Psych Glossary

Question 0

abuse

Answer 0

maladaptive pattern of substance use manifested by recurrent and significant adverse consequences related to the repeated use of the substance

Question 1

abstraction

Answer 1

ability to formulate concepts and to generalize

Question 2

Acting out

Answer 2

and sort of maladaptive behavior; unrecognized repetition of earlier behavior; an attempt to escape awareness of the inner life; an attempt to undermine the therapuetic process

Question 3

addiction

Answer 3

strong dependence, both physiologic and emtional, on alcohol or some other drug

Question 4

adjustment disorder

Answer 4

imprecise term for a variety of symptoms (depressed mood, anxiety, disturbance of conduct, physical complaints, withdrawal, or work or academic problems) that develop in response to an identifiable stessor (duration < 6 months typically)

Question 5

affect

Answer 5

behavior that expressed a subjectively experienced feeling state; responsive to emotional states. (anger, euphoria, sadness

Question 6

blunted affect

Answer 6

sever reduction in the intensity of affective expression

Question 7

flat affect

Answer 7

absence of any affective expression, such a monotonous voice or an immobile face

Question 8

labile affect

Answer 8

abnormal variability, with rapid, repeated, and abrupt shifts in affective expression

Question 9

restricted affect

Answer 9

reduction in the expressive rand and intensity of affects

Question 10

alogia

Answer 10

speechlessness usually due to intellectual deficiency or confusion. lack of spontaneity and flow of conversation characteristic of a person with schizophrenia

Question 11

anhedonia

Answer 11

inabilty to experience pleasure from activites that usually produce pleasurable feelings

Question 12

closure

Answer 12

conclusion, resolution, ending; the process of reaching a decision or having an issue end or the end of a debate

Question 13

commitment

Answer 13

depriving a person of his liberty by putting him under the gaurdianship of another. 1+ doctors explain to court why a pt necessitate forfeiture of freedom.

Question 14

concrete thinking

Answer 14

thinking characterized by immediate experience, rather than abstraction

Question 15

delusion

Answer 15

false belief based on an incorrect inference about external reality and firmly sustained despite clear evidence to the contrary. Belief not part of a cultural tradition

Question 16

delusions of grandeur

Answer 16

exaggerated belief of one’s importance, power, knowledge, or identity

Question 17

persecutory delusions

Answer 17

conviction that one is being harassed, attacked, persecuted, or conspired against

Question 18

somatic delusion

Answer 18

false belief that involves the functioning of one’s body (postmenopausal woman believes she is pregnant)

Question 19

systematized delusion

Answer 19

single false belief with multiple elaborations or a group of false beliefs that the person relates to a single event or theme

Question 20

empathy

Answer 20

form of cognition that enables one to comprehend another person’s subjective experiences from his own unique perspective

Question 21

flight of ideas

Answer 21

near continous flow of speech that is not disjointed or bizarre, but jumps rapidly from one topic to another, topics being more or less obviously related to the previous

Question 22

hallucination

Answer 22

preceptions that are experienced without an external stimulus

Question 23

idea of reference

Answer 23

incorrect interpretation of casual incidents and external events having a direct reference to oneself

Question 24

loosening of associations

Answer 24

disturbance of thinking shown by speech in which ideas shift from one subject to another that is unrelated to the first with no awareness of the disconnect

Question 26

mood

Answer 26

sustained emotional states that color the whole personality and psychic life; the pervasive and prevailing emotion at any specific time

Question 27

Negative symptoms

Answer 27

group of symptoms that include a loss of fluency and spontaneity of speech, impaired ability to experience pleasure, to form emotional attachments to others and blunted affect

Question 28

orientation

Answer 28

awareness of one’s physical relationship to reality as measured by the parameters of person, place, and time

Question 29

personality

Answer 29

characteristic and to some extent predictable, behavior response patterns that each person evolves, both consciously and unconsciously, as his style of life

Question 30

positive symptoms

Answer 30

group of symptoms seen in the acute phase of psychosis such hallucinations, ideas of reference, paranoid delusions, and disturbances in thinking such as thought insertion and thought broadcasting

Question 31

psychosomatic

Answer 31

group of disorders whose etiology at least in part is believed to be related to emotional factors

Question 32

psychotherapy

Answer 32

treatment by communication; any form of treatment for mental illnesses, behavioral adaptations, and/or other problems that are assummed to be of an emotional nature, in which a trained professional deliberately establishes a professional relationship with a patient for the purpose of removing and/or modifying existing symptoms

Question 33

stereotypy

Answer 33

repeated movement that does appear to be goal directed, such as incessant rubbing of some part of the body, more complex than a tic

Question 34

thought blocking

Answer 34

sudden cessation in the train of thought or in the midst of a sentence. unable to explain reason for stoppage. instead of continuing the thought, new ideas crop up which neither the patient or observer can bring into connection with the previous stream of thought

Question 35

thought broadcasting

Answer 35

belief that a patient’s private thoughts are known to others without the patient verbally relaying those thoughts

Question 36

thought insertion

Answer 36

experience that the patient’s thoughts belong to others and have been forced into the patient’s mind by some other agent

Question 37

tic

Answer 37

brief, sudden, rapid, recurrent nonrhythmic irresistable movement or vocalization