neuro and psych terminology Flashcards
acting out
Behavioral response to an unconscious drive or impulse that brings about temporary partial relief of inner tension; relief is attained by reacting to a present situation as if it were the situation that originally gave rise to the drive or impulse. Common in borderline states.
affect
The subjective and immediate experience of emotion attached to ideas or mental representations of objects. Affect has outward manifestations that may be classified as restricted, blunted, flattened, broad, labile, appropriate, or inappropriate. See also mood.
agitation
Severe anxiety associated with motor restlessness.
akathisia
Subjective feeling of motor restlessness manifested by a compelling need to be in constant movement; may be seen as an extrapyramidal adverse effect of antipsychotic medication. May be mistaken for psychotic agitation.
alexithymia
Inability or difficulty in describing or being aware of one’s emotions or moods; elaboration of fantasies associated with depression, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
alogia
Inability to speak because of a mental deficiency or an episode of dementia.
ambivalence
Coexistence of two opposing impulses toward the same thing in the same person at the same time. Seen in schizophrenia, borderline states, and obsessive–compulsive disorders (OCDs).
amnesia
Partial or total inability to recall past experiences; may be organic (amnestic disorder) or emotional (dissociative amnesia) in origin.
anhedonia
Loss of interest in and withdrawal from all regular and pleasurable activities. Often associated with depression.
anterograde amnesia
Loss of memory for events subsequent to the onset of the amnesia; common after trauma. Compare with retrograde amnesia.
anxiety
Feeling of apprehension caused by anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external.
apathy
Dulled emotional tone associated with detachment or indifference; observed in certain types of schizophrenia and depression.
aphasia
Any disturbance in the comprehension or expression of language caused by a brain lesion. For types of aphasia, see the specific term.
apraxia
Inability to perform a voluntary purposeful motor activity; cannot be explained by paralysis or other motor or sensory impairment. In constructional apraxia, a patient cannot draw two- or three-dimensional forms.
ataxia
Lack of coordination, physical or mental. (1) In neurology, refers to loss of muscular coordination. (2) In psychiatry, the term intrapsychic ataxia refers to lack of coordination between feelings and thoughts; seen in schizophrenia and in severe OCD.
attention
Concentration; the aspect of consciousness that relates to the amount of effort exerted in focusing on certain aspects of an experience, activity, or task. Usually impaired in anxiety and depressive disorders.
audible thoughts
A form of auditory hallucination in which everything the patient thinks or speaks is repeated by the voices. Also known as thought echoing.
auditory hallucination
False perception of sound, usually voices, but also other noises, such as music. Most common hallucination in psychiatric disorders.
behaviour
Sum total of the psyche that includes impulses, motivations, wishes, drives, instincts, and cravings, as expressed by a person’s behavior or motor activity. Also called conation.
behavioural therapy
Therapy focusing only on introducing new behaviour. The idea is that the thoughts will fall into line behind the new behaviours, and so don’t need to be targeted specifically.
belle indifference
A person showing disinterest in his or her physical complaint. Occurs in conversion disorder.
bereavement
Feeling of grief or desolation, especially at the death or loss of a loved one.
bizarre delusion
False belief that is patently absurd or fantastic (e.g., invaders from space have implanted electrodes in a person’s brain). Common in schizophrenia. In nonbizarre delusion, content is usually within the range of possibility.
blocking
Abrupt interruption in train of thinking before a thought or idea is finished; after a brief pause, the person indicates no recall of what was being said or was going to be said (also known as thought deprivation or increased thought latency). Common in schizophrenia and severe anxiety.
blunted affect
Disturbance of affect manifested by a severe reduction in the intensity of externalized feeling tone; one of the fundamental symptoms of schizophrenia, as outlined by Eugen Bleuler.
bradykinesia
Slowness of motor activity, with a decrease in normal spontaneous movement.
bradylalia
Abnormally slow speech. Common in depression.
capgras’ syndrome
disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor
catalepsy
Condition in which persons maintain the body position into which they are placed; observed in severe cases of catatonic schizophrenia. Also called waxy flexibility and cerea flexibilitas. See also command automatism.
cataplexy
Temporary sudden loss of muscle tone, causing weakness and immobilization; can be precipitated by a variety of emotional states and is often followed by sleep. Commonly seen in narcolepsy.
catastrophic reaction
Extreme emotional state characterized by restlessness, irritability, crying, anxiety, and uncooperativeness. Seen in patients who have suffered a stroke.
catatonic excitement
Excited, uncontrolled motor activity seen in catatonic schizophrenia. Patients in catatonic state may suddenly erupt into an excited state and may be violent.
catatonic posturing
Voluntary assumption of an inappropriate or bizarre posture, generally maintained for long periods of time. May switch unexpectedly with catatonic excitement.
catatonic rigidity
Fixed and sustained motoric position that is resistant to change.
catatonic stupor
Stupor in which patients ordinarily are well aware of their surroundings.
cathexis
In psychoanalysis, a conscious or unconscious investment of psychic energy in an idea, concept, object, or person. Compare with acathexis.
