Mental health terms: A-words

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Questions and Answers

Which of the following best describes 'abstract thinking'?

  • The ability to recall specific dates and historical events.
  • The capacity to understand the essence of a concept and its symbolic representation. (correct)
  • Thinking focused on tangible objects and immediate experiences.
  • A reduced impulse to act or think, often seen in depression.

A patient exhibits a reduced impulse to act and think, along with indifference to the consequences of their actions. Which term best describes these symptoms?

  • Abulia (correct)
  • Alogia
  • Acalculia
  • Acataphasia

A patient is unable to perform rapid alternating movements during a neurological exam. This deficit is called:

  • Akataphasia
  • Adiadochokinesia (correct)
  • Akinesia
  • Adynamia

Which is the most accurate definition of 'agnosia'?

<p>Inability to recognize or understand sensory stimuli despite intact sensory pathways. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What differentiates akathisia from psychotic agitation?

<p>Akathisia is a subjective feeling of motor restlessness, often a side effect of medication, while psychotic agitation stems from psychosis. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What condition is characterized by the loss of a previously held reading ability, not due to visual defects?

<p>Alexia (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A patient reports feeling detached from their body and surroundings, as if they are observing themselves from outside. Which term describes this sensation?

<p>Depersonalization (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best describes ambivalence?

<p>The coexistence of opposing impulses toward the same thing in the same person at the same time. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is the most accurate description of 'anhedonia'?

<p>Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed. (D)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A patient is unable to recognize that their left arm is paralyzed. This is an example of:

<p>Anosognosia (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary characteristic of 'apathy'?

<p>Dulled emotional tone and indifference. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is the best description of 'automatism'?

<p>Activity carried out without conscious knowledge. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A patient abruptly stops speaking mid-sentence and cannot recall what they were saying. This is known as:

<p>Blocking (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Which feature differentiates a bizarre delusion from a nonbizarre delusion?

<p>The plausibility of the content. (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A patient displays slowed motor activity and a decrease in spontaneous movements. This symptom is called:

<p>Bradykinesia (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the primary characteristic of clang association?

<p>Speech driven by word sounds rather than meaning, often involving rhyming. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is the defining characteristic of concrete thinking?

<p>Thinking centered on specific, tangible details and immediate experiences. (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Which term best describes the unconscious filling of memory gaps with fabricated or distorted information?

<p>Confabulation (B)</p> Signup and view all the answers

A patient reports that a deceased relative frequently visits them and provides them with guidance. They acknowledge that no one else can see or hear this relative. This is best described as:

<p>Hallucination (C)</p> Signup and view all the answers

What is a key feature that differentiates magical thinking from a delusion?

<p>Magical thinking is a dereistic form of thought where actions or thoughts can alter reality, while delusions center around more fixed false beliefs. (A)</p> Signup and view all the answers

Flashcards

Ab reaction

A process of bringing repressed material back to consciousness, reliving it with the appropriate emotional response.

Abstract Thinking

Thinking with the ability to understand essentials, break wholes into parts, and discern common traits; symbolic thought.

Abulia

Reduced impulse to act or think, showing indifference to the consequences; linked to neurological issues, depression, and schizophrenia.

Acalculia

Loss of the ability to perform calculations, unrelated to anxiety or concentration issues; linked to neurological problems and learning disabilities.

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Acataphasia

Speech disorder with incorrectly formulated statements; words sound correct but are inappropriate for thoughts.

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A cat hexis

Lack of feeling associated with emotionally charged subjects; detaching emotion from thoughts/ideas; seen in anxiety and schizophrenia.

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Acenesthesia

Loss of the sensation of one's physical existence.

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Acrophobia

Dread of high places.

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Acting Out

Behavioral response to unconscious drives providing temporary relief; reacting to a present situation as if it were the original source of the impulse.

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A colalia

Nonsense speech linked to comprehension impairment; seen in mania, schizophrenia, and neurological problems.

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Adiadochokinesia

Inability to do rapid alternating movements; linked to neurological issues and cerebellar lesions.

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Adynamia

Weakness and fatigability; characteristic of neurasthenia and depression.

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Aerophagia

Excessive swallowing of air; seen in anxiety disorders.

