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| Association for Psychological Sciences |
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Definition
| The professional psychological organization formed in 1988 when an academic-scientific contingent broke off from the APA. Goals of the APS include advancing the discipline of psychology, preserving its scientific base, and promoting public understanding of the field and its applications. |
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| a popular learning framework for treating disorders that is based on the principles or conditioning. Behavior therapy usually focuses on observable behavior and is typically of relatively brief duration. |
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| an approach to understanding and changing behavior by identifying the context in which it occurs (the situations or stimuli that either precede it or follow it.) |
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| brief (time-effective) therapy |
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| generally speaking, therapy of 15 or fewer sessions' duration. Brief therapy has gained popularity in recent years due to the financial constraints imposed by managed care, as well as studies demonstrating that its effectiveness is on par with that of traditional psychotherapy. |
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| a psychological specialty that focuses on the prevention and treatment of mental health problems. particularly among people who are traditionally undeserved. |
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| Clinicians who employ the techniques of more than one theoretical orientation. The nature of the presenting problem determines which orientation to use in a given case. |
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| Causal; for example, an etiological factor for depression is believed to contribute to its onset. |
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| a term introduced by Charles Spearman to describe his concept of of a general factor of intelligence. |
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| Clinics devoted to the evaluation and treatment of children's intellectual and behavioral difficulties. |
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| A psychological specialty that focuses on the prevention of illness, the promotion of and maintenance of good health, and the psychological treatment of individuals with diagnosed medical conditions. |
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| Treatment that is presented and described in a manual format |
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| measurement of intelligence |
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| the use of tests to measure various mental capacities |
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| the term coined by James Mckeen Cattell to describe his measures of individual differences in reaction time. He believed that performance on these tests was associated with intelligence. |
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| neuropsychological assessment |
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Definition
| an assessment approach- based on empirically established brain behavior relationships- that evaluates a person's relative strengths and weaknesses across a number of areas. |
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| psychological tests that draw conclusions about people's states or traits on the basis of their responses to unambiguous stimuli, such as rating scales or questionnaire items. Responses to objective measures are often interpreted using a nomothetic approach |
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| enduring and maladaptive patterns of experience and behavior that emerge by adolescence or young adulthood and persist through much of adulthood. |
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| The use of measures or techniques to provide insight into enduring characteristics or traits. |
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| A technique, derived from traditional Freudian principles, that uses expressive play to help release anxiety and hostility. Proponents believe that such a release has a curative effect. |
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| Psychological testing techniques, such as the Rorschach or the Thematic Apperception Test, that use people's responses to ambiguous test stimuli to make judgements about their personality traits or their physical state |
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| a framework for understanding and treating mental illness based on the collaborative work of Breuer and Freud in the Late 1800's. |
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| The use and interpretation of psychological of psychological test scores for the purposes of diagnosis and treatment planning. |
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| Research that evaluates the effectiveness of therapy or certain therapy components. Psychotherapy research may be used to determine which intervention is more effective for treating a certain condition, or which component of a particular therapy is most crucial for bringing about an observed change. |
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| A movement in psychology that began in the late 1950's and persisted through the 1960's. Proponents of this movement asserted that only overt behaviors could be measured and even questioned the existence of personality traits. |
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| scientist-practitioner model |
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Definition
| The principle model for clinical psychology training of the past 50 years. (AKA the Boulder Model). This model strives to produce professionals who can effectively integrate the roles of scientists and practitioner. |
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Term
| structured diagnostic interviews |
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Definition
| A class of assessment tools, all of which consist of questions keyed to diagnostic criteria. The term structured means that interviewers as all interviewees the same questions in the same order and score the answers in standard ways. |
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| systematic desensitization |
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Definition
| A behavioral technique for the treatment of anxiety disorders in which patients practice relaxation while visualizing anxiety- provoking situations of increasing intensity. |
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