Psychiatric terminology

• Psychiatric terminology explained

Abuse

• Excessive substance use differing from societal norms.

Affect

• Emotional range attached to ideas outwardly manifested.
• Blunt affect: slow or dull emotional expression.
• Flat affect: absence of affective expression.
• Inappropriate affect: incongruent with the emotional feeling
• Labile affect: unstable mood with rapid change.
• Broad affect: showing a full range of emotional expression.
• Restricted affect: showing only one type of emotional expression.

Agitation

• Excitement with severe motor restlessness.

Akathisia

• Motor restlessness with an inability to sit still.

Akinesia

• Absence of movement.

Alogia

• Inability to speak.

Ambivalence

• Opposing feelings/emotions (e.g., love and hate).

Anhedonia

• Feeling of no joy.

Anxiety

• Feeling of apprehension or tension, often related to fear of the unknown.

Apathy

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

Associative Looseness

• Disorganized thinking that jumps between unrelated ideas.
• Example: "cannot see the sky...oh my love...just asking...mmm maybe tomorrow"

Bipolar Disorder

• Mood disorder with manic behavior, with or without depression history.

Circumstantiality

• Answering questions with excessive, unnecessary details before getting to the point.

Clang Association

• Rhyming of words used nonsensically.
• Example: "I am reading a book, in a shady nook, with the food I cooked."

Confusion

• Bewilderment, lack of clarity.

Coprolalia

• Repetitive use of socially unacceptable words.

Confabulation

• Unconscious filling of memory gaps with untrue experiences, detailed fantasy.

Cyclothymia

• Mood swings of hypomania and depression.

Dependence

• The need to increase the dose of a drug to prevent withdrawal.

Disinhibition

• Inability to suppress urges or socially unacceptable statements.

Disorientation

• Disturbances in orientation of time, place, or person.

Dysthymia

• 2 years chronic depressed mood disturbances

Delusion

• Fixed false beliefs with no basis in reality.
• Paranoid delusion: e.g., "somebody is going to kill me."
• Grandiose delusion: false belief of being powerful e.g., "I am the most handsome male in my class.”
• Religious delusion: e.g., "The devil told me to do this."
• Somatic delusion: e.g., "I might get sick."

Ideas of Reference

• Belief that unrelated events have personal significance.
• Example: "I hurt my neighbor. The lady I saw in the television told me to do it."

Depression

• Mood disorder with sadness, despair, apathy, and discouragement.

Denial

• Avoidance of disagreeable realities
• Refusal to recognize

Desensitization

• Gradual exposure to stress-provoking stimuli.

Dyskinesia

• Abnormal involuntary skeletal movement.

Dystonia

• Rigidity of muscles controlling posture, gait, eye movement.

Echolalia

• Repetition of heard words.

Echopraxia

• Repetitive, meaningless movement or imitating others.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

• Administering electric shock to clients with manic-depressive disorders

Euphoria

• Exaggerated feeling of well-being with confidence, elation, and assurance.

Extrapyramidal Side Effects (EPSE)

• Parkinsonism induced by drugs.

Exhibitionism

• Display of body parts to attract others.

Fear

• Response to objective threat.

Fetishism

• Adoring something which serves as a substitute of the original love object.

Flight of Ideas

• Rapidly jumping between unrelated topics with some identifiable connections.

Flooding

• Exposure to fear.

Gait

• Manner of progression in walking.

Hallucination

• False sensory perception without external stimuli.
• Visual: seeing things that are not there.
• Auditory: hearing voices that are not present.
• Olfactory: smelling things that do not exist.
• Tactile: feeling touched without stimuli.
• Gustatory: experiencing taste without stimulus.

Helplessness

• Incapable and powerless.

Hopelessness

• Despairing.

Hypervigilance

• Alert to danger.

Hypomania

• Elevated state less intense than full mania.

Hypersomnia

• Increased and prolonged sleeping.

Insomnia

• Inability to sleep or disrupted patterns.

Illusion

• Misinterpretation of real sensory stimulus.
• Example: seeing a gray sock and thinking it is a mouse.

Libido

• Energy associated with sexual instinct.

Limit setting

• Establishing structured environments with ground rules.

Lucid intervals

• When reasoning and judgment appears normal for a brief period.

Malingering

• Deliberately pretending to be ill or disabled.

Mania

• A mood disorder characterized by irritability, elation and hyperactivity.

Masochism

• Gaining sexual pleasure from being physically hurt.

Mutism

• Refusal to speak.

Negativism

• Motiveless resistance to all instruction.

Oculogyric crisis

• Eyes rolled back in a locked position.

Obsession

• Recurrent disturbing thoughts that are difficult to control.

Compulsion

• Repetitive behavior to decrease anxiety.

Neologism

• Inventing new words with meaningful only to the person.
• Example: "I cannot stay with you because you are a nic-no-kets."

Paranoid

• Extreme suspiciousness.

Pica

• Ingestion of non-edible food.

Phobia

• Exaggerated fear of non-dangerous objects or situations.

Postpartum Depression

• Depression occurring within 30 days of childbirth.

Psychomotor Retardation

• Slow speech and body movement.

Psychosis

• Mental illness with loss of contact with reality and demonstrates bizarre behavior.

Psyche

• The mind.

Primary Gain

• Relieving anxiety by feeling better.

Secondary Gain

• Relieving anxiety with help from others.

Perseveration

• Resistance to changing topics, verbally repeating a sentence.

Preoccupied

• Engrossed.

Religiosity

• Preoccupation with religious ideas or content.

Resilience

• Ability to move forward despite psychosocial diversity or vulnerability.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

Somatic

• Adjective referring to the body.
• A delusions about the body

Somnambulism

• Sleepwalking.

Stereotype

• Persistent repetition of senseless acts or words.

Suicide

• Self-inflicted death.

Sialorrhea

• Excessive drooling.

Xerostomia

• Reduction of saliva.

Tardive Dyskinesia (TD)

• Irreversible neurologic disorder.

Tricyclic Antidepressants (TCAs)

Tolerance

• Increased substance amount to achieve the same effects.

Transference

• Unconscious emotional reaction based on previous experience.

Countertransference

• Reaction based on the nurse’s past experience.

Thought Blocking

• Sudden thought cessation in mid-sentence.
• Example: "I am going to buy a new bag… I forgot to say what is next."

Thought Broadcasting

• Delusional belief that others hear or know thoughts.

Thought Control

• Delusional belief that others control a person’s thoughts against their will.

Thought Insertion

• Delusional belief that others insert thoughts in a person's mind against their will.

Thought Stopping

• Technique to stop unwanted thoughts.

Tic

• Involuntary, recurrent muscular spasm, motor and vocal tics.

Word Salad

• Combining words/phrases with no connection or sense.
• Example: "I am fine....apple tree...books...toys for sale...be okay."

Worthlessness

• Feeling of having no value.