|
 Affect | External expression of emotion; emotional response. |
| Agoraphobia | Fear of leaving home or leaving a safe place. |
| Amnesia | Loss of memory. |
| Amphetamines | Central nervous system stimulants. |
| Anorexia nervosa | Eating disorder of excessive dieting and refusal to maintain a normal body weight. |
| Antisocial personality | Characterized by lack of loyalty or concern for others and lack of moral standards. |
| Anxiety disorders | Characterized by unpleasant tensions, distress, and avoidance behavior; examples are phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic distress disorder. |
| Anxiolytic | Drug that relieves anxiety and produces a relaxing effect. |
| Apathy | Absence of emotions; lack of interest or emotional involvement. |
| Asperger syndrome | A pervasive developmental disorder characterized by delays in socialization and communication skills; often considered a less severe type of autism. |
| Atypical antipsychotics | Drugs used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses (psychoses). |
| Autism | Severe lack of responsiveness to others, preoccupation with inner thoughts, withdrawal and retarded language development. |
| Autistic thought | Preoccupation with self-centered, illogical ideas and fantasies that exclude the external world. |
| Benzodiazepines | Drugs used to treat anxiety and panic attacks. |
| Bipolar disorder | Mood disorder with alternating periods of mania and depression. |
| Borderline personality | Instability in interpersonal relationships and sense of self; alternating involvement with and rejection of people. |
| Bulimia nervosa | Eating disorder marked by binge eating followed by vomiting, purging (defecation), and depression. |
| Cannabis | Active substance in marijuana; THC. |
| Catatonic stupor | A type of schizophrenia marked by inability to move or react to the environment. |
| Claustrophobia | Fear of closed-in places. |
| Cognitive behavior therapy | Changing behavior patterns and responses by training and repetition and learning how thinking patterns cause symptoms, such as anger, anxiety and depression. |
| Compulsion | Uncontrollable urge to perform an act repeatedly. |
| Conversion disorder | A physical symptom appears with no organic basis and as a result of anxiety and inner conflict. |
| Cyclothymia | Patient experiences alternating states of depression and exhilaration; mild form of bipolar disorder. |
| Defense mechanism | Unconscious technique (coping mechanism) that a person uses to resolve or conceal conflicts and anxiety. |
| Delirium | Confusion in thinking; faulty perceptions and irrational behavior. |
| Delirium tremens | Confusion in thinking, anxiety, tremors, and sweating occurring with withdrawal from excessive and habitual use of alcohol. |
| Delusion | Fixed, false belief that cannot be changed by logical reasoning or evidence. |
| Dementia | Loss of higher mental functioning, including memory, judgment, and reasoning. |
| Depression | Major mood disorder marked by chronic and excessive sadness, loss of energy, hopelessness, worry, and discouragement. |
| Dissociative disorder | Chronic or sudden disturbance of memory, identity, or consciousness; examples are multiple-personality disorder and psychogenic amnesia. |
| Dysphoria | Sadness, hopelessness, and depressive mood; feeling "low." |
| Dysthymia | Depressive episodes, but not of the same intensity or duration as major depression. |
| Ego | Central, coordinating branch of the personality. |
| Electroconvulsive therapy | Electric current produces a convulsive seizure to treat mood disorders (depression or the depressive phase of bipolar disorder); used in patients who are resistant to drug therapy or when rapid response is needed. |
| Euphoria | Exaggerated feeling of well-being; elevated mood, "high." |
| Exhibitionism | Compulsive need to expose one's body, particularly the genitals, to an unsuspecting stranger. |
| Family therapy | Treatment of an entire family to resolve and understand their conflicts and problems. |
| Fetishism | Use of non-living objects, such as articles of clothing, as substitutes for a human sexual love object. |
| Free association | Psychoanalytic technique in which a patient is encouraged to reveal thoughts one after another without censorship. |
| Fugue | Flight from customary surroundings; dissociate disorder. |
| Gender-identity disorder | Strong and persistent cross-gender identification with the opposite sex. |
| Group therapy | Patients with similar problems gain insight into their personalities through discussion and interaction together. |
| Hallucination | False or unreal sensory perception; hearing voices and seeing things. |
| Hallucinogen | Substance that produces hallucinations. |
| Histrionic personality | Highly emotional, immature, and dependent personality type with irrational outbursts, tantrums and flamboyant, theatrical behavior. |
| Hypnosis | Induction of a trance-like state to consciousness in a patient to increase the pace of psychotherapy. |
| Hypochondriasis | Exaggerated concern about one's health. |
| Hypomania | Elevated excitement that is of lesser intensity than mania. |
| Id | Major unconscious part of the personality; instinctual drives and desires. |
| Insight-oriented therapy | Face to face discussion of life problems and feelings to increase understanding of thoughts and behavior patterns; psychodynamic therapy. |
| Kleptomania | Strong impulse to steal, often with little actual desire for the stolen item. |
| Labile | Unstable; undergoing rapid emotional change. |
| Lithium | Drug used to treat the manic episodes in bipolar disorder. |
| Mania | State of excessive excitability, hyperactive elation and agitation. |
| Mental | Pertaining to the mind. |
