations such as

  a school, neighborhood, a city, country, and the

  world.
• Psychiatric or Mental Health Epidemiology


  -

  refers to the occurrence of mental disorders in a

  population
• Presenting Problem


  - patient presents with a

  specific problem
• Clinical Description


  - includes information about

  the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that constitute

  that mental disorder. We also seek to gain

  information about the occurrence of the disorder, its

  cause, course, and treatment possibilities
• Prevalence


  - is the percentage of people in a

  population that has a mental disorder or can be

  viewed as the number of cases divided by the total

  number of people in the sample.
• Point Prevalence


  - indicates the proportion

  of a population that has the characteristic at

  a specific point in time. In other words, it is

  the number of active cases.
• Period Prevalence


  - indicates the

  proportion of a population that has the

  characteristic at any point during a given

  period of time, typically the past year.
• Lifetime Prevalence


  - indicates the

  proportion of a population that has had the

  characteristic at any time during their lives.
• Incidence


  -

  indicates the number of new cases in a

  population over a specific period.

  -

  This measure is usually lower since it does

  not include existing cases as prevalence

  does.

  -

  is often studied by medical and public health

  officials so that causes can be identified, and

  future cases prevented
• Comorbidity


  - describes when two or more mental

  disorders are occurring at the same time and in the

  same person
• Etiology


  -

  is the cause of the disorder. There may be

  social, biological, or psychological

  explanations for the disorder which need to

  be understood to identify the appropriate

  treatment. Likewise, the effectiveness of a

  treatment may give some hint at the cause of

  the mental disorder

  -

  is the cause of a disorder while the course is

  its particular pattern and can be acute,

  chronic, or time-limited
• Course - of the disorder is its particular pattern. A

  disorder may be

  ● Acute - meaning that it lasts a short time

  ● Chronic - meaning it persists for a long time

  ● Time-limited - meaning that recovery will

  occur after some time regardless of whether

  any treatment occurs
• Prognosis


  - is the anticipated course the mental

  disorder will take
• Age


  - a key factor in determining the course, with

  some disorders presenting differently in childhood

  than adulthood
• Treatment


  - is any procedure intended to modify

  abnormal behavior into normal behavior
• Social Cognition


  - is the process through which we

  collect information from the world around us and

  then interpret it
• Schema


  - or a set of beliefs and expectations about

  a group of people, believed to apply to all members

  of the group, and based on experience
• Stereotypes


  - are special types of schemas that are

  very simplistic, very strongly held, and not based on

  firsthand experience.
• Heuristics, or Mental Shortcuts


  - allow us to

  assess this collected information very quickly. One

  piece of information, such as skin color, can be used

  to assign the person to a schema for which we have

  a stereotype. This can affect how we think or feel

  about the person and behave toward them.
• Social identity theory


  - states that people

  categorize their social world into meaningfully

  simplistic representations of groups of people
• Out-group homogeneity


  - occurs when we see all

  members of an outside group as the same.

  ​
• In-group/out-group bias


  - this leads to a tendency

  to show favoritism to, and exclude or hold a

  negative view of, members outside of one's

  immediate group
• Prejudice


  - the negative view or set of beliefs about

  a group of people

  ​
• Discrimination


  - can result in acting in a way that

  is negative against a group of people

  ​
• Implicit Attitude


  - an attitude we are unaware of

  ​
• Explicit Attitudes


  - which are the views within our

  conscious awareness
• Stigma


  - is when negative stereotyping, labeling,

  rejection, and loss of status occur and take the form

  of public or self-stigma, and label avoidance
• Public stigma


  - When members of a society

  endorse negative stereotypes of people with

  a mental disorder and discriminate against

  them. They might avoid them altogether,

  resulting in social isolation