Psych Terms Flashcards
Catatonia
Increased resting muscle tone which is not present on active or passive movement (in contrast to the rigidity associated with Parkinson’s disease and extra-pyramidal side-effects). A motor symptom of schizophrenia.
Anhedonia
The feeling of absent or significantly diminished enjoyment of previously pleasurable activities. A core symptom of depressive illness, also a negative symptom of schizophrenia.
belle indifference
A surprising lack of concern for, or denial of, apparently severe functional disability. It is part of classical descriptions of hysteria and continues to be associated with operational descriptions of conversion disorder. It is also seen in medical illnesses (e.g. cerebrovascular accident [CVA]) and is a rare and non-specific symptom of no diagnostic value.
Blunting of affect
Loss of the normal degree of emotional sensitivity and sense of the appropriate emotional response to events. A negative symptom of schizophrenia.
Concrete thinking
The loss of the ability to understand abstract concepts and metaphorical ideas leading to a strictly literal form of speech and inability to comprehend allusive language. Seen in schizophrenia and in dementing illnesses
Confabulation
The process of describing plausibly false memories for a period for which the patient has amnesia. Occurs in Korsakoff psychosis, dementia, and following alcoholic palimpsest.
Conversion
The development of features suggestive of physical illness but which are attributed to psychiatric illness or emotional disturbance rather than organic pathology. Originally described in terms of psycho- analytic theory where the presumed mechanism was the ‘conversion’ of unconscious distress to physical symptoms rather than allowing its expression in conscious thought.
Circumstantial thinking
A disorder of the form of thought where irrelevant details and digressions overwhelm the direction of the thought process. This abnormality may be reflected in the resultant speech. It is seen in mania and in anankastic personality disorder.
Delirium
A clinical syndrome of confusion, variable degree of clouding of consciousness, visual illusions, and/or visual hallucinations, lability of affect, and disorientation. The clinical features can vary markedly in severity hour by hour. Delirium is a stereotyped response by the brain to a variety of insults and is similar in presentation whatever the primary cause.
Delusion
An abnormal belief which is held with absolute subjective certainty, which requires no external proof, which may be held in the face of contradictory evidence, and which has personal significance and importance to the individual concerned. Can be primary or secondary.
Delusional Perception
A primary delusion which is recalled as having arisen as a result of a perception. The percept is a real external object, not a hallucinatory experience. e.g. a patient who, on seeing two white cars pull up in front of his house became convinced that he was therefore about to be wrongly accused of being a paedophile
Delusions of control
A group of delusions which are also known as passivity phenomena or delusions of bodily passivity. They are considered first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia. The core feature is the delusional belief that one is no longer in sole control of one’s own body. The indi- vidual delusions are that one is being forced by some external agent to feel emotions, to desire to do things, to perform actions, or to experience bod- ily sensations. Respectively these delusions are called: passivity of affect, passivity of impulse, passivity of volition, and somatic passivity.
Depersonalisation
An unpleasant subjective experience where the patient feels as if they have become ‘unreal’.
Derealisation
An unpleasant subjective experience where the patient feels as if the world has become unreal.
Dissociation
The separation of unpleasant emotions and memories from consciousness awareness with subsequent disruption to the normal integrated function of consciousness and memory. Conversion and dissociation are related concepts. In conversion the emotional abnormality produces physical symptoms; while in dissociation there is impairment of mental func- tioning (e.g. in dissociative fugue and dissociative amnesia).
Flattening of Affect
Diminution of the normal range of emotional experience. A negative symptom of schizophrenia.
Flight of ideas
Subjective experience of one’s thoughts being more rapid than normal, with each thought having a greater range of consequent thoughts than normal. Meaningful connections between thoughts are maintained.
Hallucination
An internal percept without a corresponding external object. The subjective experience of hallucination is that of experiencing a normal percept in that modality of sensation.
Illusion
A type of false perception in which the perception of a real world object is combined with internal imagery to produce a false internal percept.
Incongruity of affect
Refers to the objective impression that the displayed affect is not consistent with the current thoughts or actions (e.g. laughing while discussing traumatic experiences). Occurs in schizophrenia.
Loosening of associations
A symptom of formal thought disorder in which there is a lack of meaningful connection between sequential ideas.
Obsession
An idea, image, or impulse which is recognized by the patient as their own, but which is experienced as repetitive, intrusive, and distress- ing. The return of the obsession can be resisted for a time at the expense of mounting anxiety. In some situations the anxiety accompanying the obses- sional thoughts can be relieved by associated compulsions
Over-valued idea
A form of abnormal belief. These are ideas which are reasonable and understandable in themselves but which come to unreasonably dominate the patient’s life.
Mannerism
Abnormal and occasionally bizarre performance of a volun- tary, goal-directed activity (e.g. a conspicuously dramatic manner of walk- ing.
