Behavioral Glossary

Front 1

Affect

Back 1

Subjective and immediate experience of emotion attached to ideas or mental representations of objects. Inferred from facial expression. Can be classified as restricted, blunted, labile, broad, appropriate, or flat.

Front 2

Agnosia

Back 2

inability to understand the import or significance of sensory stimuli; can't be explained by a deficit in sensory pathways or cerebral lesion.

Front 3

Agoraphobia

Back 3

morbid fear of open places or leaving the familiar setting of the home

Front 4

anhedonia

Back 4

loss of interest in and withdrawal from all regular and pleasurable activities. Often associated with depression.

Front 5

Aphasia

Back 5

any disturbance in the comprehension or expression of language caused by a brain leasion

Front 6

Apraxia

Back 6

inability to perform a voluntary purposeful motor activity; can't be explained by paralysis or other motor or sensory impairment

Front 7

Ataxia

Back 7

lack of coordination, physical or mental. In neurology, refers to loss of muscle coordination. In psychiatry, the term intrapsychic ataxia refers to lack of coordination between feelings and thoughts.

Front 8

Bereavement

Back 8

feeling of grief or desolation, especially at the death or loss of a loved one

Front 9

chorea

Back 9

movement disorder characterized by random and involuntary quick, jerky, purposeless movements.

Front 10

compulsion

Back 10

pathological need to act on an impulse that, if resisted, produces anxiety; repetitive behavior in response to an obsession or performed according to certain rules, with no true end in itself.

Front 11

confusion

Back 11

disturbances of consciousness manifested by a disordered orientation in relation to time, place, or person.

Front 12

consciousness

Back 12

state of awareness, with response to external stimuli

Front 13

delirium

Back 13

acute reversible mental disorder characterized by confusion and some impairment of consciousness;generally associated with emotional lability, hallucinations or illusions, and inappropriate, impulsive, irrational, or violent behavior.

Front 14

delirium tremens

Back 14

acute and sometimes fatal reaction to withdrawal from alcohol, usually occurring 72 to 96 hours after the cessation of heavy drinking; distinctive characteristics are marked autonomic hyperactivity (tachycardia, fever, hyperhidrosis, and dilated pupils), usually accompanied by tremulousness, hallucinations, illusions, and delusions.

Front 15

delusion

Back 15

false belief, based on incorrect inference about external reality, that is firmly help despite objective and obvious contradictory proof or evidence and despite the fact that other members of the culture do not share the belief.

Front 16

dementia

Back 16

mental disorder characterized by general impairment in intellectual functioning without clouding of consciousness; characterized by failing memory, difficulty with calculations, distractibility, alterations in mood and affect, impairment and abstraction, reduced facility w/ language, and disturbance of orientation.

Front 17

Depression

Back 17

mental state characterized by feelings of sadness, loneliness, despair, low self-esteem, and self-reproach; accompanying signs include psychomotor retardation or, at times, agitation, withdrawal from interpersonal contact, and vegetative symptoms, such as insomnia and anorexia.

Front 18

Dissociation

Back 18

Unconscious defense mechanism involving the segregation of any group of mental or behavioral processes from the rest of the persons psychic activity; can entail separation of an idea from its accompanying emotional tone.

Front 19

Dyskinesia

Back 19

difficulty in performing movements. Seen in extrapyramidal disorders.

Front 20

Dyslexia

Back 20

specific learning disability syndrome involving an impairment of the previously acquired ability to read;unrelated to the persons intelligence.

Front 21

Dysphoria

Back 21

feeling of unpleasantness or discomfort; a mood of general dissatisfaction and restlessness.

Front 22

Dystonia

Back 22

Motor disturbance consisting of slow, sustained contractions of the axial or appendicular musculature; one movement often predominates, leading to relatively sustained postural deviations

Front 23

Egocentric

Back 23

Self-centered;selfishly preoccupied with one's own needs; lacking interest in others.

Front 24

Emotion

Back 24

complex feeling state with psychic, somatic, and behavioral components;external manifestation of emotion is affect.

Front 25

Enuresis

Back 25

incontinence of urine during sleep

Front 26

Expressive aphasia

Back 26

disturbance of speech in which understanding remains, but the ability to speak is grossly impaired; halting, laborious, and inaccurate speech.

Front 27

Fugue

Back 27

dissociative disorder characterized by a period of almost complete amnesia, during which a person actually flees from an immediate life situation and begins a different life pattern.

Front 28

Guilt

Back 28

emotional state associated with self-reproach and the need for punishment. Shame is a less internalized form of guilt that related more to others than to self.

Front 29

Hallucination

Back 29

false sensory perception occurring in the absence of any relevant external stimulation of the sensory modality involved.

Front 30

Hypersomnia

Back 30

excessive time spent asleep

Front 31

Hyperventilation

Back 31

excessive breathing, generally associated with anxiety, which can reduce blood carbon dioxide concentration and can produce lightheadedness, palpitations, numbness, tingling periodically and in the extremities, and, occasionally, syncope.

