Assignment: key concepts overarching

Assignment: key concepts overarching
Assignment: key concepts overarching
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Assignment: Describe key concepts, principles, and overarching themes in psychology
Understanding PsychoPathology 3
student learning outcomes*
• Explain why psychology is a science with the primary objectives of describing, understanding, predicting, and controlling behavior and mental processes (APA SLO 1.1b) (see textbook pages 4–7, 25–27)
• Use basic psychological terminology, concepts, and theories in psychology to explain behavior and mental processes (APA SLO 1.1a) (see textbook pages 3–6, 9–14, 16–21, 23–27)
• Summarize important aspects of history of psychology, including key figures, central concerns, methods used, and theoretical conflicts (APA SLO 1.2c) (see textbook pages 9–27)
• Identify key characteristics of major content domains in psychology (e.g., cognition and learning, developmental, biological, and sociocultural) (APA SLO 1.2a) (see textbook pages 4–6, 13–21, 25–27)
• See APA SLO 1.1b listed above • Incorporate several appropriate levels of complexity
(e.g., cellular, individual, group/system, society/cultural) to explain behavior (APA SLO 2.1c) (see textbook pages 8–9, 12–16, 18–27)
Describe key concepts, principles, and overarching themes in psychology
Develop a working knowledge of the content domains of psychology
Use scientific reasoning to interpret behavior
Understanding Psychopathology Today you may have gotten out of bed, had breakfast, gone to class, studied, and, at the end of the day, enjoyed the company of your friends before dropping off to sleep. It probably did not occur to you that many physically healthy people are not able to do some or any of these things. What they have in common is a psychological disorder, a psychological dysfunction within an individual asso- ciated with distress or impairment in functioning and a response that is not typical or culturally expected. Before examining exactly what this means, let’s look at one individual’s situation.
Judy, a 16-year-old, was referred to our anxiety disorders clinic after increasing episodes of fainting. About 2 years earlier, in Judy’s first biology class, the teacher had shown a movie of a frog dissection to illustrate various points about anatomy.
This was a particularly graphic film, with vivid images of blood, tissue, and muscle. About halfway through, Judy felt a bit lightheaded and left the room. But the images did not
Judy… The Girl Who Fainted at the Sight of Blood
leave her. She continued to be bothered by them and occa- sionally felt slightly queasy. She began to avoid situations in which she might see blood or injury. She stopped looking at magazines that might have gory pictures. She found it difficult to look at raw meat, or even Band-Aids, because they brought the feared images to mind. Eventually, anything her friends or parents said that evoked an image of blood or injury caused Judy to feel lightheaded. It got so bad that if one of her friends exclaimed, “Cut it out!” she felt faint.
Beginning about 6 months before her visit to the clinic, Judy actually fainted when she unavoidably encountered something bloody. Her family physician could find nothing wrong with her, nor could several other physicians. By the time she was referred to our clinic, she was fainting 5 to 10 times a week, often in class. Clearly, this was problematic for her and disruptive in school; each time Judy fainted, the other students flocked around her, trying to help, and class was interrupted. Because no one could find anything wrong with her, the principal finally concluded that she was being manipulative and suspended her from school, even though she was an honor student.
* Portions of this chapter cover learning outcomes suggested by the American Psychological Association (2013) in their guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major. Chapter coverage of these outcomes is identified above by APA Goal and APA Suggested Learning Outcome (SLO).
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