Abstinence violation effect

Abstinence violation effect	A sense of loss of control over one's behavior that has an overwhelming and demoralizing effect.



Active phase	A period in the course of schizophrenia in which psychotic symptoms are present.



Acute stress disorder	An anxiety disorder that develops after a traumatic event with symptoms such as depersonalization, numbing, dissociative amnesia, intense anxiety, hypervigilance, and impairment of everyday functioning. People with this disorder may reexperience the event and desperately avoid reminders of the trauma. These symptoms arise within the month following the trauma and last from days to weeks.



Adoption study	A method of comparing genetic versus environmental contributions to a disorder by tracking the incidence of disorders in children whose biological parents have diagnosed psychological disorders but whose rearing parents do not.



Adult antisocial behavior	Illegal or immoral behavior such as stealing, lying, or cheating.



Affect	An individual's outward expression of emotion.



Affective flattening	A symptom of schizophrenia in which an individual seems unresponsive and which is reflected in relatively motionless body language and facial reactions, as well as minimal eye contact.



Agnosia	The inability to recognize familiar objects or experiences, despite the ability to perceive their basic elements.



Agoraphobia	Intense anxiety about being trapped or stranded in a situation without help if a panic attack occurs.



Akinesia	A motor disturbance in which a person's muscles become rigid and movement is difficult to initiate.



Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH)	A zinc containing enzyme that breaks down alcohol into fatty acids, carbon dioxide, and water before it enters the bloodstream.



Aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)	An enzyme that is involved in metabolizing alcohol.



Alogia	Speechlessness or a notable lack of spontaneity or responsiveness in conversation.



Alters	The alternative personalities that develop in an individual with dissociative identity disorder.



Amnestic disorders	Cognitive disorders involving the inability to recall previously learned information or to register new memories.



Amyloid plaques	A characteristic of Alzheimer's disease in which clusters of dead or dying neurons become mixed together with fragments of protein molecules.



Anal stage	A period of psychosexual development in which the toddler's pleasure focuses on anal stimulation from holding onto and expelling feces.



Anhedonia	A loss of interest in or ability to experience pleasure from activities that most people find appealing.



Anorexia nervosa	An eating disorder characterized by an inability to maintain normal weight, an intense fear of gaining weight, and distorted body perception.



Antisocial personality disorder	A personality disorder characterized by a lack of regard for society's moral or legal standards.



Anxiety	A future-oriented and global response, involving both cognitive and emotional components, in which an individual is inordinately apprehensive, tense, and uneasy about the prospect of something terrible happening.



Anxiety disorders	Disorders characterized by intense, irrational, and incapacitating apprehension.



Anxiety sensitivity theory	The belief that panic disorder is caused in part by the tendency to interpret cognitive and somatic manifestations of stress and anxiety in a catastrophic manner.



Aphasia	A loss of the ability to use language.



Apraxia	A loss of the ability to carry out coordinated bodily movements that the individual could previously perform without difficulty.



Asperger's disorder	A pervasive developmental disorder in which a child maintains adequate cognitive and language development but becomes severely impaired in social interaction. Children with this disorder also develop restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities.



Assessment	The evaluation of a person in terms of the psychological, physical, and social factors that have the most influence on the individual's functioning.



Assigned (biological) sex	The sex of the individual that is recorded on the birth certificate.



Asylum	Literally a place of refuge or safety, the term was originally used to describe a psychiatric facility and later came to have negative connotations.



Attachment style	The way a person relates to a caregiver figure.



Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)	A behavior disorder of childhood involving problems with inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.



Attributions	Explanations that people make of the things that happen to them.



Auditory hallucination	An hallucination that involves hearing sounds, often voices or even entire conversations.



Autistic disorder	A pervasive developmental disorder involving massive impairment in an individual's ability to communicate and relate emotionally to others.



Automatic thoughts	Ideas so deeply entrenched that the individual is not even aware that they lead to feelings of unhappiness and discouragement.



Aversions	Responses of discomfort or dislike to a particular object or situation.



Aversive conditioning	A form of conditioning in which a painful stimulus is paired with an initially neutral stimulus.



Avoidant personality disorder	A personality disorder whose most prominent feature is that the individual desires, but is fearful of, any involvement with other people and is terrified at the prospect of being publicly embarrassed.



Avolition	A lack of initiative, either not wanting to take any action or lacking the energy and will to take action.



Axis	A class of information in DSM-IV regarding an aspect of the individual's functioning.



Base rate	The frequency with which a disorder occurs in the general population.



Baseline	The period in which a participant is observed prior to being given treatment, the purpose being to document the frequency of the target behavior.



Behavioral assessment	A form of measurement based on objective recording of the individual's behavior.



Behavioral medicine	An interdisciplinary approach to medical conditions affected by psychological factors that is rooted in learning theory.



