Psychiatric Terminology: Mental Health Definitions

• Psychiatric Terminology related to mental health and psychological conditions is listed below

Abuse

• Excessive substance use diverging from societal norms.

Affect

• Outwardly manifested emotional range attached to ideas.
• Blunt: Slowed or dulled affect.
• Flat: Near or total absence of emotional expression signs.
• Inappropriate: Emotional feeling incongruent with the situation.
• Labile: Unstable mood with rapid changes.
• Broad: Full emotional expression range.
• Restricted: Showing one type of expression only.

Agitation

• Excitement paired with severe motor restlessness.

Akathisia

• Motor restlessness, making sitting still difficult.

Akinesia

• Absence of movement.

Alogia

• Inability to speak.

Ambivalence

• Opposing feelings/emotions, such as love and hate.

Anhedonia

• Inability to experience joy.

Anxiety

• Apprehension or tension feeling; fear of the unknown.

Apathy

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

Associative Looseness

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

Bipolar Disorder/Manic-Depressive

• Mood disorder with manic behavior episodes, potentially with a depression history.

Circumstantiality

• Providing excessive, unnecessary details before answering a question.
• Example:
  • Nurse: "Where are you going for the weekend?"
  • Patient: “I feel like visiting my sister...I just remembered she ask me a favor...a picnic maybe, in the beach, in hours it gets crowded. That is why I don't prefer in that place. So, I decided instead to go to my brothers place a nice and big house but now I prefer to stay in my own house.")

Clang Association

• Rhyming words together.
• Example: ("I am reading a book, in a shady nook, with the food I cooked")

Confused

• Bewildered, unclear state.

Coprolalia

• Repeating socially unacceptable words.

Confabulation

• Unconscious filling of memory gaps with untrue experiences believed as real; detailed fantasy.
• Example:
  • Nurse: "How are you Tess?” (who spent the day in her apartment)
  • Tess: "Well, I came from my friends house who just arrived from Canada. She gave me a lot of gifts, we ate out...it was a wonderful day. I will be going with her when she goes back.

Cyclothymia

• Hypomania and depression mood swings.

Dependence

• A state where a drug user takes more doses of a drug to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Disinhibited

• Inability to suppress socially unacceptable urges or statements.

Disorientation

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

Dysthymia

• A chronic, depressed mood disturbances of 2 years.

Delusion

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

• Gradually exposing someone to stress-provoking stimuli.

Dyskinesia

• Abnormal involuntary skeletal movements, often jerky.

Dystonia

• Rigidity in muscles controlling posture, gait, and eye movement.

Echolalia

• Repetition of heard words.
• Example:
  • Nurse: "Can you please keep the door open."
  • Patient: "Can you please keep the door open."

Echopraxia

• Repetitive, meaningless movement or imitating others.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

• Electric shocks to treat Manic Depressive Disorders.

Euphoria

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

Extrapyramidal Side Effects (EPSE)

• Drug-induced parkinsonism.

Exhibitionism

• Displaying body parts to attract others.

Fear

• Response to a known and objective external threat.

Fetishism

• Adoring something serving as a substitute for the original love object.

Flight of Ideas

• Rapid shift between unrelated topics, yet some connection exists.
• Example: ("What is today?...might not be taking a bath...I will be cooking at home...the dog kept on barking... there are flowers around me...the food for sure will be delicious).

Flooding

• Exposure to a feared stimulus.

Gait

• Manner of walking.

Hallucination

• False sensory perception w/o external stimuli.
• Visual: Seeing nonexistent things.
• Auditory: Hearing voices that aren't there.
• Olfactory: Smelling nonexistent things.
• Tactile: Feeling touch without stimuli.
• Gustatory: Experiencing taste in absence of stimuli.

Helplessness

• Incapable and powerless.

Hopelessness

• Despairing, without hope.

Hypervigilant

• Alert to danger.

Hypomania

• Elevated state less intense than full mania.

Hypersomnia

• Increased and prolonged sleeping.

Insomnia

• Inability to sleep or disrupted sleep patterns.

Illusion

• Misinterpreting real sensory stimuli.
• Example: Patient insists a gray sock on the floor is a mouse

Libido

• Energy usually associated with sexual instinct

Limit Setting

• A structured environment with clear ground rules

Lucid Intervals

• Periods of normal reasoning and judgement amidst disturbances.

Malingering

• Deliberately pretending an illness or disability.

Mania

• A mood disorder with irritability, elation, and hyperactivity.

Masochism

• Gaining sexual pleasure from being physically hurt.

Mutism

• Refusal to speak.

Negativism

• Motiveless resistance to instruction.

Oculogyric Crisis

• Eyes rolled back in a locked position.

Obsession

• Recurrent, disturbing thoughts difficult to dismiss.

Compulsion

• Repetitive behavior to reduce anxiety.

Neologism

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

Paranoid

• Extreme suspiciousness of others and their action.

Pica

• Ingestion of non-edible food.

Phobia

• Exaggerated fear of non-dangerous objects or situations.

Postpartum Depression

• Occurring within 30 days postpartum.

Psychomotor Retardation

• Slow speech and body movement.

Psychosis

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

Psyche

• The mind.

Primary Gain

• Relieving anxiety by individual feeling better.

Secondary Gain

• Relieving anxiety through others' help.

Perseveration

• Resistance to changing topic; verbal repetition.
• Example:
  • N - How are you? > P - I am fine.
  • N - From, where are you? > P - I am fine.
  • N - What is your name? > P - I am fine

Preoccupied

• Engrossed.

Religiosity

• Preoccupation with religious ideas or content.

Resilience

• Capacity to move forward despite diversity or vulnerability.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI)

• Drugs that are antidepressant

Sadism

• Gaining sexual pleasure by inflicting pain.

Somatic

• Referring to the body.

Somnambulism

• Sleepwalking.

Stereotype

• Persistent repetition of senseless acts or words.

Suicide

• A self-inflicted death.

Sialorrhea

• Excessive drooling of saliva

Xerostomia

• Reduction of saliva

Tardive Dyskinesia (TD)

• An irreversible neurologic disorder.

Tricyclic Antidepressant (TCA)

• Drugs that are antidepressant

Tolerance

• Needing more of a substance for the same effect.

Transference

• Unconscious emotional reaction to current situation based on past experiences.

Countertransference

• Nurse's reaction based on their past experiences.

Thought Blocking

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

Thought Broadcasting

• Delusion others hear or know one's thoughts.

Thought Control

• Delusion others control one's thoughts.

Thought Insertion

• Delusion others insert thoughts into one's mind.

Thought Stopping

• Technique to stop unwelcome thoughts.

Tic

• Involuntary, recurrent muscular spasm, either motor or vocal.

Word Salad

• Incoherent words or phrases with no connection.
• Example: (I am fine....apple tree...books...toys for sale...be okay)

Worthlessness

• Feeling of having no value.