Glossary / Lexicon

A set of Mood Disorders is a class of disorders marked by emotional disturbances that may spill over to disrupt physical, perceptual, social, and thought processes.

Any of a group of clinical conditions characterized by a disturbance of mood (the internal emotional state of an individual), a loss of sense of control, and a subjective experience of great distress; mood disorders include depression and mania.

Panic Disorder Anxiety disorder characterized by attacks of acute intense anxiety, with or without agoraphobia.

Personality Disorder Mental disorder characterized by inflexible, deeply ingrained, maladaptive patterns of adjustment to life that cause either subjective distress or significant impairment of adaptive functioning; manifestations are generally recognizable in adolescence or earlier. Currently diagnosed personality disorders include paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, histrionic, narcissistic, borderline, avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive.

Psychoanalysis Theory of human mental phenomena and behavior, a method of psychic investigation and research, and a form of psychotherapy originally formulated by Sigmund Freud. As a technique for exploring the mental processes, psychoanalysis includes the use of free association and the analysis and interpretation of dreams, resistances, and transferences. As a form of psychotherapy, it uses the investigative technique, guided by Freud's libido and instinct theories and by ego psychology, to gain insight into a person's unconscious motivations, conflicts, and symbols and thus to effect a change in maladaptive behavior. Psychodynamics Science of mental forces and motivations that influence human behavior and mental activity; the role of unconscious motivation in the causation of human behavior is emphasized.

Psychosis Mental disorder in which a person's thoughts, affective response, ability to recognize reality, and ability to communicate and relate to others are sufficiently impaired to grossly interfere with his or her capacity to deal with reality. Classical characteristics of psychosis include hallucinations (alterations in sensory perception, usually involving hearing voices or seeing images that do not exist) and delusions (beliefs about events or circumstances that have no basis in reality)

Reinforcement Positive reinforcement refers to the process in which certain consequences of behavior increase the probability that the behavior will occur again. For example, if one receives attention for complaints of being sick, then complains of illness more often, the attention would be considered a positive reinforcer of the illness complaints. Negative reinforcement describes that process by which behavior that leads to the removal of an unpleasant event strengthens that behavior. For example, if one feels anxious in social situations and leaving these situations takes away the anxiety, then leaving the situations may happen more often because it is