chorea
Movement disorder characterized by random and involuntary quick, jerky, purposeless movements. Seen in Huntington’s disease.
circumstantiality
Patient digresses into unnecessary details and inappropriate thoughts before communicating the central idea. Observed in schizophrenia, obsessional disturbances, and certain cases of dementia. See also tangentiality.
clang association
Association or speech directed by the sound of a word rather than by its meaning; words have no logical connection; punning and rhyming may dominate the verbal behavior. Seen most frequently in schizophrenia or mania.
clanging
Association or speech directed by the sound of a word rather than by its meaning; words have no logical connection; punning and rhyming may dominate the verbal behavior. Seen most frequently in schizophrenia or mania.
claustrophobia
Abnormal fear of closed or confining spaces. cognition Mental process of knowing and becoming aware; function is closely associated with judgment.
cognitive therapy
focuses more on the way that what you believe and think can keep problems going. It helps you to test any unhelpful beliefs by talking about them, and then developing ideas that are more helpful for you. You then try these out in between sessions and so develop more helpful ways of thinking and acting. It can take account of what has happened in the past, but mainly looks at the present and future.
command auditory hallucinations
auditory hallucinations that instruct a patient to act in specific ways; these commands can range in seriousness from innocuous to life-threatening
command automatism
Condition associated with catalepsy in which suggestions are followed automatically.
command hallucination
False perception of orders that a person may feel obliged to obey or unable to resist.
complex partial seizure
A seizure characterized by alterations in consciousness that may be accompanied by complex hallucinations (sometimes olfactory) or illusions. During the seizure, a state of impaired consciousness resembling a dreamlike state may occur, and the patient may exhibit repetitive, automatic, or semipurposeful behavior.
compulsion
Pathological need to act on an impulse that, if resisted, produces anxiety; repetitive behavior in response to an obsession or performed according to certain rules, with no true end in itself other than to prevent something from occurring in the future.
concrete thinking
Thinking characterized by actual things, events, and immediate experience rather than by abstractions; seen in young children, in those who have lost or never developed the ability to generalize (as in certain cognitive mental disorders), and in schizophrenic persons. Compare with abstract thinking.
confabulation
Unconscious filling of gaps in memory by imagining experiences or events that have no basis in fact, commonly seen in amnestic syndromes; should be differentiated from lying. See also paramnesia.
confusion
Disturbances of consciousness manifested by a disordered orientation in relation to time, place, or person.
consciousness
State of awareness, with response to external stimuli.
constricted affect
Reduction in intensity of feeling tone that is less severe than that of blunted affect.
conversion phenomena
The development of symbolic physical symptoms and distortions involving the voluntary muscles or special sense organs; not under voluntary control and not explained by any physical disorder. Most common in conversion disorder but also seen in a variety of mental disorders.
convulsion
An involuntary, violent muscular contraction or spasm. See also clonic convulsion and tonic convulsion.
counselling
This is often provided in primary care, at your GP’s surgery. It is usually fairly short, and aims to help you to be clearer about your problems – and by being clearer, to come up with your own answers. It is often used to help someone cope with recent events they have found difficult. It does not aim to help you change as a person, as most of the other therapies described here d
de clerambault’s syndrome
Popularly called erotomania, the syndrome is characterized by the delusional idea, usually in a young woman, that a man whom she considers to be of higher social and/or professional standing is in love with her.
de quincey’s syndrome
not sure: restless leg perhaps due to drugs) or aspergers
decompensation
Deterioration of psychic functioning caused by a breakdown of defense mechanisms. Seen in psychotic states.
delirium
Acute reversible mental disorder characterized by confusion and some impairment of consciousness; generally associated with emotional lability, hallucinations or illusions, and inappropriate, impulsive, irrational, or violent behavior.
delirium tremens
Acute and sometimes fatal reaction to withdrawal from alcohol, usually occurring 72 to 96 hours after the cessation of heavy drinking; distinctive characteristics are marked autonomic hyperactivity (tachycardia, fever, hyperhidrosis, and dilated pupils), usually accompanied by tremulousness, hallucinations, illusions, and delusions. Called alcohol withdrawal delirium in the DSM-IV-TR. See also formication.
delusions of reference
Misinterpretation of incidents and events in the outside world as having direct personal reference to oneself
delusion
False belief, based on incorrect inference about external reality, that is firmly held despite objective and obvious contradictory proof or evidence and despite the fact that other members of the culture do not share the belief. delusion of control False belief that a person’s will, thoughts, or feelings are being controlled by external forces.
delusion of grandeur
Exaggerated conception of one’s importance, power, or identity.
delusion of infidelity
False belief that one’s lover is unfaithful. Sometimes called pathological jealousy.
delusion of persecution
False belief of being harassed or persecuted; often found in litigious patients who have a pathological tendency to take legal action because of imagined mistreatment. Most common delusion.
delusion of poverty
False belief that one is bereft or will be deprived of all material possessions.
