Psychiatry Terms

Question 1

Euthymia

Answer 1

Happy, contented mood.

Question 2

Mood

Answer 2

A word used to describe sustained and pervasive emotion.

Question 3

Anhedonia

Answer 3

A total inability to enjoy anything in life or even get the accustomed satisfaction from everyday events or objects, a “loss of ability to experience pleasure.”

Question 4

Flight of ideas

Answer 4

Rapid flow of thought, manifested by accelerated speech with abrupt changes from topic to topic although there is often some form of link between topics. There is loss of the normal structure of thought, appearing illogical or muddled. Often seen in manic patients.

Question 5

Depersonalisation

Answer 5

A peculiar change in the awareness of self, in which the individual feels as if they are not real and detached. They may feel that they have changed and that the world around them is vague, dreamlike or lacking in significance. The subject retains a measure of understanding and knows the condition is abnormal.

Question 6

Illusion

Answer 6

A false perception of a real stimulus. Three types: affect, completion and pareidolia.

Question 7

Thought broadcast

Answer 7

The subject experiences his thoughts as actually being shared with others, often with large numbers of people. The subject often claims this sharing is via telepathy, radio and television.

Question 8

Delusions of control/passivity

Answer 8

The subject believes that their thoughts, feelings and/or actions are not their own but are being imposed/controlled by an outside force.
For example they may believe that someone else’s words are coming out using their voice or they are being made to walk in a certain way.

Question 9

Lability

Answer 9

The subject’s affect is rapidly changeable and there are marked fluctuations. The subject maybe cheerful and smiling and then shortly after crying. In its extreme form we may use the word emotional incontinence.

Question 10

Nihilistic delusions

Answer 10

Delusions of extreme negativity - no longer existing, about to die or even being dead, about to experience a terrible doom.

Question 11

Ideas of reference

Answer 11

A delusional belief that innocuous events or coincidences are directly linked and have personal significance to the subject. Common clinical examples are subjects believing that the television or radio is talking about them/ to them.

Question 12

Loosening of associations

Answer 12

Loss of normal structured thinking. The subjects discourse seems muddled and illogical and does not become clearer with further questioning. As the interviewer it may feel that the more questions you ask to gain clarity the more difficult it is to understand them. It is a disorder of thought form.

Question 13

Neologisms

Answer 13

New words that have no real meaning.

Question 14

Perseveration

Answer 14

The repetition of a particular response (such as a phrase, word utterance or gesture) despite the absence or cessation of the stimulus. Often seen in organic brain disorders.

Question 15

Affect

Answer 15

Short lived observable pattern of behaviour that expresses the subjective emotional state of an individual. It is subject to variation over brief periods of time.

Question 16

Alexithymia

Answer 16

An inability to verbally express one’s emotions.

Question 17

Psychomotor retardation

Answer 17

The subject sits abnormally still or walks abnormally slowly or takes a long time to initiate movement.

Question 18

Thought insertion

Answer 18

The subject experiences thoughts which are not his own intruding into his mind. In the most typical case the alien thoughts are said to have been inserted into the mind from outside, by means of radar telepathy or some other means.

Question 19

Thought withdrawal

Answer 19

The subject says that his thoughts have been removed from his head by an external agent so that he has no thoughts (often able to describe the sensation of the thoughts leaving).

Question 20

Clouding of consciousness

Answer 20

This represents a step down from normal alertness. There is a deterioration in thinking, attention, perception and memory and usually drowsiness and reduced awareness of environment.

Question 21

2nd person auditory hallucinations

Answer 21

“You’re going to die, you’re going to die.”

Question 22

3rd person auditory hallucinations

Answer 22

“The voices are talking to each other about me, they say I am evil and mad.”

Question 23

Delusion

Answer 23

A fixed firmly held belief that is held with unshakable conviction despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and cannot be explained by the subject’s cultural or religious background.

Question 24

Aphasia

Answer 24

No speech, inability to produce words orally.

Question 25

Concrete thinking

Answer 25

Inability to understand abstract ideas or concepts, literalness of understanding or expression.

Question 26

Negative symptoms

Answer 26

Describes a cluster of symptoms that often occur together in chronic schizophrenia: poverty of speech, flat affect, poor motivation and poor attention. This can result in low activity levels and poor self care.

Question 27

Thought echo

Answer 27

The subject experiences his own thoughts as if they were being spoken aloud.
The repetition may not be a simple echo but subtly or grossly changed in quality.

Question 28

Derealisation

Answer 28

An alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. The subject may experience everything as colourless and artificial.
An office or bus or a street seems like a stage set with actors, rather than real people going about their business.
The subject retains a measure of understanding and knows the condition is abnormal.

Question 29

Dysthymia

Answer 29

A chronic state of low mood, usually with an insidious onset and lasting at least two years.

Question 30

Hallucination

Answer 30

A perception which occurs in the absence of a stimulus.
The perceptual experience is false but for the person experiencing it, has the full force and impact of a real perception and is consequently indistinguishable from a real perception, it occurs in external space and is not in the mind’s eye.

Question 31

Grandiose delusions

Answer 31

Delusions of being of special status or significance, of having special powers or attributes, or a special mission or purpose.

Question 32

Pressure of speech

Answer 32

The subject talks too much and fast with a sense of urgency. The speech is often difficult to interrupt.
Often seen in mania.

Question 33

Delusional perception

Answer 33

The patient receives a normal perception which is then interpreted with delusional meaning and has immense personal meaning e.g. on seeing a traffic light change from red to green; a man declared that he was the King of Mars. A type of primary delusion.

Question 34

Pseudo hallucination

Answer 34

A sensory experience vivid enough to be regarded as a hallucination but recognised by the subject not to be the result of external stimuli and therefore not real.