Psychiatry Flashcards
1
Q
Affect
A
expression of an experience of an emotion
2
Q
Blunting of affect
A
an objective absence of normal emotional responses, without evidence of depression or psychomotor retardation
3
Q
Loss of affect
A
a subjective sense of inability to feel deeply about anything or anyone
4
Q
Incongruity of affect
A
objectively, emotional responses seem grossly out of tune with the situation or with the subject being discussed
5
Q
Agitation
A
a state of motor restlessness with a background of anxiety, especially seen in depression
6
Q
Psychic ambivalence
A
conflicting emotions or attitudes towards an object, person or idea
7
Q
Physical ambivalence
A
abnormal psychomotor state seen in schizophrenia and some organic disorders, in which the patient physically vacillates between two opposing courses of action
8
Q
Amnesia
A
loss or impairment of memory, whether psychogenic or due to cerebral disturbance
9
Q
Anxiety
A
a state consisting of psychic (dread, apprehension, fear) and sometimes somatic (palpitations, tremor, dry mouth, loose stools) symptoms
10
Q
Apathy
A
emotional indifference and lack of activity, often associated with a sense of futility
11
Q
Autism
A
- a form of thinking in which the individual withdraws from the real world to a private world of their own, monopolising their interest and attention
- objectivity is lacking and there is a complete disregard of reality
- serves to gratify unfulfilled desires and takes the form of daydreams, fantasies and delusions
12
Q
Catalepsy
A
the patient maintains a fixed posture that can be changed by the examiner without any resistance
13
Q
Catatonia
A
a state of excited or inhibited motor activity in the absence of mood disorder or neurological disease
14
Q
Waxy flexibility
A
- type of catatonia
- the patients limbs feel like wax or lead when moved, and remain in position when they are left
- found rarely in schizophrenia and structural brain disease
15
Q
Echolalia
A
- type of catatonia
- automatic repetition of words heard
16
Q
Echopraxia
A
- type of catatonia
- automatic repetition of movements made by the examiner
17
Q
Logoclonia
A
- type of catatonia
- repetition of the last syllable of a word
18
Q
Negativism
A
- type of catatonia
- the patient does exactly the opposite of what is required
19
Q
Palilalia
A
- type of catatonia
- repetition of a word with increasing frequency
20
Q
Verbigeration
A
- type of catatonia
- repetition of one or several sentences or strings of fragmented words, often in a monotonous tone
21
Q
Cataplexy
A
abrupt loss of muscle tone leading to the patient falling to the floor; a frequent accompaniment to narcolepsy
22
Q
Circumstantiality
A
- irrelevant wandering in conversation
- talking at great length around the point
23
Q
Compulsion
A
- repetitive, apparently purposeful behaviour performed in a stereotyped way and accompanied by a subjective sense that it must be carried out despite the recognition of its senselessness and often resistance by the patient
- recognised as morbid by the patient
- often associated with an obsession
24
Q
Confabulation
A
giving a false account to fill a gap in memory
25
Conversion
unconscious mechanism of symptom formation that operates in conversion hysteria, or is the transposition of psychological conflict into somatic symptoms (which may be of motor or sensory nature)
26
Defence mechanism
a way of dealing with aspects of the self, which if consciously experienced, might give rise to unbearable anxiety or psychic pain
27
Déja vu
an intense feeling of having "been here before"
28
Delirium
- acute confusional state
- a syndrome due to brain disturbance and characterised by impairment of consciousness
- mood in commonly one of terror and bewilderment, accompanied by transient delusions and hallucinatory experiences
- following the episode there is more or less complete amnesia for external events that occurred during the illness
