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| One's prevailing mood or emotional state, pleasant or unpleasant, particularly as perceived by the examiner: basic emotional state, and emotional content of responses to examiner. |
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| A form of behavior therapy that associates an objectionable or undesired pattern of behavior with an unpleasant experience or consequence, so as to reduce or extinguish the behavior. |
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| BEHAVIOR (BEHAVIORAL) THERAPY |
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Definition
| Any type of psychotherapy that focuses on the alteration or correction of undesirable behavior, including such responses to external stimuli as anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms of emotion. Behavior therapy uses conditioning, muscle relaxation techniques, meditation, breathing retraining, biofeedback, guided learning, and other methods. |
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| The recipient of psychotherapy; a term preferred to "patient" when the therapist is not a physician. |
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| A form of psychotherapy in which the client is encouraged, with a minimum of direction by the therapist, to discover the sources of distressing mental symptoms and means of resolving them. |
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| A form of psychotherapy based on promoting the client's rational understanding of the source of distressing emotions, thought patterns, and undesirable behaviors, and correction of these by adoption of more mature, balanced, and realistic attitudes. |
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| COMPENSATION (OVERCOMPENSATION) |
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Definition
| A mechanism by which one covers up a defect or weakness by exaggerating or overdeveloping some other property or faculty. |
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| Invention of stories about one's past, often bizarre and complex, to fill in gaps left by amnesia; a typical feature of Korsakoff syndrome in chronic alcoholics. |
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| Abnormal lability of mood, which varies between excitement and depression without becoming severe enough to be called bipolar disorder. |
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| A distorted belief or perception, such as thinking that one is a famous historical figure or that one is the object of persecution. |
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| A mechanism by which one refuses to believe, remember, or accept an unpleasant fact or circumstance, such as a past painful experience or the fact of being ill. |
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| DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS (DSM) |
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Definition
| A description and classification of mental disorders based on objective categories. Recognized as a diagnostic standard and widely used for reporting, coding, and statistical purposes, DSM is published by the American Psychiatry Association. |
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| A general feeling of mental or emotional discomfort. |
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| A depressed mood, usually chronic or recurrent, that is not severe enough to be called major depression. |
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| Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. |
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| Any organic disease or damage of the brain, particularly the cerebral cortex, that causes impairment of mental or physical functioning; often due to degenerative diseases (Alzheimer) or chemical intoxications (lead, alcohol). |
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| Psychotherapy that treats the family as a unit and seeks to promote understanding and correction of pathologic attitudes and relationships among members of the unit. |
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| Psychotherapy administered to several persons at once, making use of sharing of perceptions, experiences, and feelings, group dynamics, and mutual understanding and support. |
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| A sense of having done wrong, of having failed to meet one's or others' expectations or standards, or being inferior or inadequate; as used in psychiatry and psychoanalysis, guilt is a distinct concept from moral guilt, which arises from deliberate violation of ethical principles or civil law. |
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| A sensory experience, usually auditory or visual, without any physical basis-for example, seeing snakes floating in the air or hearing voices urging one to do something. |
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| A technique by which the therapist places the client into a sleeplike trance in which outside stimuli are reduced to a minimum, the subconscious is more directly accessible, and the client is more susceptible to the influence of the therapist's suggestions and advice. |
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| A mental process whereby one takes on the properties or actions of another with whom an emotional tie exists (a boy walking and talking like his father). |
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| Sexual desire or drive; often, more generally, the totality of pleasure-directed energy or activity. |
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| An automatic, unconscious mental process whereby repressed emotions (painful feelings, sexual urges) generate new beliefs or attitudes to protect the ego from a sense of guilt, inadequacy, or other negative feelings (compensation, identification, projection, rationalization, repression, sublimation). |
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Definition
