﻿ The Nerd in the Classroom

Student Objectives
The Students Will:

Identify and explain the criteria used for determining abnormality.

Understand the symptoms of select psychological disorders.

Describe to what extent biological, cognitive, and sociocultural factors influence abnormal behavior.

Demonstrate knowledge of basic mental health treatment strategies.

Abnormal Psychology

Psychological Disorder
  Deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, or Behaviors.

Anxiety Disorders

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Panic Disorder


Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD)
   An anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts and/ or actions.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-Traumatic Growth
   Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.

Somatoform Disorder

Conversion Disorder

   A somatoform disorder involving excessive concern about health and disease.

Dissociative Disorders
   Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

Mood Disorders
   Psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

Major Depressive Disorder

   A mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state.

Bipolar Disorder




Personality Disorders

Antisocial Personality Disorder


Eclectic Approach

Biomedical Therapy

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation



   The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Antidepressant Drugs
   Biological treatment; typically used for depression but is often used for anxiety.

Antianxiety Drugs
   Drugs used to control anxiety and agitation.

Antipsychotic Drugs
   Biological treatment option used to treat the severe psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia; effective for treating hallucinations.

Insight Therapies
   A variety of therapies which aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing the client's awareness of underlying motives and defenses.


Client-Centered Therapy
   A humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth.

Cognitive Therapies
   Therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting.

Group Therapy
   Therapy conducted with groups rather than individuals, permitting therapeutic benefits from group interaction.

Family Therapy

Behavior Therapy
   Approach that is based on the belief that all behavior (normal and abnormal) is learned; therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors and to teach new, appropriate ways of behaving; includes systematic desensitization, flooding, modeling extinction, token economy, and behavior contracting.

   A behavior therapy procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors; based on classical conditioning. Includes exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.

Systematic Desensitization
   A type of counterconditioning that associates a pleasant relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias.

Token Economy