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Superglossary - Psychiatry Category: Sciences > Psychiatry Date & country: 15/12/2013, USA Words: 467

Abreaction
An emotional release or discharge after recalling a painful experience that has been repressed becau

Abulia
A lack of will or motivation which is often expressed as inability to make decisions or set goals. Q

Acalculia
The loss of a previously possessed ability to calculate mathematically.

Acculturation Difficulty
A problem stemming from an inability to appropriately adapt to a different culture or environment, t

Acetylcholine
A neurotransmitter in the brain, which helps to regulate memory, and in the peripheral nervous syste

Acting Out
This is the process of expressing unconscious emotional conflicts or feelings via actions rather tha

Actualization
The realization of ones full potential intellectual, psychological, physical

Acute Dystonia
An extrapyramidal symptom caused by some antipsychotics which takes the form of involuntary twisting

Acute Schizophrenia
(a-cute skiz-o-fre-ne-ah) The height of symptoms of schizophrenia.

Adiadochokinesia
The inability to perform rapid alternating movements of one or more of the extremities. This task i

Affect
pattern of observable behaviours which is the expression of a subjectively experienced feeling state

Affective Disorder
(ah-feck-tiv dis-or-der) A mental disorder in which the main symptom is an abnormal mood; usually de

Affective Flattening
Limited range and intensity of emotional expression. A negative symptom of schizophrenia.

Affective Symptoms
Symptoms of schizophrenia that relate to mood or emotional expression.

Agitation
Excessive motor activity that accompanies and is associated with a feeling of inner tension. The ac

Agnosia
Failure to recognize or identify objects despite intact sensory function; This may be seen in demen

Agnostic Alexia
words can be seen but cannot be read.

Agonist Medication
A chemical entity that is not naturally occuring within the body which acts upon a receptor and is

Agoraphobia
literally a fear of the market place. Generally high levels of anxiety and phobic symptoms. May incl

Agranulocytosis
An acute condition characterised by an abnormally low level of white blood cells, which impairs the

Agranulocytosis
(ah-gran-yu-lo-si-to-sis) A serious condition in which white blood cells decrease in number or disap

Agraphia
The loss of a pre-existing ability to express ones self through the act of writing.

AIMS
Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale - an assessment tool designed to measure abnormal movements in d

Akathisia
The medical word for extreme restlessness, one complaints of restlessness accompanied by movements s

Akinesia
A state of motor inhibition or reduced voluntary movement.

Akinetic Mutism
A state of apparent alertness with following eye movements but no speech or voluntary motor respons

Alexia
Loss of a previously intact ability to grasp the meaning of written or printed words and sentences.

Alexithymia
A disturbance in affective and cognitive function that can be present in an assortment of diagnosti

Algophobia
Fear of pain.

Alienation
The estrangement felt in a setting one views as foreign, unpredictable, or unacceptable. For exampl

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

Ambitendency
series or tentative, incomplete movements carried out when a voluntary action is anticipated.

Ambivalence
The coexistence of contradictory emotions, attitudes, ideas, or desires with respect to a particula

Amenorrhea
(a-men-o-re-ah) Absence of menstrual periods. This can be a side-effect of antipsychotic medications

Amentia
Subnormal development of the mind, with particular reference to intellectual capacities; a type of

Amimia
A disorder of language characterized by an inability to make gestures or to understand the signific

Amnesia
Loss of memory. Types of amnesia include

Amnestic Aphasia
Loss of the ability to name objects.

Amok
seen in South-East Asia. Outburst of aggressive behaviour in which the patient runs amok during a de

Anaclitic
In psychoanalytic terminology, dependence of the infant on the mother or mother substitute for a se

Anal Stage
The period of pregenital psychosexual development, usually from 1 to 3 years, in which the child ha

Anamnesis
The developmental history of a patient and of his or her illness, especially recollections.

Anankastic Personality
Synonym for obsessive-compulsive personality.

Anhedonia
Inability to experience pleasure from activities that usually produce pleasurable feelings. Contras

Anima
In Jungian psychology, a persons inner being as opposed to the character or persona presented to th

Anomie
Apathy, alienation, and personal distress resulting from the loss of goals previously valued. Emile

Anosognosia
lack of awareness of a disease

Antagonist
Medication, hormone, or neurotransmitter that binds to a receptor and prevents a response.

Antagonist
An agent that has the ability to bind to a receptor and prevent or block a response.