| Mood disorders | Prolonged emotion dominates a person's life; bipolar and depressive disorders. |
| Mutism | Non-reactive state; stupor. |
| Narcissistic personality | Characterized by grandiose sense of self-importance or preoccupation with fantasies of success or power; self-love without empathy for others. |
| Neuroleptic drug | Antipsychotic drugs used to treat psychoses such as schizophrenia and severe depression; examples are atypical antipsychotics such as aripiprazole (Abilify) and olanzapine (Zyprexa). |
| Neurosis | Repressed conflicts lead to mental symptoms such as anxiety and fears that disturb ability to function; less serious mental disorder than a psychosis. |
| Obsession | An involuntary, persistent idea or emotion. |
| Obsessive-compulsive disorder | Anxiety disorder involving recurrent thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive actions (compulsions) that dominate a patient's life. |
| Opioid | Drug derived from opium. Examples are cocaine, morphine, and heroin. |
| Paranoia | Overly suspicious system of thinking with fixed delusions that one is being harassed, persecuted or unfairly treated. |
| Paranoid personality | Characterized by recurrent delusions of persecution and jealousy with suspicion and mistrust of other people; quick to take offense. |
| Paraphilia | Recurrent, intense sexual urge; fantasy or behavior that involves unusual objects, activities and situations. |
| Pedophilia | Need for sexual gratification with a child. |
| Personality disorder | Established, lifelong pattern marked by inflexibility and impairment of social functioning. |
| Phenothiazines | Drugs used to treat serious mental illnesses or psychoses. They modify psychotic symptoms (delusions and hallucinations) and behavior. |
| Phobia | Irrational fear of an object or an situation; claustrophobia (closed spaces), agoraphobia (leaving home or a safe place) and acrophobia (heights) are examples. |
| Play therapy | A child, through play, uses toys to express conflicts and feelings that he or she is unable to communicate in a direct manner. |
| Post-traumatic stress disorder | Anxiety disorder that follows a traumatic incident; symptoms such as intense fear, helplessness, insomnia, nightmares and less responsiveness to the external world. |
| Projective test | Diagnostic personality test using unstructured stimuli (inkblots, pictures, incomplete sentences) to evoke responses that reflect aspects of an individual's personality. |
| Psychiatrist | Physician who treats the mind and mental disorders. |
| Psychiatry | Treatment of the mind and mental disorders. |
| Psychoanalysis | Form of psychotherapy in which the patient explores his or her unconscious emotions and past to understand and change current behavior and feelings. |
| Psychodrama | A group therapy in which a patient expresses feelings by acting out roles with other patients. |
| Psychogenic | Pertaining to produced within the mind, having emotional and psychologic origin, rather than a physical cause. |
| Psychologist | Individual (Ph.D or Ed.D) specializing in mental processes and how the brain functions in health and disease; treats patients with psychotherapy, but cannot prescribe drugs. |
| Psychopharmacology | Treatment of psychiatric disorders with drugs. |
| Psychosis | Loss of contact with reality; often with delusions and hallucinations. |
| Psychosomatic | Pertaining to the inter-relationship of the mind (psych/o) and body (somat/o). |
| Psychotherapy | Treatment of the mind. |
| Pyromania | Strong impulse (obsessive urge) to set objects on fire. |
| Reality testing | Ability to perceive fact from fantasy. |
| Repression | Defense mechanism by which unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and impulses are automatically pushed into the unconscious. |
| Schizoid personality | Emotionally cold and aloof, as if split off from other people; indifferent to praise or criticism or to the feelings of others. |
| Schizophrenia | Psychosis marked by withdrawal from reality into an inner world of disorganized thinking and conflict. |
| Sedatives | Drugs that lessen anxiety. |
| Sexual disorders | Conditions involving sexual use of nonhuman objects and acts involving suffering, humiliation, and non-consenting partners. Disorders also include sexual dysfunctions such as inhibition of sexual desire or changes in sexual responses. |
| Sexual masochism | Sexual gratification gained by being mutilated, beaten, or bound or otherwise made to suffer by another person. |
| Sexual sadism | Sexual gratification gained by inflicting physical or psychologic pain or harm on others. |
| Somatoform disorders | Conditions in which the patient has physical or bodily symptoms that cannot be explained by any actual physical illness. |
| Substance-related disorders | Regular overuse of psychoactive substances (alcohol, amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, opioids, sedatives), which can affect the central nervous system. |
| Superego | Internalized conscious and judgmental and moral part of the mind. |
| Supportive psychotherapy | Treatment that involves offering encouragement, support, and hope to patients facing difficult life transitions and events. |
| Tolerance | Development of insensitivity to a drug; increasing doses of a drug are needed to produce a desired effect. |
| Transference | Process by which a patient relates to a therapist as though the therapist were a prominent childhood figure. |
| Transvestic fetishism | Cross-dressing by a male in women's attire. |
| Tricyclic antidepressants | Group of drugs used to treat severe depression. |
| Voyerism | Abnormal desire to look at sexual organs or watch sexual acts. |
| Xenophobia | Fear of strangers. |