delusion of reference
False belief that the behavior of others refers to oneself or that events, objects, or other people have a particular and unusual significance, usually of a negative nature; derived from idea of reference, in which persons falsely feel that others are talking about them (e.g., belief that people on television or radio are talking to or about the person). See also thought broadcasting.
delusion of self-accusation
False feeling of remorse and guilt. Seen in depression with psychotic features.
dementia
Mental disorder characterized by general impairment in intellectual functioning without clouding of consciousness; characterized by failing memory, difficulty with calculations, distractibility, alterations in mood and affect, impaired judgment and abstraction, reduced facility with language, and disturbance of orientation. Although irreversible because of underlying progressive degenerative brain disease, dementia may be reversible if the cause can be treated.
denial
Defense mechanism in which the existence of unpleasant realities is disavowed; refers to keeping out of conscious awareness any aspects of external reality that, if acknowledged, would produce anxiety.
depersonalization
Sensation of unreality concerning oneself, parts of oneself, or one’s environment that occurs under extreme stress or fatigue. Seen in schizophrenia, depersonalization disorder, and schizotypal personality disorder.
depression
Mental state characterized by feelings of sadness, loneliness, despair, low self-esteem, and self-reproach; accompanying signs include psychomotor retardation or, at times, agitation, withdrawal from interpersonal contact, and vegetative symptoms, such as insomnia and anorexia. The term refers to a mood that is so characterized or a mood disorder.
derailment
Gradual or sudden deviation in train of thought without blocking; sometimes used synonymously with loosening of association.
derealisation
Sensation of changed reality or that one’s surroundings have altered. Usually seen in schizophrenia, panic attacks, and dissociative disorders.
desperation
emotion felt by GEMP 2 at regular intervals. What we pay $000s in uni fees to experience.
detachment
Characterized by distant interpersonal relationships and lack of emotional involvement.
devaluation
Defense mechanism in which a person attributes excessively negative qualities to self or others. Seen in depression and paranoid personality disorder.
dialectical behaviour therapy
These therapies are mostly aimed at helping people with borderline personality disorder. Both treatments involve regular sessions over a period of 12 to 18 months. The treatment may include a mix of individual and group session.
diminished libido
Decreased sexual interest and drive. (Increased libido is often associated with mania.)
disinhibition
(1) Removal of an inhibitory effect, as in the reduction of the inhibitory function of the cerebral cortex by alcohol. (2) In psychiatry, a greater freedom to act in accordance with inner drives or feelings and with less regard for restraints dictated by cultural norms or one’s superego.
disorientation
Confusion; impairment of awareness of time, place, and person (the position of the self in relation to other persons). Characteristic of cognitive disorders.
dissociation
Unconscious defense mechanism involving the segregation of any group of mental or behavioral processes from the rest of the person’s psychic activity; may entail the separation of an idea from its accompanying emotional tone, as seen in dissociative and conversion disorders. Seen in dissociative disorders.
distractibility
Inability to focus one’s attention; the patient does not respond to the task at hand but attends to irrelevant phenomena in the environment.
drowsiness
State of impaired awareness associated with a desire or inclination to sleep.
dysarthria
Difficulty in articulation, the motor activity of shaping phonated sounds into speech, not in word finding or in grammar.
dyskinesia
Difficulty in performing movements. Seen in extrapyramidal disorders.
dyslexia
Specific learning disability syndrome involving an impairment of the previously acquired ability to read; unrelated to the person’s intelligence. Compare with alexia.
dyspareunia
Physical pain in sexual intercourse, usually emotionally caused and more commonly experienced by women; may also result from cystitis, urethritis, or other medical conditions.
dysphagia
Difficulty in swallowing.
dysphasia
Difficulty in comprehending oral language (reception dysphasia) or in trying to express verbal language (expressive dysphasia).
dysphoria
Feeling of unpleasantness or discomfort; a mood of general dissatisfaction and restlessness. Occurs in depression and anxiety.
dysphoric mood
Feeling of unpleasantness or discomfort; a mood of general dissatisfaction and restlessness. Occurs in depression and anxiety.
dystonia
Extrapyramidal motor disturbance consisting of slow, sustained contractions of the axial or appendicular musculature; one movement often predominates, leading to relatively sustained postural deviations; acute dystonic reactions (facial grimacing and torticollis) are occasionally seen with the initiation of antipsychotic drug therapy.
echolalia
Psychopathological repeating of words or phrases of one person by another; tends to be repetitive and persistent. Seen in certain kinds of schizophrenia, particularly the catatonic types.
echolalia
Psychopathological repeating of words or phrases of one person by another; tends to be repetitive and persistent. Seen in certain kinds of schizophrenia, particularly the catatonic types.
ego-alien
Denoting aspects of a person’s personality that are viewed as repugnant, unacceptable, or inconsistent with the rest of the personality. Also called ego-dystonia. Compare with egosyntonic.
ego-dystonic
Denoting aspects of a person’s personality that are viewed as repugnant, unacceptable, or inconsistent with the rest of the personality. Also called ego-alien. Compare with egosyntonic.
