Mental and Physical Health
How stress affects the body and mind, how psychological disorders are classified and understood, and how psychotherapy and biomedical treatments address them.
Developing Understanding
Unit 5 closes the course by connecting psychology to health. It begins with how the body and mind respond to stress, moves into how the DSM classifies psychological disorders, and finishes with the major approaches — psychotherapy and biomedical — used to treat them.
What you need to know for Unit 5
These groupings follow the order terms are introduced in the course. Be ready to explain and apply each one, not just define it.
Stress and Coping
The biopsychosocial approach explains health through interacting biological, psychological, and social factors. Stress is the process of responding to a stressor, and the general adaptation syndrome describes the body's alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages under prolonged stress. Problem-focused coping targets the stressor directly, emotion-focused coping targets the distress, and resilience and subjective well-being describe healthy long-term adaptation.
Anxiety, OCD, and Trauma-Related Disorders
The DSM is the classification system clinicians use to describe patterns of psychological disorders. Anxiety disorders share excessive fear or worry but take different forms: generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and specific phobias, while obsessive-compulsive disorder and PTSD involve related but distinct patterns of intrusive thoughts, compulsions, or trauma responses.
Mood Disorders, Schizophrenia, and Other Disorders
Major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder are mood disorders that differ in whether manic or hypomanic episodes occur. Schizophrenia involves positive symptoms (additions like hallucinations) and negative symptoms (reductions like diminished emotion), and dissociative and personality disorders involve disruptions in identity, memory, or enduring maladaptive patterns.
Psychotherapy Approaches
Psychotherapy uses psychological techniques within a therapeutic relationship. Cognitive therapy targets maladaptive thinking, behavior therapy applies learning principles, and CBT combines both. Exposure therapy and systematic desensitization treat fear directly, while humanistic and psychodynamic therapy take different approaches to insight and growth, and group therapy delivers treatment to multiple clients at once.
Biomedical Treatment
Antidepressant medications, antipsychotic medications, and mood stabilizers target different disorders largely by altering neurotransmitter activity. The placebo effect reminds researchers and clinicians that expectations about treatment can produce real change independent of a treatment's active ingredient.
Unit 5 Vocabulary
All 35 terms for this unit, grouped to match the key concepts above. Prefer flashcards? Use the flashcard tool filtered to Unit 5.
Stress and Coping
Biopsychosocial Approach
An approach explaining health and behavior through interacting biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors.
Stress
The process of responding to events appraised as threatening or challenging.
Stressor
An event or condition that can trigger a stress response.
General Adaptation Syndrome
A model describing physiological responses to prolonged stress through alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
Problem-Focused Coping
Attempting to reduce stress by directly changing the stressor or situation.
Emotion-Focused Coping
Attempting to reduce emotional distress rather than directly changing the stressor.
Resilience
Ability to adapt and recover in the face of adversity or stress.
Subjective Well-Being
A person's evaluations and feelings about the quality of their life.
Anxiety, OCD, and Trauma-Related Disorders
Dsm
A classification system used by clinicians in the United States to describe patterns of psychological disorders.
Anxiety Disorder
A category involving excessive fear, anxiety, or related behavioral disturbance.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Persistent and excessive anxiety across multiple areas of life.
Panic Disorder
A disorder involving recurrent unexpected panic attacks and concern or behavior changes related to future attacks.
Specific Phobia
Marked, persistent fear of a specific object or situation that is disproportionate to actual danger.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
A disorder involving obsessions, compulsions, or both that cause significant distress or impairment.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
A trauma-related disorder involving persistent symptoms after exposure to a traumatic event.
Mood Disorders, Schizophrenia, and Other Disorders
Major Depressive Disorder
A mood disorder involving a persistent period of depressed mood or loss of interest plus additional symptoms that impair functioning.
Bipolar Disorder
A mood disorder involving episodes of mania or hypomania, usually along with depressive episodes.
Schizophrenia
A disorder involving major disturbances in thought, perception, emotion, and behavior.
Positive Symptom
A schizophrenia symptom involving an addition to typical experience, such as hallucinations or delusions.
Negative Symptom
A schizophrenia symptom involving a reduction of typical functioning, such as diminished emotional expression or motivation.
Dissociative Disorder
A category involving disruptions in memory, identity, awareness, or perception.
Personality Disorder
An enduring, inflexible pattern of inner experience and behavior that causes impairment or distress.
Psychotherapy Approaches
Psychotherapy
Treatment involving psychological techniques and a therapeutic relationship.
Cognitive Therapy
Therapy aimed at identifying and changing maladaptive patterns of thinking.
Behavior Therapy
Therapy that applies learning principles to change problem behaviors.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
An approach combining cognitive and behavioral techniques.
Exposure Therapy
A behavioral method using safe, gradual or structured contact with feared stimuli to reduce fear responses.
