Healthy+Minds+Vocabulary

Healthy Minds - Vocabulary - Glossary of Terms Download vocabulary as a word file || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || ||  || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || || ||  || Type in the content of your page here.
 * ** Aggression ** || Any behavior that is intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally.
 * ** Alcohol ** || A variety of beverages containing ethyl alcohol.
 * ** Anterograde amnesia ** || Loss of memories for events that occur after a head injury.
 * ** Attention ** || Focusing awareness on a narrowed range of stimuli or events.
 * ** Autonomic nervous system (ANS) ** || The system of nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles, and glands.
 * ** Behavior ** || Any overt (observable) response or activity by an organism.
 * ** Biopsychosocial model ** || A model of illness that holds that physical illness is caused by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.
 * ** Burnout ** || Physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that is attributable to work-related stress.
 * ** Catastrophic thinking ** || Unrealistically pessimistic appraisals of stress that exaggerate the magnitude of one's problems.
 * ** Catharsis ** || The release of emotional tension.
 * ** Conflict ** || A state that occurs when two or more incompatible motivations or behavioral impulses compete for expression.
 * ** Constructive coping ** || Relatively healthful efforts that people make to deal with stressful events.
 * ** Coping ** || Active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress.
 * ** Defense mechanisms ** || Largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt.
 * ** Displacement ** || Diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target.
 * ** Fight-or-flight response ** || A physiological reaction to threat in which the autonomic nervous system mobilizes the organism for attacking (fight) or fleeing (flight) an enemy. ||
 * ** Frustration ** || The feeling that people experience in any situation in which their pursuit of some goal is thwarted.
 * ** General adaptation syndrome ** || Selye's model of the body's stress response, consisting of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
 * ** Internet addiction ** || Spending an inordinate amount of time on the Internet and being unable to control online use.
 * ** Learned helplessness ** || Passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events.
 * ** Life changes ** || Any noticeable alterations in one's living circumstances that require readjustment.
 * ** Meditation ** || A family of mental exercises in which a conscious attempt is made to focus attention in a nonanalytical way.
 * ** Optimism ** || A general tendency to expect good outcomes.
 * ** Parasympathetic division ** || The branch of the autonomic nervous system that generally conserves bodily resources.
 * ** Pituitary gland ** || The “master gland“ of the endocrine system; it releases a great variety of hormones that fan out through the body, stimulating actions in the other endocrine glands.
 * ** Posttraumatic stress disorder ** || Disturbed behavior that is attributed to a major stressful event but that emerges after the stress is over.
 * ** Pressure ** || Expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way.
 * ** Prevalence ** || The percentage of a population that exhibits a disorder during a specified time period.
 * ** Psychosomatic diseases ** || Physical ailments with a genuine organic basis that are caused in part by psychological factors, especially emotional distress.
 * ** Rational-emotive therapy ** || An approach to therapy that focuses on altering clients' patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive emotions and behavior.
 * ** Sample ** || The collection of subjects selected for observation in an empirical study.
 * ** Social support ** || Various types of aid and succor provided by members of one's social networks.
 * ** Statistical significance ** || The condition that exists when the probability that the observed findings are due to chance is very low.
 * ** Stress ** || Any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one's well-being and that thereby tax one's coping abilities.
 * ** Sympathetic division ** || The branch of the autonomic nervous system that mobilizes the body's resources for emergencies.
 * ** Agoraphobia ** || A fear of going out to public places.
 * ** Agoraphobia ** || A fear of going out to public places.
 * ** Amnesia ** || A significant memory loss that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting. See also //Anterograde amnesia, Retrograde amnesia.//
 * ** Anorexia nervosa ** || Eating disorder characterized by intense fear of gaining weight, disturbed body image, refusal to maintain normal weight, and dangerous measures to lose weight. ||
 * ** Antisocial personality disorder ** || A type of personality disorder marked by impulsive, callous, manipulative, aggressive, and irresponsible behavior that reflects a failure to accept social norms.
 * ** Anxiety disorders ** || A class of disorders marked by feelings of excessive apprehension and anxiety.
 * ** Autonomic nervous system (ANS) ** || The system of nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles, and glands.
 * ** Behavior ** || Any overt (observable) response or activity by an organism. ||
 * ** Bipolar disorder ** || (formerly known as manicdepressive disorder) Mood disorder marked by the experience of both depressed and manic periods.
 * ** Bulimia nervosa ** || Eating disorder characterized by habitually engaging in out-of-control overeating followed by unhealthy compensatory efforts, such as self-induced vomiting, fasting, abuse of laxatives and diuretics, and excessive exercise.
 * ** Catastrophic thinking ** || Unrealistically pessimistic appraisals of stress that exaggerate the magnitude of one's problems.
 * ** Catatonic schizophrenia ** || A type of schizophrenia marked by striking motor disturbances, ranging from muscular rigidity to random motor activity.