ego-syntonic
Denoting aspects of a personality that are viewed as acceptable and consistent with that person’s total personality. Personality traits are usually ego-syntonic. Compare with ego-alien.
egocentric
Self-centered; selfishly preoccupied with one’s own needs; lacking interest in others.
egomania
Morbid self-preoccupation or self-centeredness. See also narcissism.
elation
Mood consisting of feelings of joy, euphoria, triumph, and intense self-satisfaction or optimism. Occurs in mania when not grounded in reality.
elevated mood
Air of confidence and enjoyment; a mood more cheerful than normal but not necessarily pathological.
emotion
Complex feeling state with psychic, somatic, and behavioral components; external manifestation of emotion is affect.
emotional insight
A level of understanding or awareness that one has emotional problems. It facilitates positive changes in personality and behavior when present.
emotional lability
Excessive emotional responsiveness characterized by unstable and rapidly changing emotions.
erotomania
Delusional belief, more common in women than in men, that someone is deeply in love with them (also known as de Clérambault syndrome).
euphoria
Exaggerated feeling of well-being that is inappropriate to real events. Can occur with drugs such as opiates, amphetamines, and alcohol.
euthymia
Normal range of mood, implying absence of depressed or elevated mood.
expansive
mood Expression of feelings without restraint, frequently with an overestimation of their significance or importance. Seen in mania and grandiose delusional disorder.
expressive aphasia
Disturbance of speech in which understanding remains, but ability to speak is grossly impaired; halting, laborious, and inaccurate speech (also known as Broca’s, nonfluent, and motor aphasias).
expressive dysphasia
Difficulty in expressing verbal language; the ability to understand language is intact.
externalization
More general term than projection that refers to the tendency to perceive in the external world and in external objects elements of one’s own personality, including instinctual impulses, conflicts, moods, attitudes, and styles of thinking.
extroversion
State of one’s energies being directed outside oneself. Compare with introversion.
fantasy
Daydream; fabricated mental picture of a situation or chain of events. A normal form of thinking dominated by unconscious material that seeks wish fulfillment and solutions to conflicts; may serve as the matrix for creativity. The content of the fantasy may indicate mental illness.
flat affect
Absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression.
flattened affect
Absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression.
flight of ideas
Rapid succession of fragmentary thoughts or speech in which content changes abruptly and speech may be incoherent. Seen in mania.
folie à deux
Mental illness shared by two persons, usually involving a common delusional system; if it involves three persons, it is referred to as folie à trois, etc. Also called shared psychotic disorder.
formal thought disorder
Disturbance in the form of thought rather than the content of thought; thinking characterized by loosened associations, neologisms, and illogical constructs; thought process is disordered, and the person is defined as psychotic. Characteristic of schizophrenia.
formication
Tactile hallucination involving the sensation that tiny insects are crawling over the skin. Seen in cocaine addiction and delirium tremens.
fugue
Dissociative disorder characterized by a period of almost complete amnesia, during which a person actually flees from an immediate life situation and begins a different life pattern; apart from the amnesia, mental faculties and skills are usually unimpaired.
galactorrhea
Abnormal discharge of milk from the breast; may result from the endocrine influence (e.g., prolactin) of dopamine receptor antagonists, such as phenothiazines.
generalized tonic-clonic seizure
Generalized onset of tonic-clonic movements of the limbs, tongue biting, and incontinence followed by slow, gradual recovery of consciousness and cognition; also called grand mal seizure.
global aphasia
Combination of grossly nonfluent aphasia and severe fluent aphasia.
glossolalia
Unintelligible jargon that has meaning to the speaker but not to the listener. Occurs in schizophrenia.
grandiose delusions
Exaggerated conception of one’s importance, power, or identity.
grandiosity
Exaggerated feelings of one’s importance, power, knowledge, or identity. Occurs in delusional disorder and manic states.
grief
Alteration in mood and affect consisting of sadness appropriate to a real loss; normally, it is self limited. See also depression and mourning.
guilt
Emotional state associated with self-reproach and the need for punishment. In psychoanalysis, refers to a feeling of culpability that stems from a conflict between the ego and the superego (conscience). Guilt has normal psychological and social functions, but special intensity or absence of guilt characterizes many mental disorders, such as depression and antisocial personality disorder, respectively. Psychiatrists distinguish shame as a less internalized form of guilt that relates more to others than to the self. See also shame.
gustatory hallucination
Hallucination primarily involving taste.
gynecomastia
Femalelike development of the male breasts; may occur as an adverse effect of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs because of increased prolactin levels or anabolic–androgenic steroid abuse.
hallucination
False sensory perception occurring in the absence of any relevant external stimulation of the sensory modality involved. For types of hallucinations, see the specific term.
hallucinosis
State in which a person experiences hallucinations without any impairment of consciousness.
hebephrenia
Complex of symptoms, considered a form of schizophrenia, characterized by wild or silly behavior or mannerisms, inappropriate affect, and delusions and hallucinations that are transient and unsystematized. Hebephrenic schizophrenia is now called disorganized schizophrenia.