Systematic Desensitization
Exposure paired with relaxation, usually moving gradually through a fear hierarchy.
Humanistic Therapy
Therapy emphasizing empathy, acceptance, self-awareness, and personal growth.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Therapy exploring recurring patterns, relationships, emotions, and less conscious influences.
Group Therapy
Psychotherapy delivered to multiple clients together.
Biomedical Treatment
Antidepressant Medication
Medication used for depressive and some anxiety-related disorders, often by altering neurotransmitter activity.
Antipsychotic Medication
Medication commonly used to reduce psychotic symptoms.
Mood Stabilizer
Medication used to reduce extreme mood shifts, especially in bipolar disorders.
Placebo Effect
Change associated with expectations about treatment rather than its specific active ingredient.
AP-Style Practice Questions
Try these multiple-choice questions drawn from the Unit 5 question bank. Click "Show Answer" to check your work and read the explanation. Want more? Build a full set on the Practice Exam page.
Which statement correctly distinguishes general adaptation syndrome from other concepts in mental and physical health?
- A. An event or condition that can trigger a stress response.
- B. A category involving excessive fear, anxiety, or related behavioral disturbance.
- C. Psychotherapy delivered to multiple clients together.
- D. A model describing physiological responses to prolonged stress through alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
Which statement correctly distinguishes proactive interference from other concepts in cognition?
- A. The perceptual organization of a focal object against its background.
- B. Failing to notice a visible stimulus because attention is directed elsewhere.
- C. Old information disrupts learning or recall of newer information.
- D. Explicit memory for facts, meanings, and general knowledge.
Which statement correctly distinguishes learned helplessness from other concepts in development and learning?
- A. A limited developmental window during which certain experiences have especially strong effects.
- B. Reinforcing successive approximations toward a target behavior.
- C. Reduced attempts to escape or change aversive conditions after repeated experiences of uncontrollability.
- D. Reinforcing a behavior only some of the time.
Which statement correctly distinguishes humanistic perspective from other concepts in social psychology and personality?
- A. A motivation theory proposing that physiological needs create aroused states that motivate behaviors restoring balance.
- B. An unjustified negative attitude toward a group and its members.
- C. Discomfort from inconsistent attitudes or behavior that can motivate attitude change or rationalization.
- D. A perspective emphasizing growth, personal meaning, free will, and self-concept.
Which statement correctly distinguishes acquisition from other concepts in development and learning?
- A. A person's developing sense of self, values, roles, and commitments.
- B. A learned response to a conditioned stimulus.
- C. The initial learning of an association.
- D. Reinforcement for the first response after a set amount of time.
Which statement correctly distinguishes mere exposure effect from other concepts in social psychology and personality?
- A. Increased liking for a stimulus after repeated exposure.
- B. An unjustified negative attitude toward a group and its members.
- C. Belief that outcomes are strongly influenced by one's own actions.
- D. A broad trait model including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Which statement correctly distinguishes conservation from other concepts in development and learning?
- A. Decrease of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.
- B. Understanding that quantity can remain constant despite changes in appearance.
- C. A parenting style high in warmth but low in consistent demands or limits.
- D. A design that compares different age groups at one point in time.
Which statement correctly distinguishes thalamus from other concepts in biological bases of behavior?
- A. A forebrain relay station for most sensory information headed to the cortex.
- B. A major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain.
- C. An endocrine gland controlled largely by the hypothalamus that influences several other glands.
- D. Decreased sensitivity to a constant, unchanging stimulus.
Which statement correctly distinguishes anxiety disorder from other concepts in mental and physical health?
- A. A category involving excessive fear, anxiety, or related behavioral disturbance.
- B. Psychotherapy delivered to multiple clients together.
- C. A mood disorder involving a persistent period of depressed mood or loss of interest plus additional symptoms that impair functioning.
- D. Change associated with expectations about treatment rather than its specific active ingredient.
Which statement correctly distinguishes serotonin from other concepts in biological bases of behavior?
- A. A left-temporal region important for language comprehension in most people.
- B. A cortical lobe involved in planning, decision making, speech production, and voluntary movement.
- C. A cortical lobe involved in hearing, language, object recognition, and aspects of memory.
- D. A neurotransmitter involved in mood, sleep, appetite, and other functions.
How to Study This Unit
Positive vs. Negative Symptoms
In schizophrenia, "positive" means an addition (hallucinations, delusions) and "negative" means a reduction (flat affect, low motivation) — not good vs. bad.
Match Disorder to Treatment
Practice pairing each disorder category with a plausible treatment approach; application questions often describe a client and ask which treatment fits.
Don't Forget the Placebo Effect
It applies beyond medication — any expectation-driven improvement, including in therapy, can reflect a placebo effect.