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Ageusia

Lack or impairment of the sense of taste; seen in depression and neurological deficit.

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Aggression

Forceful, goal-directed action manifesting as verbal or physical.

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Agitation

Severe anxiety marked by motor restlessness.

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Agoraphobia

Morbid fear of open spaces or leaving familiar settings; may occur with or without panic attacks.

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Ataxia

Lack of coordination, physical or mental; describes a difficulty between feelings and thoughts.

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Atonia

Loss of muscle tone.

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Auditory Hallucination

False perception of sound, usually voices, without external stimuli.

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Study Notes

  • Abreaction: Process of bringing repressed painful experiences back to consciousness for recall and reliving with appropriate emotional response
  • Abstract thinking: Ability to understand the big picture, break it down, and find common traits for symbolic thought
  • Abulia: Reduced desire to act or think, with indifference to consequences, from neurological issues, depression, or schizophrenia
  • Acalculia: Inability to do calculations due to neurological problems or learning disabilities, not anxiety
  • Acataphasia: Speech disorder with incorrectly formed statements using wrong but similar-sounding words or inappropriate expressions
  • Acathexis (Decathexis): Lack of emotion for a charged subject, seen in anxiety, dissociative, schizophrenic, or bipolar disorders
  • Acenesthesia: Loss of awareness of physical existence
  • Acrophobia: Fear of heights
  • Acting out: Reacting to current situations as if they were past ones to relieve inner tension
  • Aculalia: Nonsense speech with comprehension issues, present in mania, schizophrenia, and neurological problems
  • Adiadochokinesia: Trouble performing quick, alternating movements due to neurological impairment or cerebellar lesions
  • Adynamia: Weakness and fatigue, typical of neurasthenia and depression
  • Aerophagia: Swallowing too much air, found in anxiety disorders
  • Affect: Emotional experience linked to ideas or mental representations, with outward signs categorized as restricted, blunted, flattened, broad, labile, appropriate, or inappropriate
  • Ageusia: Loss of taste, occurs with depression or neurological issues
  • Aggression: Verbal or physical forceful action related to rage, anger, or hostility; also linked to neurological issues, temporal lobe disorders, impulse problems, mania, and schizophrenia
  • Agitation: Intense anxiety with motor restlessness
  • Agnosia: Inability to recognize sensory input due to sensory pathway or cerebral lesion issues; can also be emotional; occurs with neurological issues
  • Agoraphobia: Fear of open spaces or leaving home, potentially with panic attacks
  • Agrammatism: Speech lacking grammatical rules, seen in Alzheimer's and Pick's diseases
  • Agraphia: Loss of writing ability
  • Ailurophobia: Fear of cats
  • Akataphasia: Speech disorder where thoughts are indirectly expressed through similar sounds or derailment
  • Akathisia: Motor restlessness needing constant movement, possibly an antipsychotic side effect
  • Akinesia: Lack of movement, as in catatonia, potentially from antipsychotics
  • Akinetic mutism: Absence of voluntary movement or speech in an seemingly alert patient, due to psychotic depression or catatonia
  • Alexia: Loss of reading ability not explained by visual deficits
  • Alexithymia: Difficulty describing or recognizing emotions, linked to depression, substance abuse, and PTSD
  • Algophobia: Fear of pain
  • Alogia: Inability to speak due to mental deficiency or dementia
  • Ambivalence: Holding conflicting feelings towards something at once, as seen in schizophrenia, borderline states, and OCD
  • Amimia: Inability to make or understand gestures
  • Amnesia: Partial or total loss of past memories that can be organic or dissociative
  • Amnestic aphasia: Naming issues despite object recognition, otherwise known as anomic aphasia