 * ** Commitment ** || An intent to maintain a relationship in spite of the difficulties and costs that may arise.
 * ** Comorbidity ** || The coexistence of two or more disorders.
 * ** Concordance rate ** || The percentage of twin pairs or other pairs of relatives that exhibit the same disorder.
 * ** Conditioned response (CR) ** || A learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning.
 * ** Conditioned stimulus (CS) ** || A previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response.
 * ** Conjunction fallacy ** || An error that occurs when people estimate that the odds of two uncertain events happening together are greater than the odds of either event happening alone. ||
 * ** Culture-bound disorders ** || Abnormal syndromes found only in a few cultural groups.
 * ** Delusions ** || False beliefs that are maintained even though they are clearly out of touch with reality.
 * ** Diagnosis ** || Distinguishing one illness from another.
 * ** Disorganized schizophrenia ** || A type of schizophrenia in which particularly severe deterioration of adaptive behavior is seen.
 * ** Dissociative disorders ** || A class of disorders in which people lose contact with portions of their consciousness or memory, resulting in disruptions in their sense of identity.
 * ** Dissociative identity disorder (DID) ** || A type of dissociative disorder characterized by the coexistence in one person of two or more largely complete, and usually very different, personalities. Also called multiple-personality disorder.
 * ** Eating disorders ** || Severe disturbances in eating behavior characterized by preoccupation with weight concerns and unhealthy efforts to control weight.
 * ** Epidemiology ** || The study of the distribution of mental or physical disorders in a population.
 * ** Etiology ** || The apparent causation and developmental history of an illness.
 * ** Generalized anxiety disorder ** || A psychological disorder marked by a chronic, high level of anxiety that is not tied to any specific threat.
 * ** Genetic mapping ** || The process of determining the location and chemical sequence of specific genes on specific chromosomes.
 * ** Hallucinations ** || Sensory perceptions that occur in the absence of a real, external stimulus, or gross distortions of perceptual input.
 * ** Hindsight bias ** || The tendency to mold one's interpretation of the past to fit how events actually turned out.
 * ** Hypochondriasis ** || A somatoform disorder characterized by excessive preoccupation with health concerns and incessant worry about developing physical illnesses.
 * ** Insanity ** || A legal status indicating that a person cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because of mental illness.
 * ** Involuntary commitment ** || A civil proceeding in which people are hospitalized in psychiatric facilities against their will.
 * ** Learned helplessness ** || Passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events.
 * ** Major depressive disorder ** || Mood disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness and despair and a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure.
 * ** Medical model ** || The view that it is useful to think of abnormal behavior as a disease.
 * ** Mood disorders ** || A class of disorders marked by emotional disturbances of varied kinds that may spill over to disrupt physical, perceptual, social, and thought processes.
 * ** Multiple-personality disorder ** || See //Dissociative identity disorder//.
 * ** Negative reinforcement ** || The strengthening of a response because it is followed by the removal of an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus.
 * ** Negative symptoms ** || Schizophrenic symptoms that involve behavioral deficits, such as flattened emotions, social withdrawal, apathy, impaired attention, and poverty of speech.
 * ** Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) ** || A type of anxiety disorder marked by persistent, uncontrollable intrusions of unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and urges to engage in senseless rituals (compulsions).
 * ** Panic disorder ** || A type of anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of overwhelming anxiety that usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly.
 * ** Paranoid schizophrenia ** || A type of schizophrenia that is dominated by delusions of persecution along with delusions of grandeur.
 * ** Personality disorders ** || A class of psychological disorders marked by extreme, inflexible personality traits that cause subjective distress or impaired social and occupational functioning.
 * ** Phobias ** || Irrational fears of specific objects or situations.
 * ** Phobic disorder ** || A type of anxiety disorder marked by a persistent and irrational fear of an object or situation that presents no realistic danger.
 * ** Positive symptoms ** || Schizophrenic symptoms that involve behavioral excesses or peculiarities, such as hallucinations, delusions, bizarre behavior, and wild flights of ideas.
 * ** Preparedness ** || A species-specific predisposition to be conditioned in certain ways and not others.
 * ** Prevalence ** || The percentage of a population that exhibits a disorder during a specified time period.
 * ** Prognosis ** || A forecast about the probable course of an illness.
 * ** Psychosomatic diseases ** || Physical ailments with a genuine organic basis that are caused in part by psychological factors, especially emotional distress.
 * ** Schizophrenic disorders ** || A class of psychological disorders marked by disturbances in thought that spill over to affect perceptual, social, and emotional processes.
 * ** Somatization disorder ** || A type of somatoform disorder marked by a history of diverse physical complaints that appear to be psychological in origin.
 * ** Somatoform disorders ** || A class of psychological disorders involving physical ailments with no authentic organic basis that are due to psychological factors.
 * ** Stress ** || Any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one's well-being and that thereby tax one's coping abilities.