Behavioral observation	A behavioral method of assessment in which the clinician observes the individual and records the frequency of specific behaviors along with any relevant situational factors.



Behavioral perspective	A theoretical perspective in which it is assumed that abnormality is caused by faulty learning experiences.



Behavioral self-report	A method of behavioral assessment in which the individual provides information about the frequency of particular behaviors.



Benzodiazepines	Medications that slow down central nervous system reactions that are thought to contribute to anxiety.



Big win	A gain of large amounts of money in one bet, which propels the pathological gambler into a pattern of uncontrollable gambling.



Binges	The ingestion of large amounts of food during a short period of time, even after reaching a point of feeling full, and a lack of control over what or how much is eaten.



Biofeedback	A procedure in which people learn to monitor and control their autonomic responses, such as blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance, and muscular tension.



Biological markers	Measurable characteristics or traits whose patterns parallel the inheritance of a disorder or other characteristic.



Biological perspective	A theoretical perspective in which it is assumed that disturbances in emotions, behavior, and cognitive processes are caused by abnor-malities in the functioning of the body.



Biopsychosocial	A model in which the interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors is seen as influencing the development of the individual.



Bipolar disorder	A mood disorder involving manic episodes—intense and very disruptive experiences of heightened mood, possibly alternating with major depressive episodes.



Bipolar I disorder	The diagnosis used to describe a clinical course in which the individual experiences one or more manic episodes with the possibility, though not the necessity, of having experienced one or more major depressive episodes.



Bipolar II disorder	The diagnosis used to describe a clinical course in which the individual experiences one or more major depressive episodes and at least one hypomanic episode.



Body dysmorphic disorder	A somatoform disorder in which individuals are preoccupied with the idea that a part of their body is ugly or defective.



Borderline personality disorder	A personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of poor impulse control and instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, and self-image.



Bradykinesia	A motor disturbance involving a general slowing of motor activity.



Brief psychotic disorder	A disorder characterized by the sudden onset of psychotic symptoms that are limited to a period of less than a month.



Broca's aphasia	A form of aphasia that involves a disturbance in language production but intact comprehension abilities.



Bulimia nervosa	An eating disorder involving the alternation between the extremes of eating large amounts of food in a short time, and then compensating for the added calories either by vomiting or other extreme actions to avoid gaining weight.



Caregiver burden	The adverse effects on caregivers from the constant demands placed on them by their role.



Caregivers	The people (usually family members) primarily responsible for caring for a person with a chronic disease, such as Alzheimer's disease.



Case formulation	A clinician's analysis of the factors that might have influenced the client's current psychological status.



Case study method	An intensive study of a single person described in detail.



Caspase theory of Alzheimer's disease	The proposal that beta amyloid stimulates substances called caspases, which become enzymes that destroy neurons.



Catatonia	Extreme motor disturbances in a psychotic disorder not attributable to physiological causes.



Childhood disintegrative disorder	A pervasive developmental disorder in which the child develops normally for the first years and then starts to lose language, social, and motor skills, as well as other adaptive functions, including bowel and bladder control.



Choline acetyltransferase (CAT)	An enzyme that is essential for the synthesis of acetylcholine.



Chromosomes	Structures found in each cell of the body that contain the genes and exist in a pair, with one chromosome contributed from each parent at conception.



Classical conditioning	The learning of a connection between an originally neutral stimulus and a naturally evoking stimulus that produces an automatic reflexive reaction.



Client	A person seeking psychological treatment.



Client-centered	An approach based on the belief held by Rogers that people are innately good and that the potential for self-improvement lies within the individual.



Clinical psychologist	A mental health professional with training in the behavioral sciences who provides direct service to clients.



Cognitive distortions	Errors that depressed people make in the way they draw conclusions from their experiences.



Cognitive restructuring	One of the fundamental techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy in which clients learn to reframe negative ideas into more positive ones.



Cognitive triad	A negative view of the self, the world, and the future.



Cognitive-behavioral perspective	A theoretical perspective in which it is assumed that abnormality is caused by maladaptive thought processes that result in dysfunctional behavior.



Command hallucination	An hallucination in which the individual hears an instruction to take an action.



Commitment	Legal procedure designed to protect individuals from doing harm to themselves or others through involuntary institutionalization or other forms of mental health treatment.



Communication disorders	Conditions involving impaired expression or understanding of language.



Community mental health center (CMHC)	Outpatient clinic that provides psychological services on a sliding fee scale to serve individuals who live within a certain geographic area.



Comorbid	Multiple diagnostic conditions that occur simultaneously within the same individual.



Competency to stand trial	A prediction by a mental health expert of the defendant's cognitive and emotional stability during the period of the trial.



Compulsion	A repetitive and seemingly purposeful behavior performed in response to uncontrollable urges or according to a ritualistic or stereotyped set of rules.