hypervigilance
Excessive attention to and focus on all internal and external stimuli; usually seen in delusional or paranoid states.
hypnosis
Artificially induced alteration of consciousness characterized by increased suggestibility and receptivity to direction.
hypochondria
Exaggerated concern about health that is based not on real medical pathology but on unrealistic interpretations of physical signs or sensations as abnormal.
hypomania
Mood abnormality with the qualitative characteristics of mania but somewhat less intense. Seen in cyclothymic disorder.
idea of reference
Misinterpretation of incidents and events in the outside world as having direct personal reference to oneself; occasionally observed in normal persons, but frequently seen in paranoid patients. If present with sufficient frequency or intensity or if organized and systematized, they constitute delusions of reference.
ideas of reference
Misinterpretation of incidents and events in the outside world as having direct personal reference to oneself; occasionally observed in normal persons, but frequently seen in paranoid patients. If present with sufficient frequency or intensity or if organized and systematized, they constitute delusions of reference
illusion
Perceptual misinterpretation of a real external stimulus. Compare with hallucination. impaired insight Diminished ability to understand the objective reality of a situation.
illusions
Perceptual misinterpretation of a real external stimulus. Compare with hallucination. impaired insight Diminished ability to understand the objective reality of a situation.
impaired judgment
Diminished ability to understand a situation correctly and to act appropriately.
impulse control
Ability to resist an impulse, drive, or temptation to perform some action.
inappropriate affect
Emotional tone out of harmony with the idea, thought, or speech accompanying it. Seen in schizophrenia.
incoherence
Communication that is disconnected, disorganized, or incomprehensible. See also word salad.
incongruous affect
e.g. the patient will have happy thoughts and look happy when talking about a sad event
initial insomnia
Falling asleep with difficulty; usually seen in anxiety disorder. Compare with middle insomnia and terminal insomnia.
insight
Conscious recognition of one’s own condition. In psychiatry, it refers to the conscious awareness and understanding of one’s own psychodynamics and symptoms of maladaptive behavior; highly important in effecting changes in the personality and behavior of a person.
insomnia
Difficulty in falling asleep or difficulty in staying asleep. It can be related to a mental disorder, can be related to a physical disorder or an adverse effect of medication, or can be primary (not related to a known medical factor or another mental disorder). See also initial insomnia, middle insomnia, and terminal insomnia.
intellectual insight
Knowledge of the reality of a situation without the ability to use that knowledge successfully to effect an adaptive change in behavior or to master the situation. Compare with true insight.
interpersonal psychotherapy
This is a treatment for depression, but it has also been used with other problems. It aims to help you to understand how your problems may be connected to the way your relationships work. It then helps you to find out how to strengthen your relationships and find better ways of coping.
intoxication
Mental disorder caused by recent ingestion or presence in the body of an exogenous substance producing maladaptive behavior by virtue of its effects on the central nervous system (CNS). The most common psychiatric changes involve disturbances of perception, wakefulness, attention, thinking, judgment, emotional control, and psychomotor behavior; the specific clinical picture depends on the substance ingested.
introversion
State in which a person’s energies are directed inward toward the self, with little or no interest in the external world.
irritable mood
State in which one is easily annoyed and provoked to anger. See also irritability.
judgment
Mental act of comparing or evaluating choices within the framework of a given set of values for the purpose of electing a course of action. If the course of action chosen is consonant with reality or with mature adult standards of behavior, then judgment is said to be intact or normal; judgment is said to be impaired if the chosen course of action is frankly maladaptive, results from impulsive decisions based on the need for immediate gratification, or is otherwise not consistent with reality as measured by mature adult standards.
la belle indifference
Inappropriate attitude of calm or lack of concern about one’s disability. May be seen in patients with conversion disorder.
labile affect
Affective expression characterized by rapid and abrupt changes, unrelated to external stimuli.
labile mood
Oscillations in mood between euphoria and depression or anxiety.
logorrhea
Copious, pressured, coherent speech; uncontrollable, excessive talking; observed in manic episodes of bipolar disorder. Also called tachylogia, verbomania, and volubility.
long-term memory
Reproduction, recognition, or recall of experiences or information that was experienced in the distant past. Also called remote memory. Compare with immediate memory and short-term memory.
loosening of associations
Characteristic schizophrenic thinking or speech disturbance involving a disorder in the logical progression of thoughts, manifested as a failure to communicate verbally adequately; unrelated and unconnected ideas shift from one subject to another. See also tangentiality.
magical thinking
A form of dereistic thought; thinking similar to that of the preoperational phase in children (Jean Piaget), in which thoughts, words, or actions assume power (e.g., to cause or to prevent events).
malingering
Feigning disease to achieve a specific goal, for example, to avoid an unpleasant responsibility.
mania
Mood state characterized by elation, agitation, hyperactivity, hypersexuality, and accelerated thinking and speaking (flight of ideas). Seen in bipolar I disorder. See also hypomania.
