Mental Status Examination

Question 1

Repeated purposeless behaviors often indicative of anxiety, such as drumming fingers, locks of hair, pacing, rocking, or tapping the foot.

Answer 1

Automatisms

Question 2

Overall slowed movements.

Answer 2

Psychomotor Retardation

Question 3

Maintenance of posture or position over time even when it is awkward.

Answer 3

Waxy Flexibility

Question 4

Purposely imitates movements made by others.

Answer 4

Echopraxia

Question 5

Extreme form of negativism; inability or refusal to speak even when the client is aware of the environment.

Answer 5

Mutism

Question 6

“Beating around the bush”, giving unnecessary details that delays meeting a goal.

Answer 6

Circumstantiality

Question 7

Repetition of a single word, idea, or phrase over and over.

Answer 7

Perseveration

Question 8

Excessive amount of speech and rapid transition from one topic to another (composed of fragmented or unrelated ideas), without completing the original thought (common in manic).

Answer 8

Flight of ideas

Question 9

Disorganized thinking that jumps from one idea to another with little or no evidence relation between the thoughts (vague to no connection).

Answer 9

Loose Associations

Question 10

Sudden cessation of thoughts.

Answer 10

Blocking

Question 11

Repeating exactly what is heard.

Answer 11

Echolalia

Question 12

Inventing words only he understands.

Answer 12

Neologism

Question 13

Sensory perception that have no external stimuli.

Answer 13

Hallucinations

Question 14

Misperception or misinterpretations of an external stimuli.

Answer 14

Illusions

Question 15

False belief that cannot be corrected by logic. Includes delusion of persecution, grandeur, reference, control or influence, somatic delusion, and nihilistic delusion

Answer 15

Delusions

Question 16

Belief that thoughts or behavior have control over specific situations or people.

Answer 16

Magical Thinking

Question 17

Extreme suspiciousness of others and of their actions or perceived intentions.

Answer 17

Paranoia

Question 18

Excessive demonstration or of obsession with religious ideas or behavior.

Answer 18

Religiosity

Question 19

Irrational fear of a specific object or situation.

Answer 19

Phobias

Question 20

Maladaptive persistent patterns or thoughts, images, or feelings that generate anxiety.

Answer 20

Obsessions

Question 21

Maladaptive urges to act on impulse (ritualistic behaviors).

Answer 21

Compulsions

Question 22

Recurrent thought or center of particular idea or thought with an intense emotional component.

Answer 22

Preoccupations

Question 23

Delusional belief that others can hear or know what the client is thinking.

Answer 23

Thought Broadcasting

Question 24

Stopping abruptly in the middle of a sentence or train of thought; sometimes unable to continue the idea.

Answer 24

Thought Blocking

Question 25

A delusional belief that others are putting ideas or thoughts into the client's head; the ideas are not of the client.

Answer 25

Thought Insertion

Question 26

Facial expressions which are incongruent with mood or situation; often silly regardless of circumstances.

Answer 26

Inappropriate (incongruent) affect

Question 27

Showing little or slow-to-respond facial expression. Other terms are bland or flat affect.

Answer 27

Blunted affect

Question 28

Displaying one type of expression, usually serious or somber.

Answer 28

Restricted affect

Question 29

Unpredictable and rapidly changing mood (from depressed and crying to euphoria).

Answer 29

Labile mood

Question 30

Lack of concern or disinterest; inability to generate a normal response to people, situations, or the environment.

Answer 30

Apathy

Question 31

Removal from consciousness awareness of painful feelings, memories, thought, or aspects of identity.

Answer 31

Dissociation

Question 32

Co-existence of opposite emotions toward the same object, person, or situation.

Answer 32

Ambivalence

Question 33

Inability to express joy or feeling.

Answer 33

Anhedonia

Question 34

Mood that involves unhappiness, restlessness, and malaise.

Answer 34

Dysphoria

Question 35

Inability to use abstract thinking, and utilizing concrete thinking; literal translations/interpretations.

Answer 35

Intellectual Functioning

Question 36

Subjective sense of feeling unreal, strange, unfamiliar or emotional numbness. This is the most extreme form of disorientation.

Answer 36

Depersonalization