Frequently Used Psychiatric Terms

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Alexithymia

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Difficulty in describing or recognizing one's own emotions; a common problem in somatoform, addictive, acute stress and ptsd

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Biofeedback

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A method of allowing the patient to learn control over usually imperceptible physiological processes by the use of instrumentation to provide the feedback about one's physiological process (such as blood pressure, muscle tension, brainwave types, etc)

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Catharsis

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Having appropriate and therapeutic release (emotional reaction) in talking out conscious, or becoming aware of unconscious, material

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Cognitive

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Has two distinct usages: (1) mental process of reasoning, as in cognitive psychology and cognitive therapy; (2) intellectual functions including attention, memory, language, praxis, and others, as in cognitive testing and cognitive disorders

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Commitment

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Legal process of admitting a mentally ill patient to a psychiatric facility; process may be voluntary but more often refers to involuntary admission

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Countertransference

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The clinician's unconscious emotional reaction to the patient, determined by the clinician's own needs and perceptions

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Day Hospital

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Some services similar to those of inpatient hospitalization but patients go home at night; are usually several days per week; a level of acuity between regular outpatient care and inpatient hospitalization; also called partial hospitalization

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Functional (symptom or disorder)

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Term for changes in the operation of an organ system, in which no identifiable structural disturbance can be found

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Logorrhea

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Talking that is excessive and uncontrolled

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Milieu therapy

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An essential part of inpatient psychiatric treatment in which everyday events and interactions are therapeutically designed for the purpose of enhancing social skills, building confidence, and improving stability

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Mind

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Integration of the functions of the brain, resulting in the ability to perceive, think, feel, imagine, remember, have will, and process information in an intelligent manner

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Nervous breakdown

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a nonmedical term (more often used by patients) that refers to any acute mental illness or condition that interferes with normal function, action, or thought

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Neuroleptic

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An older term for an antipsychotic drug

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Object Relations

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Emotional attachments for people or things and how the person's relationship with them is incorporated into self

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Organic

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Characterized by a detectable or observable change in tissues or organs in the body; sometimes used as antonym of functional.

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Perception

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The mind's interpretation of its organization of emotional, intellectual, or sensory data

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Psychomotor

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Physical activity associated with mental processes

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Psychosomatic

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Disorder that has a physiological component but thought to originate in or made worse by the person's emotional state; sometimes called psychophysiological

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Psychotherapy

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Verbal therapy between a clinician and a patient or many patients; many different types of psychotherapy, based on the theories behind therapeutic interventions

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Somatic therapy

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Biological treatment of psychiatric disorders, such as by medications, electroconvulsive therapy, and light therapy; often contrasted to psychotherapy

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Transference

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Unconscious assignment (transfer) of negative or positive feelings that were originally associated with significant figures from the past onto a current person in a person's life; term commonly refers to feelings transferred onto the clinician by the patient