29
Delusions
false beliefs that are firmly held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, and which are out of harmony with the individuals cultural and religious background
30
Primary delusions
delusions that arise "out of the blue"
31
Sudden delusional (autochthonous) ideas
delusional ideas suddenly entering consciousness "like a brainwave", unrelated to previous real or psychic events
32
Delusional perception
- a normal perception is suddenly interpreted in a delusional manner
- a first rank symptom of schizophrenia
33
Delusional mood
- a state of perplexity in which the patient has some sense of some inexplicable change in his environment
- the patient senses "something going on" which he cannot identify, but which has a peculiar significance for him
34
Secondary delusions
delusions which arise from a morbid experience such as a hallucination
35
Depersonalisation
- a feeling of some change in the self associated with a sense of detachment from one's own body
- perception fails to awaken a feeling of reality, actions seem mechanical and the patient feels like an apathetic spectator of their own activities
36
Depression
- a subjective feeling of sadness, grief or dejection
- the term can be used to describe a symptom and as a diagnostic label
37
Derealisation
a sense of one's surroundings lacking reality, often appearing dull, grey and lifeless
38
Denial
the patient refuses to recognise the reality of a traumatic perception
39
Disorders of Form of Thinking (Formal Thought Disorder)
- lack of logical association between successive thoughts
- gives rise to incoherent speech (in the absence of brain pathology)
- it is impossible to follow the patient's train of thought
40
Displacement
a defence mechanism where an idea's emphasis, interest or intensity is liable to be detached from it and place onto other ideas which were originally of little intensity but are related to the first idea by chain of association
41
Dissociation
process by which a mental structure loses its integrity and is replaced by two or more part-structures
42
Dyskinesia
- a wide variety of movement patterns e.g. choreoathetosis, rocking, pouting
- wide range of causes e.g. drugs, schizophrenia, structural brain disease
43
Emotional lability
fluctuation of emotions are more marked and intense than the circumstances might be expected to produce
44
Flight of ideas
rapid skipping from one thought to distantly related ideas, the relation often being very tentative e.g. the sound of the utterances rhymes
45
Forced grasping
patient repetitively and persistently takes the examiners hand whenever offered, might indicate dementia or chronic schizophrenia
46
Fugue
a state of aimless wandering which is found in two conditions with different aetiologies: clouded consciousness, conversion disorder
47
Clouded consciousness
the abnormal behaviour of the fugue state offers no psychological advantage for the patient
48
Hallucination
a perception, indistinguishable from reality, occurring in the absence of an external stimulus
49
Hypnagogic hallucination
hallucination occurring on falling asleep
50
Hypnopompic hallucination
hallucination occurring on waking up
51
Ideas of reference
patient incorrectly interprets remarks, incidents and eternal events as referring directly to themselves
52
Delusion of reference
patient incorrectly interprets remarks, incidents and eternal events as referring directly to themselves (as in ideas of reference) but the value placed on the interpretation is of delusional intensity
53
Illusion
misperception of a stimulus, usually occurring at times of environmental or personal dulling e.g. at night, when septic
54
Identification
a defence mechanism where the patient assimilates an aspect of another person and is transformed, wholly or partially, in the model the other person provides
55
Insight
four facets: morbid experiences are...