  • Anaclitic: Dependent on others, like a child and mother, causing depression in children if mothering is absent
  • Analgesia: Reduced pain that can occur during hypnosis or dissociative disorders
  • Anancasm: Repetitive behaviors or thoughts to relieve tension that is similar to obsessions and occurs in OCD
  • Androgyny: Possessing the traits of both males and females within a person
  • Anergia: Lack of energy
  • Anhedonia: Loss of interest and pleasure
  • Anomia: Inability to name objects
  • Anorexia: Loss of appetite, though in anorexia nervosa, appetite may be present but eating is refused
  • Anosognosia: Inability to acknowledge one's own physical deficits
  • Anterograde amnesia: Forgetting things after the onset of amnesia common after trauma
  • Anxiety: Feelings of apprehension caused by internal or external danger
  • Apathy: Dulled emotion found in schizophrenia and depression
  • Aphasia: Language disturbance caused by brain lesions
  • Aphonia: Loss of voice, seen in conversion disorder
  • Apperception: Awareness of a stimulus, based on the individuals own experiences, knowledge and emotions
  • Appropriate affect: Expressing emotions that align with speech, ideas, and thoughts
  • Apraxia: Being unable to perform motor tasks despite having the ability to move, two or three dimensional forms cannot be drawn
  • Astasia abasia: Inability to stand or walk regularly, despite being able to move legs, seen in conversion disorder
  • Astereognosis: Inability to recognize touch, seen with neurological deficits
  • Asyndesis: Language disorder of unconnected ideas and images, commonly seen in schizophrenia
  • Ataxia: Physical or mental lack of coordination
  • Atonia: Lack of muscle tone, otherwise known as waxy flexibility
  • Attention: Concentration on a certain experience and activity that commonly becomes impaired with anxiety and depression
  • Auditory hallucination: Hearing false sounds most commonly voices, that can be a common psychiatric hallucination
  • Audible thoughts: Auditory hallucination of hearing thoughts repeated by voices
  • Aura: Warning sensations before a seizure alongside sensory prodrome proceeding a migraine
  • Autistic thinking: Narcissistic thinking focused on subjectivity that is similar to autism
  • Automatic obedience: Obeying commands without judgement that can arise in hypnosis or schizophrenia
  • Automatism: Acting without knowing
  • Autoscopy: Seeing one’s self or double as a brief hallucination
  • Behavior: The sum of psyche, including the expression of cravings, drives, wishes, impulses and motivations referred to as conation
  • Belle indifference: A person showing disinterest in their physical complaint seen in a conversion disorder
  • Bereavement: Feelings of grief from the loss of a loved one
  • Bizarre delusion: Absurd fantasy that can be seen in schizophrenia
  • Blackout: Memory loss from alcohol consumption signaling reversible brain damage
  • Blocking: Disrupted train of thought, followed by the inability to recall what was being discussed seen with anxiety and schizophrenia
  • Blunted affect: Reduced external feeling tone with fundamental symptoms that were determined by Eugen Bleuler
  • Bradykinesia: Slow movement with decreased spontaneous movement
  • Bradylalia: Slow abnormally speech that is common with depression
  • Bradylexia: Inability to read quickly
  • Bruxism: Grinding of teeth most commonly in sleep from an anxiety disorder
  • Carebaria: Discomfort or pressure in the head
  • Catalepsy: Maintaining a body position that can be molded as seen in severe cases of catatonic schizophrenia
  • Cataplexy: Losing muscle tone to emotional states that can commonly been seen with narcolepsy
  • Catastrophic reaction: Extreme emotional state of uncooperativeness, anxieties and crying in stroke patients
  • Catatonic excitement: Uncontrolled motor activity from catatonic schizophrenia
  • Catatonic posturing: Assuming irregular voluntary behaviors
  • Catatonic rigidity: Sustained motor position that resists change
  • Catatonic stupor: Well aware surroundings
  • Cathexis: Conscious of unconscious physical energy
  • Causalgia: Burning pain
  • Cenesthesia: Change in body feeling
  • Cephalalgia: Headache
  • Cerea flexibilitas: Molding a persons limb so it feels like wax
  • Chorea: Random involuntary movements
