Chapter 5
In mental health care, treatment using controlled exposure to bright light, commonly for winter-pattern seasonal affective disorder.
Phototherapy
In Kurt Lewin’s theory, the person and their perceived psychological environment at a particular time, including the influences affecting their behavior.
Life space
The ongoing process of maintaining relatively stable internal conditions despite changes inside or outside the body.
Homeostasis
The study of interactions among psychological processes, the nervous system, and the immune system.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
Usually unconscious psychological strategies that reduce anxiety and protect a person from distressing thoughts, feelings, or conflicts.
Defense mechanisms
Mental processes involved in knowing and understanding, such as perception, memory, thinking, reasoning, and judgment.
Cognition
In Freud’s theory, the part of personality containing internalized moral standards and ideals, often described as the conscience.
Superego
Treatments that act on the body or brain to improve mental health, such as medications, electroconvulsive therapy, and other brain-stimulation treatments.
Somatic therapies
In Freud’s theory, the unconscious part of personality containing basic drives and seeking immediate satisfaction according to the pleasure principle.
Id
A system that exchanges information, energy, or resources with its environment and responds to outside influences.
Open system
The body, particularly when distinguished from the mind or psyche.
Soma
A state of balance among interacting forces or parts of a system.
Equilibrium
A simplified representation or framework used to organize concepts and explain how something works.
Model
Relating to emotions, feelings, and moods.
Affective
A sense of inadequacy or being less capable or worthy than others; a central concept in Alfred Adler’s theory.
Inferiority
In Freud’s theory, the psychological energy associated with sexual drives and pleasure-seeking impulses.
Libidinal energy
In Harry Stack Sullivan’s theory, mental images of oneself or others that develop through interpersonal experiences and associated feelings.
Personifications
In systems theory, a system that does not exchange information, energy, or resources with its surrounding environment.
Closed system
The mind, including a person’s thoughts, feelings, and conscious and unconscious mental processes.
Psyche
A theory and form of therapy developed by Sigmund Freud that explores unconscious conflicts and early experiences to understand present feelings and behavior.
Psychoanalysis
In Freud’s theory, the part of personality that deals with reality and balances the demands of the id, superego, and environment.
Ego
Relating to thinking, knowing, understanding, and processing information.
Cognition
The study of how biological processes, especially those of the brain and nervous system, relate to behavior and mental activity.
Psychobiology
Short chains of amino acids that act as chemical messengers in the nervous system; some also function as hormones.
Neuropeptides
Treatment using a therapeutic relationship and psychological methods to help people understand and manage emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and mental health problems.
Psychotherapy
An organized set of concepts and explanations used to understand relationships, explain events, and make predictions.
Theory
An internal or external demand, event, or condition that triggers a stress response.
Stressor
Chemical messengers released by nerve cells to transmit signals to other nerve cells, muscles, or glands.
Neurotransmitters