- seen as abnormal
- as the result of illness
- as the result of a mental illness
- open to medical intervention
56
Intellectualisation
a defence mechanism consisting of an attempt to gain detachment from an emotionally threatening situation by dealing with it in abstract
57
Introjection
a defence mechanism where, in fantasy, the patient transposes objects and their inherent qualities from the outside to the inside of themselves
58
Jamais vu
feeling of strangeness in familiar surroundings, as though one had never been there before
59
Malingering
conscious mimicry of physical disease to achieve material gain
60
Mannerism
an ordinary gesture or expression that becomes abnormal through exaggeration or repetition
61
Mood
pervasive and sustained emotion in the continuum between sad and happy
62
Mutism
an inability (involuntary mutism) or unwillingness (elective mutism) to speak, resulting in the absence or marked paucity of verbal output
63
Neologism
- use of a word which holds no generally recognisable meaning in the given context
- either completely new in form, the condensation of pre-existing words, or use of a known word given new meaning
- found mainly in schizophrenia and structural brain disease
64
Obsession
a recurrent persistent thought, image, or impulse that enters consciousness unbidden, is recognised as being ones own and often remains despite ones efforts to resist it
65
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
an illness characterised by the presence of obsessions and/or compulsions
66
Overvalued idea
- an idea that takes disproportionate precedence in the individual's mind despite its content which is often trivial
- it is firmly held but may be swayed with considerable effort
67
Paramnesia
inaccurate recall of memory
68
Passivity phenomena
- subjective experience that one's thoughts and/or actions are being controlled by some external agency
- found in schizophrenia
69
Perseveration
repetition of a word, theme, or action beyond the point at which is was relevant and appropriate
70
Phobia
an irrational, disproportionate fear or an object or situation leading to avoidance behaviour
71
Pressure of speech
- rapid rate of speech delivery
- wealth of associations which may be unusual, e.g. rhymes and puns
- often wandering from the point of the original conversation
- highly suggestive of mania
72
Projection
a defence mechanism where our own undesirable idea are perceived to reside in an exaggerated amount in others
73
Psychomotor retardation
- slowing of thoughts and movements to variable degrees
- occurs in depression but also caused by psychotropics, PD etc
74
Psychotic
symptoms which are qualitatively different to the normal experience (as opposed to quantitatively different, as in anxiety and depression)
75
Rationalisation
a defence mechanism where the person attempts to present an explanation for their true motives, feelings, ideas, or actions, that is logical or socially acceptable
76
Reaction formation
a defence mechanism where disturbing ideas are kept unconscious by the presence of strong opposing ideas in the consciousness
77
Regression
- a defence mechanism where there is a reversion to an earlier state or mode of functioning
- the patient avoids psychic pain by returning to an earlier state of libidinal and ego development
78
Repression
a defence mechanism where a threatening impulse or idea is excluded from the conscious awareness
79
Reversal
a defence mechanism where the aim of an instinct is transformed into it's opposite in the transition from activity to passivity
80
First rank symptoms
A group of symptoms that Schneider proposed were diagnostic of schizophrenia (in the absence of overt brain disease):
- specific auditory hallucinations (thought echo, two or more voices discussing the patient in the third person, voices that comment on the patient's behaviour)
- thought alienation
- passivity phenomena
- delusional perceptions
81
Stereotypies
- uniform, repetitive, non-goal-directed actions
- may take a variety of forms from simple movements to utterances
- usually ascribed to schizophrenia but can be due to organic disorder
82
Stupor (Akinetic autism)
- more or less total loss of activity with no response to stimuli
- may mark a progression of motor retardation
- found in a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions
83
Sublimation
human activities and pursuits which have no apparent connection with sexuality but are assumed to be motivated by the force of sexual instinct
84
Thought broadcasting
the experience of thoughts escaping from he boundaries of the self and being known to others, even strangers and people some distance away
85
Thought alienation
The collective name for the group of symptoms which includes:
- thought insertion
- thought withdrawal
- thought broadcasting
86
Thought block
- objective phenomenon in which the patient abruptly breaks off their conversation and is silent for a few seconds and then resumes on a different topic
- subjectively they experience a cessation of all thought
87
Thought echo
a form of auditory hallucination in which a patient hears their thoughts spoken aloud either simultaneous to, or within a few moments of, thinking them
88
Thought insertion
subjective feeling that the thoughts in one's mind are not one's own, often explained by the secondary delusion that they are inserted by an external agency
89
Thought withdrawal
subjective feeling that thoughts are missing from one's mind, often explained by the secondary delusion that the thoughts are being extracted by an external agency
90
Twilight state
a chronic state of clouding of consciousness that lasts for several hours to several weeks
91
Undoing
a defence mechanism that is an action designed to prevent of atone some unacceptable thought or impulse
92
Word salad
- sometimes called schizophasia
- speech is an incomprehensible jumble of words recounted with normal intonation
- apart from language use, the patient is usually reasonably capable