| As outlined in DSM-IV, provides for a comprehensive diagnostic formulation of mental illness that includes consideration of five distinct domains or axes. Axes I and II refer to normal psychiatric diagnoses, including the presenting complaint or chief problem as well as other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention. Axis I covers all such diagnoses except personality disorders and mental retardation, which are included in Axis II. Axis III comprises nonpsychiatric medical diagnoses, such as neurologic disease, infections, tumors, and diabetes mellitus. Axis IV focuses on psychosocial and environmental problems, including those related to family and other interpersonal relationships, education, employment, housing, finances, access to healthcare, and interaction with the legal system. In Axis V clinician records a global assessment of functioning. |
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| Extreme self-love; excessive preoccupation with oneself and one's own concerns and needs, to the exclusion of normal emotional ties with others. |
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| A mental disorder in which the patient experiences, and gives evidence of, emotional distress, but remains in touch with reality at all times. |
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| A normal chemical substance produced in minute quantities by nerve tissue and involved in the transmission of electrical impulses from one nerve cell to another. The effect of a neurotransmitter may be to stimulate or inhibit the nerve cell on which it acts. |
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| Treatment of disease with drugs, as contrasted with methods such as counseling, diet, and surgery. |
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| A form of psychotherapy used with children, in which structured or unstructured play settings with dolls and other toys enable the therapist to identify and correct false or unhealthy attitudes and behavior patterns. |
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| A mechanism whereby one unconsciously attribute's one own thoughts and attitudes (usually negative) to others as a means of dealing with a sense of guilt or inadequacy. |
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| A vague term roughly equivalent to "mind". |
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| The branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders; all psychiatrists are physicians. |
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| A school of clinical psychology founded by Sigmund Freud and based on lengthy, searching analysis of the patient's mental life, including particularly the content of the subconscious, which can be made manifest by hypnosis, dream interpretation, free association, and other methods. Many psychiatrists are psychoanalysts, but not all psychoanalysts are psychiatrists. |
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| A type of group therapy in which clients resolve conflicts and distressing emotional states by acting out their fantasies and fears in the setting of a dramatic performance before an audience of fellow clients. |
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| Broadly, the study of all mental processes and functions (perception, memory, judgment, learning ability, mood, social interaction, communication, and others). Clinical psychology is a professional discipline concerned with the nonmedical treatment of mental disorders. A clinical psychologist ordinarily does not hold a medical degree. |
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| A mental disorder in which, in addition to emotional distress, the patient experiences a break with reality, manifested by delusions, hallucinations, and grossly bizarre or socially inappropriate behavior. |
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| Any method or technique, except the administration of medicines, used in the treatment of mental disorders. |
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| A form of treatment in which the mental disorders, which are thought to result from misinformation, wrong belief systems, and distorted logic, are improved by the therapist's use of direct, positive teaching and advice. |
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| A mental process of justifying some act or omission through logical reasoning or argumentation, usually as a means of reducing feelings of guilt or inadequacy. |
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| An individual's ability to perceive reality as it is, not as distorted by abnormal thought processes, disorders of perception, delusions, or hallucinations. |
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| The mental process of thrusting out of consciousness impulses or desires that are perceived as incompatible with one's own standard or sense of fitness, and that therefore generate unpleasant emotions; repressed material occupies a large part of the subconscious. |
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| Elements of one's personality (feelings, attitudes, prejudices, desires, behavior patterns) of which one is unaware; a general and somewhat vague term including but not always identical to what Freud called the unconscious (unbewusstsein). |
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| Thoughts of committing suicide as a relief from mental distress, without actual attempts at suicide. |
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| Diversion of sexual energy or impulses into higher or more socially acceptable activities. |
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| One who treats; in mental health, anyone administering psychotherapy. |
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| The development, on the part of the client, of an emotional bond (positive or negative) with the therapist. |
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| A group of mental disorders characterized by chronic worry or fear. Anxiety disorders are the most common ones seen by psychiatrists; often anxiety accompanies other disorders. |
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| GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER |
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Definition
| An abiding state of excessive, distressing, and disabling worry about a number of issues, associated with restlessness, muscle tension, irritability, abnormal fatigue, and insomnia. The condition is twice as common in women and is usually coupled with depression. |
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Definition
