Glossary Of Psychiatry

Abnormal perceptions: abnormalities in the way information from the outside world is sensed and processed, i.e. hallucinations, illusions.

Acute intoxication: changes in physiological and psychological responses due to the administration of a psychoactive substance.

Affect: the behaviour a person exhibits, which reflects the underlying mood/ emotions.

Agitation: feelings of tension combined with excessive physical activity.

Agnosia: patient cannot interpret sensations properly although there is nothing wrong with the sensory organs.


Ambivalence: simultaneous opposing impulses towards something.


Amnesia: inability to recall past experiences/events.

Anhedonia: no longer finding pleasure in previously enjoyable activities. Not being able to enjoy anything.


Attention: the ability to focus on a specific activity.

Blunted affect: reduced expression of emotion.

Cathartic colon: atonic colon due to chronic laxative abuse.

Choreiform movements: jerky involuntary movements, particularly affecting the head, face or limbs. Usually due to a disease of the basal ganglia, but may result from drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease, or withdrawal of phenothiazines. They are characteristic of Huntington’s disease.

Circumstantiality: a form of thought disorder characterised by speech in which the main point of what is being communicated is lost in a sea of unnecessary trivial details.

Clouding of consciousness: the patient is drowsy and does not respond completely to stimuli. There is disturbance of attention, concentration, memory, orientation and thinking.

Cognition: mental processes by which knowledge is acquired and acted on. Includes perception, reasoning, creativity and problem-solving.

Compulsion: repetitive stereotyped act performed, despite knowing it is senseless, in order to reduce anxiety, and in response to obsessional thoughts.

Concentration: the ability to maintain attention.

Concrete thinking: lack of abstract thought. Normal in children. Occurs in adults with schizophrenia or organic brain disease, e.g. ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones – because they would break the windows.’

Conditioning event: establishment of a new behaviour by modifying the associations between a stimulus and a response.

Confabulation: gaps in memory are unconsciously filled with false memories/explanations.

Coprolalia: the repetitive speaking of obscene words.

Counter-transference: the therapist’s emotions and attitudes to the patient.

Defence mechanism: mental mechanisms that protect the consciousness from the affects, ideas and desires of the unconscious.

De´ ja` vu: illusion of familiarity of a situation.

Delirium: disorder of consciousness in which the patient is acutely disorientated, restless and confused. May also experience hallucinations and anxiety.

Delusion: a firm, fixed belief which is held unshakeably and is out of keeping with the patient’s cultural/social background.

Delusional perception: new and delusional significance is attached to a familiar real perception without any logical reason.

Dementia: chronic, progressive, global organic impairment of intellectual functioning without change in consciousness.

Denial: refusal to accept that something is true. Sometimes a psychological reaction to bad news, used as a defence mechanism.

Dependence: psychological and/or physical effect of habitual use of a drug/substance. Leads to compulsion to keep taking the drug. In physical dependence there are withdrawal symptoms if the drug is stopped. Psychological dependence means the person feels the need to keep taking it for well-being, but there are no physical withdrawal effects.

Depersonalisation: an unpleasant sensation where the person feels unreal or strangely altered, or feels that the mind has become separated from the body. Mild forms can occur in normal individuals under stress.

Derealisation: a feeling of unreality in which the environment is experienced as unreal and as flat, dull or strange. Can be very frightening. Often occurs at the same time as depersonalisation.

Displacement: defence mechanism in which thoughts and feelings about one person or object are transferred onto another.

Diurnal mood variation: variation in mood during the course of the day.


DSM-IV: (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edn.) published
by the American Psychiatric Association and used in the USA (see ICD-10).

Dysphasia: disorder of language as a result of cortical damage affecting the generation and content of speech. Aphasia is a complete absence of speech due to cortical damage.

Dysthymia: chronic low mood not meeting requirements for a depressive episode.

Dystonia: postural disorder caused by disease of the basal ganglia. Spasms in the muscles of the shoulders, neck, trunk and limbs.

Echolalia: pathological repetition of the words spoken by another person.

Echopraxia: pathological imitation of the actions of another person.

EEG (electroencephalogram): measures the electrical activity of the brain. Reflects the state of the patient’s brain and level of consciousness.

Ego: part of the mental apparatus that is present at the interface of the perceptual and internal demand systems. It controls voluntary thoughts and actions and, at an unconscious level, defence mechanisms.

Egodystonic: unpleasant/uncomfortable.

Egomania: pathological preoccupation with oneself.

Elated mood: more cheerful than normal. Not necessarily pathological.

Encopresis: incontinence of faeces.

Enuresis: involuntary passage of urine.

Erotomania: delusion that the individual is loved by some person, often a person of some importance.

Euphoria: exaggerated feeling of well-being. It is pathological.

Euthymia: normal mood.

Flight of ideas: speech consists of a stream of accelerated thoughts with abrupt changes from topic to topic. The connections between topics may be chance relationships, verbal associations, e.g. alliteration, but can usually be followed (unlike Knight’s move thinking). Associated with pressure of speech.

Formication: a somatic hallucination in which insects are felt to be crawling on/under skin.

Free association: articulation of all thoughts that come to mind.

Habituation training: training to decrease reaction and sensitivity to a fearful stimulus.

Hallucination:

• Sensory experience in the absence of a stimulus.
  
• May be auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory, tactile.
  
• Occurs in normal people when falling asleep (hypnagogic) and waking (hypnopompic).
  
• A pseudohallucination is where the patient knows that the hallucination is coming from inside the mind.
  
• Visual/ tactile hallucinations may imply an organic problem.
  
• Auditory hallucinations suggest psychosis.