manipulation
Maneuvering by patients to get their own way, characteristic of antisocial personalities.
mannerism
Ingrained, habitual involuntary movement.
melancholia
Severe depressive state. Used in the term involutional melancholia as a descriptive term and also in reference to a distinct diagnostic entity.
memory
Process whereby what is experienced or learned is established as a record in the CNS (registration), where it persists with a variable degree of permanence (retention) and can be recollected or retrieved from storage at will (recall). For types of memory, see immediate memory, long-term memory, and short-term memory.
mental disorder
Psychiatric illness or disease whose manifestations are primarily characterized by behavioral or psychological impairment of function, measured in terms of deviation from some normative concept; associated with distress or disease, not just an expected response to a particular event or limited to relations between a person and society.
mental retardation
Subaverage general intellectual functioning that originates in the developmental period and is associated with impaired maturation and learning and social maladjustment. Retardation is commonly defined in terms of intelligence quotient (IQ): mild (between 50 and 55 to 70), moderate (between 35 and 40 to between 50 and 55), severe (between 20 and 25 to between 35 and 40), and profound (below 20 to 25).
middle insomnia
Waking up after falling asleep without difficulty and then having difficulty in falling asleep again. Compare with initial insomnia and terminal insomnia.
mood
Pervasive and sustained feeling tone that is experienced internally and that, in the extreme, can markedly influence virtually all aspects of a person’s behavior and perception of the world. Distinguished from affect, the external expression of the internal feeling tone. For types of mood, see the specific term.
mood-congruent delusion
Delusion with content that is mood appropriate (e.g., depressed patients who believe that they are responsible for the destruction of the world).
mood-congruent hallucination
Hallucination with content that is consistent with a depressed or manic mood (e.g., depressed patients hearing voices telling them that they are bad persons and manic patients hearing voices telling them that they have inflated worth, power, or knowledge).
mood-incongruent delusion
Delusion based on incorrect reference about external reality, with content that has no association to mood or is mood inappropriate (e.g., depressed patients who believe that they are the new Messiah).
mood-incongruent hallucination
Hallucination not associated with real external stimuli, with content that is not consistent with depressed or manic mood (e.g., in depression, hallucinations not involving such themes as guilt, deserved punishment, or inadequacy; in mania, not involving such themes as inflated worth or power). mourning Syndrome following loss of a loved one, consisting of preoccupation with the lost individual, weeping, sadness, and repeated reliving of memories. See also bereavement and grief.
muscle rigidity
State in which the muscles remain immovable; seen in schizophrenia.
mutism
Organic or functional absence of the faculty of speech. See also stupor.
narcissism
In psychoanalytic theory, divided into primary and secondary types: primary narcissism, the early infantile phase of object relationship development, when the child has not differentiated the self from the outside world, and all sources of pleasure are unrealistically recognized as coming from within the self, giving the child a false sense of omnipotence; secondary narcissim, when the libido, once attached to external love objects, is redirected back to the self. See also autistic thinking.
negative signs
In schizophrenia: flat affect, alogia, abulia, and apathy.
negativism
Verbal or nonverbal opposition or resistance to outside suggestions and advice; commonly seen in catatonic schizophrenia in which the patient resists any effort to be moved or does the opposite of what is asked.
neologism
A newly created word whose meaning is unknown to others (from Greek – neo = “new” + logos = “word”). The use of neologisms is common in children, but is considered indicative of brain damage or a thought disorder (like schizophrenia) when present in adults.
nihilism
Delusion of the nonexistence of the self or part of the self; also refers to an attitude of total rejection of established values or extreme skepticism regarding moral and value judgments.
nihilistic delusion
Depressive delusion that the world and everything related to it have ceased to exist.
obsession
Persistent and recurrent idea, thought, or impulse that cannot be eliminated from consciousness by logic or reasoning; obsessions are involuntary and ego-dystonic. See also compulsion.
olfactory hallucination
Hallucination primarily involving smell or odors; most common in medical disorders, especially in the temporal lobe.
orientation
State of awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings in terms of time, place, and person.
over inclusiveness
inability to keep irrelevant elements outside perceptual boundaries.
overactivity
Abnormality in motor behavior that can manifest itself as psychomotor agitation, hyperactivity (hyperkinesis), tics, sleepwalking, or compulsions.
overvalued idea
False or unreasonable belief or idea that is sustained beyond the bounds of reason. It is held with less intensity or duration than a delusion but is usually associated with mental illness.
panic
Acute, intense attack of anxiety associated with personality disorganization; the anxiety is overwhelming and accompanied by feelings of impending doom.
paranoia
Rare psychiatric syndrome marked by the gradual development of a highly elaborate and complex delusional system, generally involving persecutory or grandiose delusions, with few other signs of personality disorganization or thought disorder. paranoid delusions Includes persecutory delusions and delusions of reference, control, and grandeur.
paranoid ideation
Thinking dominated by suspicious, persecutory, or grandiose content of less than delusional proportions.
