Definitions in psychiatry Flashcards
Dysthymia
A chronic state of low mood, usually with an insidious onset and lasting at least 2 years
Euthymia
Happy, contented mood
Affect
short lived observable pattern of behaviour that expresses the subjective emotional state of an individual. It is subject to variation over brief periods of time.
Alexythymia
An inability to verbally express one’s emotions
Anhedonia
A total inability to enjoy anything in life or even get the accustomed satisfaction from everyday events or objects. A loss of the ability to experience pleasure.
Psychomotor retardation
The subject sits abnormally still or walks abnormally slowly or takes a long time to initiate movement
Flight of ideas
Images and ideas flash through the mind, each suggesting others at a fast rate [seen in mania]
Pressure of speech
The subject talks too much. There seems to be undue pressure to get the words out. He speaks too fast, his voice is too loud and unnecessary words are added.
Depersonalisation
A peculiar change in the awareness of self in which the individual feels as if he is unreal
Derealisation
The subject experiences his surroundings as unreal. An office or a bus or a street seems like a stage set with actors, rather than real people going about their business. Everything seems colourless, artificial and dead.
The subject retains a measure of understanding and knows the condition is abnormal.
Illusion
False perception of a real stimulus. There are 3 types:
- Affect
- Completion
- Pareidolia
Pseudohallucination
A perceptual experience which is figurative, not concretely real and occurs in inner subjective space, not an external objective space. It has the quality of an idea.
[people who hear voices that come from inside their head]
Hallucination
A perception that occurs in the absence of a stimulus
Thought echo
The subject experiences his own thoughts as repeated or echoed with very little interval between the thought and the echo. The repetition may not be a simple echo but subtly or grossly changed in quality.
Thought insertion
The subject experiences thoughts which are not his own intruding into his mind. In the most typical case the alien thoughts are said to have been inserted into the mind from outside, by means of radar telepathy or some other means
Thought withdrawal
The subject says that thoughts have been removed from his head by an external agency so that he has no thoughts (often able to describe the sensation of the thoughts leaving)
Thought broadcast
The subject experiences his thoughts as actually being shared with others, often with large numbers of people. The subjects often claim this sharing is via telepathy, radio and television
Delusions of control/passivity
The subject experiences his will as replaced by that of some other force or agency
Delusional perception
A type of primary delusion. This is present when a patient receives a normal perception which is then interpreted with delusional meaning and has immense personal meaning. Example - on seeing a traffic light change from red to green; a man declared that he was the king of Mars
Negative symptoms
Describes a cluster of symptoms that generally occur together in schizophrenia
[Generally begin with an A-, taking things away, for example anhedonia]
Clouding of consciousness
This represents a step down from normal alertness. There is deterioration in thinking, attention, perception and memory and usually drowsiness and reduced perception of environment
Lability
The subjects mood is rapidly changeable
Delusion
A fixed, firmly held belief that is held with unshakeable conviction despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and cannot be explained by the subjects cultural or religious background
Nihilistic delusions
delusion of extreme negativity. Patient believes they no longer exist, that they are about to die or that they are already dead. The feeling that one is about to experience a terrible doom
Grandiose delusions
Delusions of being of special status
Aphagia
no speech, inability to produce words orally
Concrete thinking
Inability to understand abstract ideas or concepts, literalness of understanding or expression
2nd person auditory hallucinations
“you’re going to die, you’re going to die”
3rd person auditory hallucinations
“the voices are talking to each other about me, they say I am evil and mad”
Ideas of reference
A belief that events or occurrences are directly directed or related to the patient
Loosening of associations
thoughts that move to one another but with loss of normal structures of thought, appearing illogical or muddled
[seen in schizophrenia]
Neoligisms
new words that have no real meaning
Perseveration
persistent repetition of the same thoughts or ideas