Hallucinosis: hallucinations occurring in clear consciousness, e.g. in alcoholic hallucinosis.

Hyperacusis: increased sensitivity to sounds.

Hyperaesthesia: sensations appear increased.

Hypoaesthesia: sensations appear decreased.

Hypochondriasis: fear of having a serious illness, in the absence of any real organic pathology.

ICD-10: (10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases) published by the World Health Organization, Geneva, 1992. Used in Europe (see DSM-IV).

Id: an unconscious part of the mental apparatus which is partly made up of inherited instincts and partly by acquired, but repressed, components.

Ideas of reference: patients feel that other people look at or talk about them, or that TV/media refers to them.

Illusion: false perception due to misinterpretation of a stimulus arising from an object.

Inappropriate affect: an affect that is inappropriate for the circumstances, e.g. giggling when talking about the death of a loved one.

Initial insomnia: difficulty falling asleep when first going to bed. Middle insomnia is waking in the middle of the night. Early morning insomnia (also known as late insomnia) is waking in the early hours and being unable to go back to sleep.

Insight: degree of correct understanding the patient has of the condition and its cause, as well as the willingness to accept treatment.

Jamais vu: illusion of failure to recognise a familiar situation.

Jargon aphasia: incoherent, meaningless, neologistic speech.

Knight’s move thinking: odd, tangential associations between ideas leading to disruptions in speech, which means that the connections between topics cannot be followed (unlike flight of ideas).

Labile affect: affect repeatedly and rapidly shifts, e.g. anger to sadness.


Life events: psychologically stressful events in life (such as bereavement, divorce, moving house, changing jobs, etc.), which may trigger onset/relapse of psychiatric conditions.

Logoclonia: the last syllable of the last word is repeated.

Loosening of associations: the connections between a patient’s sentences are difficult to follow.


Monomania: pathological preoccupation with a single object.


Mood: pervasive and sustained emotion that colours the person’s perception of the world.
Mutism: total loss of speech.

Negativism: motiveless resistance to commands and attempts to be moved.

Neologism: a new word invented by the patient, usually with a personal meaning.

Neurosis: a psychiatric disorder in which the patient has insight into the illness, and can distinguish between subjective experiences and reality.

Obsession: intrusive or unwanted thought, image or idea, which enters the patient’s consciousness despite attempts to suppress it.

Organic disorder: disorder due to change of structure of an organ or tissue, i.e. a physical disorder.

Overvalued idea: unreasonable and sustained intense preoccupation maintained with less than delusional intensity.

Palilalia: a word is repeated with increasing frequency.

Parasuicide: an act of self-harm in which the motive is not a wish to die. It is different from attempted suicide.

Passivity phenomenon: delusional belief that an external force is controlling aspects of the self, e.g. thoughts, impulses, actions.

Perseveration: mental operations, speech and behaviour carried on beyond the point at which they are appropriate.


Post-ictal: after a fit/seizure.

Posturing: an inappropriate or bizarre bodily posture adopted continuously over a long period.

Poverty of speech: very reduced speech.

Pressure of speech, pressure of thought: speech is very fast, as though there are too many ideas to verbalise all at one time. Occurs in mania and psychosis.

Prodrome: a symptom indicating the onset of a disease, e.g. strange feelings/ aura before an epileptic fit, periods of depression before first schizophrenic episode.

Projection: a defence mechanism in which repressed thoughts and wishes are attributed to other people or objects.

Prosopagnosia: inability to recognise faces.

Pseudodementia: clinically similar to dementia, but has a non-organic cause, e.g. depression, hypothyroidism.

Pseudohallucination: a form of imagery arising in the subjective mind, lacking the substantiality of normal perceptions.

Psychoactive substance: substance which acts on the brain to alter mood/state of arousal.

Psychomotor: muscular and mental activity. Muscular activities are affected by cerebral disturbance.

Psychomotor agitation: excess overactivity and restlessness, e.g. in agitated depression.

Psychomotor retardation: reduced muscular and mental activity. May occur in treatment with neuroleptics, but is characteristic of depression.

Psychosis: being out of touch with reality but with clear consciousness. Characterised by the presence of delusions and hallucinations.

Puerperal: relating to childbirth or the period that immediately follows it.

Regression: a defence mechanism in which there is a return to an earlier stage of development.

Repression: defence mechanism in which there is pushing away of unacceptable ideas and wishes, which remain in the unconscious.

Rumination: an obsessional type of thinking in which the same thoughts or themes are experienced repetitively, to the exclusion of other mental activity.



Sick role behaviour: activity by individuals who consider themselves ill.

Somatic symptoms: relating to the body rather than the mind.

Somatic passivity: delusional belief that one is a passive recipient of bodily sensations or movements from an external agency.

Stereotypy: repeated regular fixed pattern of movement or speech which is not goal-directed.

Superego: partly conscious and partly unconscious derivative of the ego that exercises self-judgement and holds ethical and moralistic values.

Tardive dyskinesia: involuntary chewing or grimacing movements due to longterm treatment with neuroleptics.

Thought blocking: a sudden interruption in the train of thought occurs, leaving a blank after which what was being said cannot be recalled.

Thought broadcast: the feeling/belief that thoughts are audible to others or are being broadcast on television/radio.

Thought insertion: feeling/belief that thoughts are being put into the mind, or are being altered by an external force.

Thought withdrawal: the feeling that thoughts/ideas are being taken out of the mind by an external force.

Tics: repeated irregular movements involving a particular group of muscles.


Transference: the unconscious process in which emotions and attitudes experienced in childhood are transferred to the therapist.

Word salad: the speech is an incoherent and incomprehensible mix of words and phrases.

Category: Psychiatry Notes