Anticholinergic
Blocking the action of acetylcholine, one of the chemicals the body makes to help nerve cells commun

Anticholinergic Effects
A group of side effects of some antipsychotics, including dry mouth, blurred vision, constipation an

Antidepressant
Medication used to treat depression.

Antipsychotic
Medication used to treat psychosis.

Anxiety
The apprehensive anticipation of future danger or misfortune accompanied by a feeling of dysphoria o

Anxiolytics
Medications used to reduce serious anxiety, tension, and agitation. They used to be known as minor t

Apathy
Lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern.

Aphasia
An impairment in the understanding or transmission of ideas by language in any of its forms--reading

Aphonia
An inability to produce speech sounds that require the use of the larynx that is not due to a lesion

Apperception
Perception as modified and enhanced by ones own emotions, memories, and biases.

Apraxia
Inability to carry out previously learned skilled motor activities despite intact comprehension and

Arrhythmia
Abnormal heart rhythm.

Assimilation
A Piagetian term describing a persons ability to comprehend and integrate new experiences.

Astereognosis
Inability to recognize familiar objects by touch that cannot be explained by a defect of elementary

Ataxia
Partial or complete loss of coordination of voluntary muscular movement.

Attention
The ability to focus in a sustained manner on a particular stimulus or activity. A disturbance in at

Atypical Antipsychotic
A newer class of antipsychotic, developed with the aim of offering better symptom control and fewer

Auditory Hallucination
A hallucination involving the perception of sound, most commonly of voices. Some clinicians and inve

Aura
A premonitory, subjective brief sensation (e.g., a flash of light) that warns of an impending headac

Autoeroticism
Sensual self-gratification. Characteristic of, but not limited to, an early stage of emotional devel

Automatism
Automatic and apparently undirected non-purposeful behaviour that is not consciously controlled. See

Autoscopy
Phantom mirror image hallucination in which one sees and recognizes oneself

Autotopagnosia
Inability to localize and name the parts of ones own body. finger agnosia would be autotopagnosia re

Avolition
An inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed activities. When severe enough to be considere

BAS
Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale

Beta-Blocker
An agent that inhibits the action of beta-adrenergic receptors, which modulate cardiac functions, re

Bipolar Disorder
An affective disorder characterized by extreme changes in mood ranging from mania to depression. Thi

Bizarre Delusion
A delusion that involves a phenomenon that the persons culture would regard as totally implausible.

Blocking
A sudden obstruction or interruption in spontaneous flow of thinking or speaking, perceived as an ab

Blunted Affect
reduction in emotional expression

Body Image
Ones sense of the self and ones body.

BPRS
Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale - an assessment tool for the evaluation of drug treatment effects on

Bradykinesia
Neurologic condition characterized by a generalized slowness of motor activity.

Brocas Aphasia
Loss of the ability to comprehend language coupled with production of inappropriate language.

Bruxism
Grinding of the teeth, occurs unconsciously while awake or during stage 2 sleep. May be secondary to

Capgras Syndrome
a person who is familiar to the patient is believed to have been replaced by a double

Catalepsy
Waxy flexibility--rigid 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 as

Catatonic Behaviour
Marked motor abnormalities including motor immobility (i.e., catalepsy or stupor), certain types of

Catatonic Schizophrenia
(kat-a-ton-ik skiz-o-fre-ne-ah) Schizophrenia characterized by marked disturbance which may involve

Catharsis
The healthful (therapeutic) release of ideas through talking out conscious material accompanied by a

Cathexis
Attachment, conscious or unconscious, of emotional feeling and significance to an idea, an object, o

Causalgia
A sensation of intense pain of either organic or psychological origin.

Central Aphasia
difficult in arranging words in their correct sequence

Central Nervous System (CNS)
The brain and spinal cord. The CNS is responsible for coordinating the activities of all parts of th

Cerea Flexibilitas
The waxy flexibility often present in catatonic schizophrenia in which the patients arm or leg remai

Cerebrovascular Ischaemia
A reduction in oxygen reaching the brain as a result of obstruction of the blood supply or inadequat

CGI
Clinical Global Impression - an assessment tool for the evaluation of drug treatment effects on dise

Chlorpromazine
A typical antipsychotic.

Chronic Schizophrenia
(kron-ik skiz-o-fre-ne-ah) A disorder in which the symptoms of schizophrenia persist long-term.

Circumstantiality
slowed thinking incorporating unnecessary trivial details. Eventually the goal of the thought is rea