  • Circumstantiality: Unnecessary details that stem from schizophrenia and dementia
  • Clang association: Sound of a word without logical connection from schizophrenia and mania
  • Claustrophobia: Fear of confined spaces
  • Clonic convulsion: Alternating violent muscle contraction in grand mal epileptic seizures
  • Clouding of consciousness: Not fully awake, alert with cognitive disorders
  • Cluttering: Rapid and erratic speech
  • Cognition: Thinking and awareness
  • Coma: Unconsciousness can occur because of brain injury, diabetes, kidney issues, alcohol
  • Coma Vigil: Appears to be asleep but can be woken
  • Command automatism: Following condition automatically
  • Command hallucination: Orders that someone must obey
  • Complex: Feeling toned idea
  • Complex partial seizure: Altered state
  • Compulsion: Needing to act on urges
  • Conation: Motivation
  • Concrete thinking: Actual thinking
  • condensation: Symbol process
  • Confabulation: Unconscious memory
  • Confusion: Not oriented
  • Consciousness: Aware external stimuli
  • Constipation: Difficulty defecating
  • Constricted affect: Lower feeling tone
  • Constructional apraxia: Can't copy
  • Conversion phenomena: Disorders of symbolic thinking
  • Convulsion: contraction
  • Coprolalia: Obscene talk
  • Coprophagia: Eating feces
  • Crytographia: Written language
  • Cryptolalia: Private sounds
  • Cycloplegia: Muscle of eyes
  • Decompensation: Defense breakdown
  • Deja entendu: Recurring sounds
  • Deja pense:Recurring thoughts
  • Deja vu : Recurring visual recognition
  • Delirium: Loss of consciousness
  • Delirium tremens: Reaction to alcohol
  • Delusion: False realization
  • Delusion self-accusation: False guilt
  • Dementia: General disorder
  • Denial: Act of denouncing
  • Depersonalization: Sensation of unreality
  • Depression: Feeling of despair
  • Derailment: Deviation
  • Derealization: Senses changing
  • Dereism: Subjective logic
  • Detachment: Not involved
  • Devaluation: Negative qualities
  • Diminished Lobido: loss of sex drive
  • Dipsomania: Addiction
  • Disinhibition: More freedom
  • Disorientation: Confusion
  • Displacement Act emotional
  • Dissociation: From other behavior
  • Distractibility: Inattention
  • Dread: Pervasive anxiety
  • Dreamy State: Altered state
  • Drowsiness: Desire to sleep
  • Dysarthria: Difficulty in motor activity
  • Dyscalculia: Problem calculating
  • Dysgeusia: Taste problem
  • Dysgraphia: Writing problem
  • Dyskinesia: Movement problem
  • Dyslilia: Structural deficiency
  • Dyslexia: Reading problem
  • Dysmegalopsia: Distorted shape
  • Dysmetria: Difficulty gauging
  • Dysmnesia: Memory problem
  • Dyspareunia: Painful intercourse
  • Dysphagia: Swallowing problem
  • Dysphasia: Comprehension problem
  • Dysphonia: Speech pain
  • Dysphoria: restless
  • Dysprosody loss of melody
  • Dystonia extrapyramidal
  • Elcholalia repeats
  • Ego- alien - Distant
  • Egocentric selfish
  • Ego dystonic see alien
  • Ego mania self obsessive
  • Ego syntonic personality traits
  • Eidetic image vivid image
  • Elation joy
  • Elevated mood cheerful
  • Emotion with feelings
  • emotional insight awareness
  • emotional lability emotions
  • Encopresis feces
  • Enuresis unrine
  • Erotomania delusional
  • Erythrophobia fear
  • Euphoria high feeling
  • Euthymia normal moon
  • Evasion strategically moving
  • Exaltation grandure
  • Excited Purposeless movement
  • Expansive Mania
  • Expressive cannot speak
  • Externalization to pervcieve
  • Extroversion out of one self
  • False Memory didn't occur
  • Fantasy fabricated mental picture
  • Fatigue feeling of mental body inactivity
  • Fausse Recognisance: recognition of delusional disorders
  • Fear: emotional state
  • flat affect: Absence of Effective Expression
  • Flight of Ideas: Rapid succession of fragmented thoughts
  • flocillation: at bedclothe
  • Fluent aphasia: inability to understand
  • folie a deux: Mental illness
  • formal thought disorder: Disturbance in form of thought
  • formication: Tactile hallucination
  • free - floating anxiety: Severe pervasive anxiety
  • fugue: Dissociative disorder
  • galactorrhea: Abnormal discharge of milk
  • generalized tonic - clonic seizure: Slow gradual recovery of consciousness

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