 * ** Unconditioned response (UCR) ** || An unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning.
 * ** Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ** || A stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning. ||
 * ** Undifferentiated schizophrenia ** || A type of schizophrenia marked by idiosyncratic mixtures of schizophrenic symptoms.
 * ** Antianxiety drugs ** || Medications that relieve tension, apprehension, and nervousness.
 * ** Antidepressant drugs ** || Medications that gradually elevate mood and help bring people out of a depression.
 * ** Antipsychotic drugs ** || Medications used to gradually reduce psychotic symptoms, including hyperactivity, mental confusion, hallucinations, and delusions.
 * ** Aversion therapy ** || A behavior therapy in which an aversive stimulus is paired with a stimulus that elicits an undesirable response.
 * ** Behavior modification ** || A systematic approach to changing behavior through the application of the principles of conditioning.
 * ** Behavior therapies ** || Application of the principles of learning to direct efforts to change clients' maladaptive behaviors.
 * ** Behaviorism ** || A theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behavior.
 * ** Biomedical therapies ** || Physiological interventions intended to reduce symptoms associated with psychological disorders.
 * ** Client-centered therapy ** || An insight therapy that emphasizes providing a supportive emotional climate for clients, who play a major role in determining the pace and direction of their therapy.
 * ** Clinical psychologists ** || Psychologists who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and everyday behavioral problems.
 * ** Cognitive therapy ** || An insight therapy that emphasizes recognizing and changing negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs.
 * ** Conditioned response (CR) ** || A learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning.
 * ** Conditioned stimulus (CS) ** || A previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response. ||
 * ** Conflict ** || A state that occurs when two or more incompatible motivations or behavioral impulses compete for expression.
 * ** Counseling psychologists ** || Psychologists who specialize in the treatment of everyday adjustment problems.
 * ** Defense mechanisms ** || Largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt.
 * ** Deinstitutionalization ** || Transferring the treatment of mental illness from inpatient institutions to community-based facilities that emphasize outpatient care.
 * ** Dream analysis ** || A psychoanalytic technique in which the therapist interprets the symbolic meaning of the client's dreams.
 * ** Eclecticism ** || In psychotherapy, drawing ideas from two or more systems of therapy instead of committing to just one system.
 * ** Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) ** || A biomedical treatment in which electric shock is used to produce a cortical seizure accompanied by convulsions.
 * ** Free association ** || A psychoanalytic technique in which clients spontaneously express their thoughts and feelings exactly as they occur, with as little censorship as possible.
 * ** Generalized anxiety disorder ** || A psychological disorder marked by a chronic, high level of anxiety that is not tied to any specific threat.
 * ** Group therapy ** || The simultaneous treatment of several clients in a group.
 * ** Incongruence ** || The degree of disparity between one's self-concept and one's actual experience.
 * ** Insight therapies ** || Psychotherapy methods characterized by verbal interactions intended to enhance clients' self-knowledge and thus promote healthful changes in personality and behavior.
 * ** Interpretation ** || In psychoanalysis, the therapist's attempts to explain the inner significance of the client's thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors.
 * ** Lithium ** || A chemical used to control mood swings in patients with bipolar mood disorders.
 * ** Major depressive disorder ** || Mood disorder characterized by persistent feelings of sadness and despair and a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure.
 * ** Mental hospital ** || A medical institution specializing in providing inpatient care for psychological disorders.
 * ** Placebo effects ** || The fact that subjects' expectations can lead them to experience some change even though they receive an empty, fake, or ineffectual treatment.
 * ** Psychiatrists ** || Physicians who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
 * ** Psychoanalysis ** || An insight therapy that emphasizes the recovery of unconscious conflicts, motives, and defenses through techniques such as free association and transference.
 * ** Psychopharmacotherapy ** || The treatment of mental disorders with medication.
 * ** Rational-emotive therapy ** || An approach to therapy that focuses on altering clients' patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive emotions and behavior.
 * ** Reuptake ** || A process in which neurotransmitters are sponged up from the synaptic cleft by the presynaptic membrane.
 * ** Self-concept ** || A collection of beliefs about one's own nature, unique qualities, and typical behavior.
 * ** Shaping ** || The reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response.
 * ** Social psychology ** || The branch of psychology concerned with the way individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others.
 * ** Social skills training ** || A behavior therapy designed to improve interpersonal skills that emphasizes shaping, modeling, and behavioral rehearsal.
 * ** Spontaneous remission ** || Recovery from a disorder without formal treatment.
 * ** Systematic desensitization ** || A behavior therapy used to reduce clients' anxiety responses through counterconditioning.
 * ** Transference ** || In therapy, the phenomenon that occurs when clients start relating to their therapists in ways that mimic critical relationships in their lives.
 * ** Unconditioned response (UCR) ** || An unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning.
 * ** Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ** || A stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning.