Affect

A pattern of observalbe behaviors that is the expression of a subjectively experienced feeling state (emotion).

Common Examples:

sadness, elation and anger

Blunted

Significant reduction in the intensity of emotional expression.

Flat

Absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression.

Inappropriate

Discordance between affective expression and the content of speech or ideation.

Labile

Abnormal variability in affect with repeated, rapid, and abrupt shifts in affective expression

Restricted or Constricted

Mild reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression.

Agitation (psychomotor agitation)

Excessive motor activity associated with a feeling if inner tension.

Agonist Medication

A chemical intity extrinsic to endogenously* produced substances that acts on a receptor and is capable of producing the maximal effect that can be produced by stimiulating that receptor.

*endogenously - derived internally

Partial Agonist

Capable only of producing less than the maximal effect even when given in a concentration sufficient to bind with all available receptors.

Agonist/antagonist medication

Alogia

An impoverishment in thinking that is inferred from observing speech and language behavior.

Amnesia

Loss of Memory

Anterograde Amnesia

Loss of memory of events that occur after the onset of the etiological condition or agent.

Retrograde Amnesia

Loss of memory of evetns that occurred before the onset of the etilogical condition or agent.

Antagonist Medication

A chemical entity extrinsic to endogenously produced substances that occupies a receptor, produces no physiologic effects, and prevents endogenouse and exogenous chemical from producing an effect on the receptor.

Anxiety

The apprehensive anticipation of future danger, accompanied by a feeling of dysphoria or somatic symptoms of tension.

Aphasia

An impairment in the understanding or transmission of ideas by language in any of its forms - reading, writing, speaking - that is due to injury or disease of the brain centers involved in language.

Aphonia

An inability to produce speech sounds that require the use of the larynx* that is not due to a lesion in the central nervous system.

Larynx - a muscular structure lined with mucous membrane at the upper part of the trachea in humans, in which the vocal cords are located.

Ataxia

Partial or complete loss of coordination of coluntary muscular movement.

Attention

The ability to focus.

Avolition

An inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed activities.

In pathological cases  it prevents the person from completing many different types of activities i.e. work, intellectual pusuits, self-care etc.

Catalepsy

Waxy flexibility - redid maintenance of a body position over an extended period of time.

Cataplexy

Episodes of sudden bilateral loss of muscle tone resulting in the individual collapsing, often in association with intense emotions such as laughter, anger, fear, or surprise.

Catatonic Behavior

Marked motor abnormalities including motoric immobility (catalepsy or stupor).

Excessive Motor Activity

(Catatonic Behavior)

apparently purposeless agitation not influenced by external stimuli

Extreme Negativism

(Catatonic Behavior)

Apparent motiveless resistance to instructions or attempts to be moved.

Conversion Symptom

A loss of or alteration in, voluntary motor or sensory functioning suggesting a neurological or general medical condition.

Defense Mechanism

Automatic psychological process that protects the individual against anxiety and from awerness of internal or external stressors or dangers.

Delusion

A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitues incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidnece to the contrary.

Bizarre Delusion

A delusion that involves a phenomenon that the person's culture would regard as totaly implausible.

Delusional Jealousy

The delusion that one's sexual partner is unfaithful.

Erotomanic Delusion

A delusion that another person, usually of higher status, is in love with the individual.

Grandiose Delusion

A delusion of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity, or special relationship to a deity or famous person.

Delusion "of being controlled"

A delusion in which feelings, impulses, thoughts, or actions are experienced as being under the control of some external force rather than being under one's own control.

Delusion of Reference

A delusion whose theme is that events, objects, or other persons in one's immediate environment have a particular and unusual significance.

Persecutory Delusion

A delusion in which the central theme is that one (or someone to whom one is close) is being attacked, harassed, cheated, persecuted, or conspired against.

Somatic Delusion

A delusion whose main content pertains to the appearance or functioning of one's body.

Thought Broadcasting Delusion

the delusion that ones thoughts are being broadcasted for others to hear.

Thought Insertion Delusion

The delusion that some of ones' thoughts are not there own, but were inserted.

Depersonalization

An alteration in the perception or experience of the self so that one feels detached from, and as if one is an outside observer of one's mental processes or body.

Derailment

Pattern of speech when ideas slip off one track onto another that is completely unrelated or only obliquely related.

Derealization

An alteration in the perception or experience of the external world so that it eems strange or unreal.

Disorientation

Confusion about the time of day, date, or season, where one is, or who one is.

Dissociation

A disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment.

Distractibility

The inability to maintain attention. Shifting from one area or topic to another with minimal provocation.

Dysarthria

Imperfect articulation of speech due to disturbances of muscular control.

Dyskinesia

Distortion of voluntary movements with involuntary muscular activity.

Dyssomnia

Disorders of the amount, quality, or timing of sleep.

Primary disorders of sleep or wakefulness characterized by insomnia or hepersomnia.

Dystonia

Disordered tonicity of muscles

Echolalia

The pathological, parrotlike, and apparently senseless repetition of a word or phrase just spoken by another person.

Echopraxia

Repetition by imitation of the movements of another.

*The action is not a willed or voluntary one and has a semiautomatic and uncontrollable quality.

Flashback

Recurrence of a memory, feeling, or perceptual experience from the past.

Flight of Ideas

nearly continuous flow of accelerated speech with abrupt changes from topic to topic. Usually understandable associations except in severe cases.

Gender Dysphoria

persistent aversion toward some or all physical characteristics or social roles that connote one's own biological sex.

Gender Identity

A person's inner conviction of being male or female

Gender Role