Computed axial tomography (CAT or CT scan)	A series of X-rays taken from various angles around the body which are integrated by a computer to produce a composite picture.



Concordance rate	Agreement ratios between people diagnosed as having a particular disorder and their relatives.



Conditioned fear reactions	Acquired associations between an internal or external cue and feelings of intense anxiety.



Conditioned response	An acquired response to a stimulus that was previously neutral.



Conditioned stimulus	A previously neutral stimulus that, after repeated pairings with the unconditioned stimulus, elicits a conditioned response.



Conditions of worth	Conditions in which the child receives love only when he or she fulfills certain demands.



Conduct disorder	A development-related disorder that involves repeated violations of the rights of others and society's norms and laws; the childhood precursor of antisocial personality disorder in adulthood.



Confidentiality	The principle that disclosures in therapy must be safeguarded by the therapist as private.



Congruence	A central feature of Rogers' theory is the idea that a well-adjusted person's self-image should match the person's experiences.



Content of thought	Ideas that fill a client's mind.



Contingency management	A form of behavioral therapy that involves the principle of rewarding a client for desired behaviors and not providing rewards for undesired behaviors.



Continuous amnesia	Inability to recall past events from a particular date up to and including the present time.



Control group	The group of participants that does not receive the "treatment" thought to influence the behavior under study.



Conversion disorder	A somatoform disorder involving the translation of unacceptable drives or troubling conflicts into physical symptoms.



Coping	The process through which people reduce stress.



Coprolalia	The involuntary uttering of obscenities.



Correlation	An association, or correlation, between two variables, that can range in value from .0 to .0.



Cortical atrophy	A wasting away of tissue in the cerebral cortex of the brain.



Cortisol	A hormone involved in the mobilization of the body's resources in times of stress.



Counterconditioning	The process of replacing an undesired response to a stimulus with an acceptable response.



Covert conditioning	A behavioral intervention in which the therapist instructs the client to imagine a highly negative experience when engaging in an undesirable behavior.



Crack cocaine	A crystallized form of cocaine that is usually smoked.



Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease	A neurological disease transmitted from animals to humans that leads to dementia and death resulting from abnormal protein accumulations in the brain.



Crossfostering study	A method of comparing genetic versus environmental contributions to a disorder by tracking the incidence of disorders in children who are adopted by parents with psychological disorders but whose biological parents are psychologically healthy.



Cue exposure methods	A behavioral approach to alcohol treatment in which the individual is given a priming dose of alcohol, which initiates the craving for more alcohol; the person is then urged to refuse further alcohol.



Culture-bound syndromes	Recurrent patterns of abnormal behavior or experience that are limited to specific societies or cultural areas.



Cyclothymic disorder	A mood disorder that, compared with bipolar disorder, involves a less intense vacillation between states of euphoria and dysphoria.



Day treatment program	A structured program in a community treatment facility that provides activities similar to those provided in a psychiatric hospital.



Decision tree	A strategy used for diagnosis, consisting of yes/no questions that guide clinicians in ruling in or out psychological disorders.



Defense mechanisms	Tactics that keep unacceptable thoughts, instincts, and feelings out of conscious awareness and thus protect the ego against anxiety.



Deinstitutionalization movement	The release of psychiatric patients into community treatment sites as a result of dramatic changes in public policy.



Delirium	A temporary state in which individuals experience a clouding of consciousness in which they are unaware of what is happening around them and are unable to focus or pay attention.



Delirium tremens	A physical condition consisting of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, confusion, and possible seizures associated with alcohol withdrawal.



Delusional disorders	Disorders marked by a single striking psychotic symptom—an organized system of nonbizarre false beliefs.



Delusions	Deeply entrenched false beliefs not consistent with the client's intelligence or cultural background.



Demand characteristics	The expectations of participants in an experiment about what is going to happen to them or the proper way to respond.



Dementia	A form of cognitive impairment involving generalized progressive deficits in a person's memory and learning of new information, ability to communicate, judgment, and motor coordination.



Dementia praecox	The term coined by Kraepelin to describe what is currently known as schizophrenia. According to Kraepelin, this condition involves a degeneration of the brain that begins at a young age and ultimately leads to a disintegration of the entire personality.



Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)	A molecule containing a sequence of nucleotides that forms the structure of the chromosome.



Dependent personality disorder	A personality disorder whose main characteristic is that the individual is extremely passive and tends to cling to other people, to the point of being unable to make any decisions or to take independent action.



Dependent variable	The variable whose value is the outcome of the experimenter's manipulation of the independent variable.



Depersonalization	An altered experience of the self, ranging from feeling that one's body is not connected to one's mind to the feeling that one is not real.



Depersonalization disorder	A dissociative disorder in which the individual experiences recurrent and persistent episodes of depersonalization.



Depressant	A psychoactive substance that causes the depression of central nervous system activity.