Front 32

Hypnosis

Back 32

Artificially induced alteration of consciousness characterized by increased suggestibility and receptivity to direction.

Front 33

Hypochondria

Back 33

Exaggerated concern about health that is based not on real medical pathology, but on unrealistic interpretations of physical signs or sensations as abnormal.

Front 34

Insomnia

Back 34

difficulty in falling asleep or difficulty in staying asleep. Can be related to mental disorder, physical disorder, or an adverse effect on medication, or can be primary.

Front 35

Malingering

Back 35

feigning disease to achieve a specific goal, for example, to avoid an unpleasant responsibility.

Front 36

Mania

Back 36

mood state characterized by elation, agitation, hyperactivity, hypersexuality, and accelerated thinking and speaking (flight of ideas).

Front 37

Melancholia

Back 37

severe depressive state

Front 38

Mental disorder

Back 38

psychiatric illness or disease whose manifestations are primarily characterized by behavioral or psychological impairment of function, measured in terms of deviation from some normative concept; associated with distress or disease, not just an expected response to a particular event.

Front 39

Mood

Back 39

A pervasive and sustained emotion that colors the person’s perception of the world. Experienced internally and includes depth, intensity, duration and fluctuations.

Front 40

Mourning

Back 40

syndrome following the loss of a loved one, consisting of preoccupation with the lost individual, weeping, sadness and repeated reliving of memories.

Front 41

Narcissism

Back 41

primary narcissism: the early infantile phase of object relationship development, when the child has not differentiated the self from the outside world, and all sources of pleasure are unrealistically recognized as coming from within the self, giving child a false sense of omnipotence. secondary: when libido, once attached to external love objects, is redirected back to self.

Front 42

Negative signs

Back 42

in schizophrenia; flat affect, a logia, abulia, and apathy

Front 43

Obsession

Back 43

persistent and recurrent idea, thought, or impulse that cannot be eliminated from consciousness by logic or reasoning; obsessions are involuntary and ego-dystonic.

Front 44

Panic

Back 44

acute, intense attack of anxiety associated with personality disorganization; the anxiety is overwhelming and accompanies by feelings of impending doom.

Front 45

Paranoia

Back 45

rare psychiatric syndrom marked by gradual development of a elaborate and complex delusional system, generally involves presecutory or grandiose delusions with few other signs of personality disorganization.

Front 46

Phobia

Back 46

persistent, pathological, unrealistic, intense fear of an object or situation; the phobic person may realize that the fear is irrational but, nonetheless, cannot dispel it.

Front 47

Positive signs

Back 47

in schizophrenia;hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorder.

Front 48

Pseudocyesis

Back 48

rare condition in which a non pregnant patients has the signs and symptoms of pregnancy, such as abdominal distentions, breast enlargement, pigmentation, cessation of menses, and morning sickness.

Front 49

Psychosis

Back 49

mental disorder in which thoughts, affective response, ability to recognize reality, and ability to communicate and relate to others are sufficiently impaired to interfere grossly with the capacity to deal with reality;

Front 50

Psychotic

Back 50

person experiencing psychosis, denoting or characteristic of psychosis

Front 51

Regression

Back 51

Unconscious defense mechanism in which a person undergoes a partial or total return to earlier patterns of adaptation; observed is many psychiatric conditions, particularly schizophrenia.

Front 52

Rumination

Back 52

constant preoccupation with thinking about a single idea or theme, as in OCD.

Front 53

Sensorium

Back 53

hypothetical sensory center in the brain that is involved with clarity of awareness about oneself and one's surroundings, including the ability to perceive and to process ongoing events in light of past experiences, future options, and current circumstances.

Front 54

Somnolence

Back 54

Pathological sleepiness or drowsiness from which one can be aroused to a normal state of conciousness

Front 55

Stereotypy

Back 55

continuous mechanical repetition of speech or physical activities

Front 56

Stupor

Back 56

state of decreased reactivity to stimuli and less than full awareness of one's surroundings; as a disturbance of consciousness, it indicates a condition of partial coma or semicoma.

Front 57

Tic disorders

Back 57

predominantly psychogenic disorders characterized by involuntary, spasmodic, stereotyped movement of small groups of muscles; seen most predominantly in moments of stress or anxiety, rarely as a result of organic disease.

Front 58

Trance

Back 58

sleep-like state of reduced consciousness and activity

Front 59

Unconsciousness

Back 59

denoting a state of unawareness, with a lack of response to external stimuli, as in a coma. When psychic material is not readily accessible to conscious awareness y ordinary means.

Front 60

Vegetative signs

Back 60

in depression, denoting characteristic symptoms such as sleep disturbance, decreasing appetite, constipation, weight loss, and loss of sexual response.