| The most common anxiety disorder. While recognizing that the fear is unfounded or out of proportion to any actual danger, the victim of a phobia is unable to overcome it. Social phobics experience an exaggerated and persistent fear of embarrassment or humiliation in a social setting, or when appearing or performing in public. This can lead to severe social, educational, or occupational disability. This couples with depression and alcoholism. |
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| An intense fear of being alone or being in a public place from which escape may be difficult, or help unavailable, in case of sudden incapacitation. Victims avoid open spaces, crowded enclosures such as stores or churches, tunnels, elevators, and public transportation. |
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| Recurring sudden spontaneous attacks of intense anxiety, lasting minutes or hours, and accompanied by physical symptoms such as chest pain, tachycardia, dyspnea or choking, sweating, faintness, tremors, and tingling in the extremities. Because of the severity of the physical symptoms, panic disorder can be mistaken for heart attack or other life-threatening emergency by both victim and others. Agoraphobia and panic disorder are closely linked. |
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| OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER (OCD) |
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Definition
| Chronic anxiety disorder in which the patient suffers from obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are recurrent, persistent ideas, thoughts, or images perceived in a negative light, but that cannot be ignored or suppressed. Compulsions are the urge to repeat ritualistic behavior that is recognized as irrational but that cannot be omitted without anxiety increase. |
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| Agents that reduce the level of uneasiness and worry. |
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| BIPOLAR DISORDER (MANIC-DEPRESSIVE DISORDER) |
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Definition
| A type of depressive illness in which the patient's mood oscillates between depression and mania. Manic episodes is a period of abnormal elevation of mood, irritability, or restlessness that lasts at least one week and is coupled with: inflated self-esteem, hyperactivity, flight of ideas, abnormal talkativeness, pressured speech, reduced need for sleep, short attention span, and reckless behavior. |
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| A chronic or recurring psychosis due to disorder of thought processes. It has gradual onset of cognitive malfunctions-disturbances of perception and thinking characterized by delusions, hallucinations, gross distortion of mental function, or all. There is usually reduced energy level, flat or depressed affect, anhedonia, and abulia. |
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| DISORGANIZED (HEBEPHRENIC) SCHIZOPHRENIA |
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Definition
| Severe breakdown of mental function and incongruous or silly behavior. |
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| Prominent delusions of persecution or grandeur, often reinforced by hallucinations. |
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| Statue-like posturing, rigidity, or stupor. |
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| UNDIFFERENTIATED SCHIZOPHRENIA |
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| Has no defining features. |
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| History of schizophrenia but only mild, nonpsychotic residual impairment of mental function. |
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| Chronic, progressive deterioration of mental function caused by degeneration of cortical neurons. Typically there is gradual onset of steady deterioration in certain mental functions: short-term memory loss, inability to understand language or to express oneself, diminished or distorted sensory perception, inability to perform purposeful actions, personality changes with irritability and depression, deterioration of impulse control. |
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| ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD) |
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Definition
| A chronic behavioral disorder, most striking in children, involving hyperactivity, short attention span, and impulsiveness. ADHD is 3-8 times more common in boys. The three cardinal features are inattentiveness, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity. |
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| A compulsive reduction of body weight to an unhealthful level by rigorous dieting, often supplemented by strenuous exercise, self-induced vomiting, or the use of diuretics or laxatives. Most patients are women with perfectionistic, obsessional personalities and body dysmorphic disorder. Steady loss of subcutaneous far and muscle mass can lead to severe emaciation. Chronic nutritional deficiency induces abnormalities in body chemistry and physiology including amenorrhea, bradycardia, hypotension, electrolyte imbalance, anemia, and dry skin with increased pigmentation and downy hair growth. |
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Definition
| A common behavioral disorder of young women characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating. Most patients engage in uncontrollable, high-carb food gorging several times a week. Resulting anxiety over weight gain typically leads to self-induced vomiting or purging with laxatives. Repeated vomiting may result in erosion of dental enamel, chronic throat irritation, or esophageal injury. |
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| ELECTROCONVULSIVE (ELECTROSHOCK) THERAPY |
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Definition
| Delivery of controlled electric shocks to the brain to alter electro-chemical function, primarily in depression. The treatment, administered only by a physician, causes convulsions and loss of consciousness; the patient awakens in a state of disorientation. Several treatment sessions may be necessary before improvement is noted. |
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| Tests the amount of measurable drug in the serum. Many drugs have optimum levels where they are most effective (therapeutic range). |
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