passivity phenomena
individual feels that some aspect of themselves is under the external control of another or others
perception
Conscious awareness of elements in the environment by the mental processing of sensory stimuli; sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to the mental process by which all kinds of data, intellectual, emotional, and sensory, are meaningfully organized. See also apperception.
perseveration
(1) Pathological repetition of the same response to different stimuli, as in a repetition of the same verbal response to different questions. (2) Persistent repetition of specific words or concepts in the process of speaking. Seen in cognitive disorders, schizophrenia, and other mental illness. See also verbigeration.
phantom limb
False sensation that an extremity that has been lost is, in fact, present.
phobia
Persistent, pathological, unrealistic, intense fear of an object or situation; the phobic person may realize that the fear is irrational but, nonetheless, cannot dispel it. For types of phobias, see the specific term.
pica
Craving and eating of nonfood substances, such as paint and clay.
positive signs
In schizophrenia: hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder.
posturing
Strange, fixed, and bizarre bodily positions held by a patient for an extended time. See also catatonia.
poverty of content of speech
Speech that is adequate in amount but conveys little information because of vagueness, emptiness, or stereotyped phrases. poverty of speech Restriction in the amount of speech used; replies may be monosyllabic. See also laconic speech.
poverty of speech
Speech that is adequate in amount but conveys little information because of vagueness, emptiness, or stereotyped phrases. poverty of speech Restriction in the amount of speech used; replies may be monosyllabic. See also laconic speech.
pressured speech
Increase in the amount of spontaneous speech; rapid, loud, accelerated speech, as occurs in mania, schizophrenia, and cognitive disorders.
pseudodementia
(1) Dementialike disorder that can be reversed by appropriate treatment and is not caused by organic brain disease. (2) Condition in which patients show exaggerated indifference to their surroundings in the absence of a mental disorder; also occurs in depression and factitious disorders.
pseudologia phantastica
Disorder characterized by uncontrollable lying in which patients elaborate extensive fantasies that they freely communicate and act on.
psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, which is based on fundamental dynamic formulations and techniques that derive from psychoanalysis, is designed to broaden its scope. Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, in its narrowest sense, is the use of insight-oriented methods only. As generically applied today to an ever-larger clinical spectrum, it incorporates a blend of uncovering and sup. press1ve measures
psychomotor agitation
Physical and mental overactivity that is usually nonproductive and is associated with a feeling of inner turmoil, as seen in agitated depression.
psychosis
Mental disorder in which the thoughts, affective response, ability to recognize reality, and ability to communicate and relate to others are sufficiently impaired to interfere grossly with the capacity to deal with reality; the classical characteristics of psychosis are impaired reality testing, hallucinations, delusions, and illusions.
psychotic
(1) Person experiencing psychosis. (2) Denoting or characteristic of psychosis.
rationalization
An unconscious defense mechanism in which irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings are logically justified or made consciously tolerable by plausible means.
reaction formation
Unconscious defense mechanism in which a person develops a socialized attitude or interest that is the direct antithesis of some infantile wish or impulse that is harbored consciously or unconsciously. One of the earliest and most unstable defense mechanisms, closely related to repression; both are defenses against impulses or urges that are unacceptable to the ego.
reality testing
Fundamental ego function that consists of tentative actions that test and objectively evaluate the nature and limits of the environment; includes the ability to differentiate between the external world and the internal world and to accurately judge the relation between the self and the environment.
recall
Process of bringing stored memories into consciousness. See also memory.
recent memory
Recall of events over the past few days.
receptive aphasia
Organic loss of ability to comprehend the meaning of words; fluid and spontaneous, but incoherent and nonsensical, speech. See also fluent aphasia and sensory aphasia.
regression
Unconscious defense mechanism in which a person undergoes a partial or total return to earlier patterns of adaptation; observed in many psychiatric conditions, particularly schizophrenia.
repression
Freud’s term for an unconscious defense mechanism in which unacceptable mental contents are banished or kept out of consciousness; important in normal psychological development and in neurotic and psychotic symptom formation. Freud recognized two kinds of repression: (1) repression proper, in which the repressed material was once in the conscious domain, and (2) primal repression, in which the repressed material was never in the conscious realm. Compare with suppression.
restricted affect
Reduction in intensity of feeling tone that is less severe than in blunted affect but clearly reduced. See also constricted affect.
retrograde amnesia
Loss of memory for events preceding the onset of the amnesia. Compare with anterograde amnesia.
rigidity
In psychiatry, a person’s resistance to change, a personality trait.
ritual
(1) Formalized activity practiced by a person to reduce anxiety, as in OCD. (2) Ceremonial activity of cultural origin.
rumination
Constant preoccupation with thinking about a single idea or theme, as in OCD.
seizure
An attack or sudden onset of certain symptoms, such as convulsions, loss of consciousness, and psychic or sensory disturbances; seen in epilepsy and can be substance induced. For types of seizures, see the specific term.
sensorium
Hypothetical sensory center in the brain that is involved with clarity of awareness about oneself and one’s surroundings, including the ability to perceive and to process ongoing events in light of past experiences, future options, and current circumstances; sometimes used interchangeably with consciousness.