Developmental coordination disorder	A condition characterized by marked impairment in the development of motor coordination.



Deviation IQ	An index of intelligence derived from comparing the individual's score on an intelligence test with the mean score for that individual's reference group.



Dexamethasone suppression test (DST)	A method of testing neuroendocrine functioning by injecting the individual with dexamethasone, which in normal individuals results in the suppression of cortisol.



*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)*	A book published by the American Psychiatric Association that contains standard terms and definitions of psychological disorders.



Diathesis-stress model	The proposal that people are born with a predisposition (or "diathesis") that places them at risk for developing a psychological disorder if exposed to certain extremely stressful life experiences.



Differential diagnosis	The process of systematically ruling out alternative diagnoses.



Disorder of written expression	A learning disorder in which the individual's writing is characterized by poor spelling, grammatical or punctuation errors, and disorganization of paragraphs.



Dissociative amnesia	An inability to remember important personal details and experiences; is usually associated with traumatic or very stressful events.



Dissociative fugue	A dissociative disorder in which a person, confused about personal identity, suddenly and unexpectedly travels to another place and is unable to recall past history or identity.



Dissociative identity disorder	A dissociative disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder, in which an individual develops more than one self or personality.



Disulfiram	Known popularly as Antabuse, a medication used in the treatment of alcoholism that inhibits aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) and causes severe physical reactions when combined with alcohol.



Dizygotic twins	Nonidentical, or fraternal, twins who are genetically alike only to the same degree as other siblings.



Dopamine hypothesis	The biological hypothesis that the delusions, hallucinations, and attentional deficits of schizophrenia result from overactivity of neurons that communicate with each other via the transmission of dopamine.



Double-blind technique	An experimental procedure in which neither the person giving the treatment nor the person receiving the treatment knows whether the participant is in the experimental or control group.



Down syndrome	A form of mental retardation caused by abnormal chromosomal formation during conception.



Dream analysis	A method used in psychoanalysis in which the client relates the events of a dream to the clinician and free associates these events.



Duty to warn	The clinician's responsibility to notify a potential victim of a client's harmful intent toward that individual.



Dysfunctional attitudes	Personal rules or values people hold that interfere with adequate adjustment.



Dyslexia	A learning disorder in which the individual omits, distorts, or substitutes words when reading and reads in a slow, halting fashion.



Dyspareunia	A sexual dysfunction affecting both males and females that involves recurrent or persistent genital pain before, during, or after sexual intercourse.



Dysphoria	The emotion of sadness.



Dysphoric mood	Unpleasant feelings, such as sadness or irritability.



Dysthymic disorder	A mood disorder involving chronic depression of less intensity than major depressive disorders.



Echolalia	Repetition of words or phrases in the speech of a person with autistic disorder.



Ego	In psychoanalytic theory, the structure of personality that gives the individual the mental powers of judgment, memory, perception, and decision making, enabling the individual to adapt to the realities of the external world.



Ego ideal	The individual's model of how the perfect person should be.



Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)	The application of electrical shock to the head, for the purpose of inducing therapeutically beneficial seizures.



Electroencephalogram (EEG)	A measure of changes in the electrical activity of the brain.



Emotion-focused coping	A type of coping in which a person does not change anything about the situation itself, but instead tries to improve feelings about the situation.



Encopresis	An elimination disorder in which the child is incontinent of feces and has bowel movements either in clothes or in another inappropriate place.



Enuresis	An elimination disorder in which the child is incontinent of urine and urinates in clothes or in bed after the age when the child is expected to be continent.



Environmental assessment scales	Measures of key environmental dimensions hypothesized to influence behavior.



Epilepsy	A neurological condition that involves recurring bodily seizures with associated changes in EEG patterns.



Episode	A time-limited period during which specific symptoms of a disorder are present.



Euphoria	The emotion of elation.



Euphoric mood	A feeling state that is more cheerful and elated than average, possibly even ecstatic.



Executive functioning	Cognitive abilities such as abstract thinking, planning, organizing, and carrying out of behaviors.



Exhibitionism	A paraphilia in which a person has intense sexual urges and arousing fantasies involving the exposure of genitals to a stranger.



Expectancy model	An approach to alcohol dependence that focuses on cognitive-behavioral and social learning perspectives. According to this view, people acquire the belief that alcohol will reduce stress; will make them feel more competent socially, physically, and sexually; and will give them feelings of pleasure.



Experimental group	The group of participants that receives the "treatment" thought to influence the behavior under study.



Experimental method	A research method that involves altering or changing the conditions to which participants are exposed (independent variable) and observing the effects of this manipulation on the participants' behavior (dependent variable).



Expressed emotion (EE)	An index of the degree to which family members speak in ways that reflect criticism, hostile feelings, and emotional overinvolvement or overconcern with regard to the schizophrenic individual.