shame
Failure to live up to self-expectations; often associated with fantasy of how person will be seen by others. See also guilt.
short-term memory
Reproduction, recognition, or recall of perceived material within minutes after the initial presentation. Compare with immediate memory and long-term memory.
somatic delusion
Delusion pertaining to the functioning of one’s body.
somatic hallucination
Hallucination involving the perception of a physical experience localized within the body.
somnolence
Pathological sleepiness or drowsiness from which one can be aroused to a normal state of consciousness.
stereotypy
Continuous mechanical repetition of speech or physical activities; observed in catatonic schizophrenia.
stupor
(1) State of decreased reactivity to stimuli and less than full awareness of one’s surroundings; as a disturbance of consciousness, it indicates a condition of partial coma or semicoma. (2) In psychiatry, used synonymously with mutism and does not necessarily imply a disturbance of consciousness; in catatonic stupor, patients are ordinarily aware of their surroundings.
stuttering
Frequent repetition or prolongation of a sound or syllable, leading to markedly impaired speech fluency.
sublimation
Unconscious defense mechanism in which the energy associated with unacceptable impulses or drives is diverted into personally and socially acceptable channels; unlike other defense mechanisms, it offers some minimal gratification of the instinctual drive or impulse.
suggestibility
State of uncritical compliance with influence or of uncritical acceptance of an idea, belief, or attitude; commonly observed among persons with hysterical traits.
suicidal ideation
Thoughts or act of taking one’s own life.
suppression
Conscious act of controlling and inhibiting an unacceptable impulse, emotion, or idea; differentiated from repression in that repression is an unconscious process.
suspiciousness
Suspiciousness is commonly seen in people with a paranoid personality disorder
symbolization
Unconscious defense mechanism in which one idea or object comes to stand for another because of some common aspect or quality in both; based on similarity and association; the symbols formed protect the person from the anxiety that may be attached to the original idea or object.
systematized delusion
Group of elaborate delusions related to a single event or theme.
tactile hallucination
Hallucination primarily involving the sense of touch. Also called haptic hallucination.
tangentiality
Oblique, digressive, or even irrelevant manner of speech in which the central idea is not communicated.
tardive dyskinesia
a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements of the face and jaw.
terminal insomnia
Early morning awakening or waking up at least 2 hours before planning to wake up. Compare with initial insomnia and middle insomnia.
thought blocking
During thought blocking, a person stops speaking suddenly and without explanation in the middle of a sentence
thought broadcast
Feeling that one’s thoughts are being broadcast or projected into the environment. See also thought withdrawal.
thought broadcasting
Feeling that one’s thoughts are being broadcast or projected into the environment. See also thought withdrawal.
thought disorder
Any disturbance of thinking that affects language, communication, or thought content; the hallmark feature of schizophrenia. Manifestations range from simple blocking and mild circumstantiality to profound loosening of associations, incoherence, and delusions; characterized by a failure to follow semantic and syntactic rules that is inconsistent with the person’s education, intelligence, or cultural background.
thought insertion
Delusion that thoughts are being implanted in one’s mind by other people or forces.
thought latency
The period of time between a thought and its verbal expression. Increased in schizophrenia (see blocking) and decreased in mania (see pressured speech).
thought withdrawal
Delusion that one’s thoughts are being removed from one’s mind by other people or forces. See also thought broadcasting.
tic disorders
Predominantly psychogenic disorders characterized by involuntary, spasmodic, stereotyped movement of small groups of muscles; seen most predominantly in moments of stress or anxiety, rarely as a result of organic disease.
tremor
Rhythmical alteration in movement, which is usually faster than one beat a second; typically, tremors decrease during periods of relaxation and sleep and increase during periods of anger and increased tension.
unconscious
(1) One of three divisions of Freud’s topographic theory of the mind (the others being the conscious and the preconscious) in which the psychic material is not readily accessible to conscious awareness by ordinary means; its existence may be manifest in symptom formation, in dreams, or under the influence of drugs. (2) In popular (but more ambiguous) usage, any mental material not in the immediate field of awareness. (3) Denoting a state of unawareness, with lack of response to external stimuli, as in a coma.
undoing
Unconscious primitive defense mechanism, repetitive in nature, by which a person symbolically acts out in reverse something unacceptable that has already been done or against which the ego must defend itself; a form of magical expiatory action, commonly observed in OCD.
vegetative signs
In depression, denoting characteristic symptoms such as sleep disturbance (especially early morning awakening), decreased appetite, constipation, weight loss, and loss of sexual response.
vertigo
Sensation that one or the world around one is spinning or revolving; a hallmark of vestibular dysfunction, not to be confused with dizziness.
visual hallucination
Hallucination primarily involving the sense of sight.
waxy flexibility
Condition in which a person maintains the body position into which they are placed. Also called catalepsy.
word salad
Incoherent, essentially incomprehensible, mixture of words and phrases commonly seen in far-advanced cases of schizophrenia. See also incoherence.
