Typical Signs and Symptoms of Psychiatric Disorder

Vocabulary flashcards covering the typical signs and symptoms of psychiatric disorders, including disturbances in emotion, motor behavior, form of thought, content of thought, speech, perception, memory, thinking types, insight, and judgment.

Signs

Objective findings observed by the clinician (e.g., psychomotor retardation and flat affect).

Symptoms

Subjective experiences described by the service user or patient (e.g., depressed mood and decreased anger).

Syndrome

A group of signs and symptoms that occur together as a recognizable condition that may be less specific than a clear-cut disorder or condition (e.g., Tourette's syndrome).

Emotion

A complex feeling state with a psychic, somatic, and behavioural component related to mood and affect.

Mood

A pervasive and sustained emotion, subjectively experienced and reported by the service user and observed by others, such as depression, elation, and anger.

Affect

Observed expression of emotion; may be inconsistent with the service user's description of emotion.

Dysphoric mood

Unpleasant mood.

Euthymic mood

Normal range of mood.

Expansive mood

The expression of one's feelings without any restraint; frequently an overestimation of one's significance or importance.

Elevated mood

A mood more cheerful than usual.

Irritable mood

Easily annoyed and provoked to anger.

Euphoria

Intense elation with a feeling of grandeur.

Labile mood (swings)

Oscillations between euphoria and depression or anxiety.

Ecstasy

Feeling of intense rapture.

Depression

Psychopathological feeling of sadness.

Anhedonia

Loss of interest in and withdrawal from all regular and pleasurable activities, often associated with depression.

Grief or mourning

Sadness appropriate to real loss (e.g., death of a father or mother).

Anorexia

Loss of or decrease in appetite.

Hyperphagia

Increase in appetite and food intake.

Diminished libido

Decreased sexual interest, drive, and performance.

Insomnia

Lack of or diminished ability to sleep.

Constipation

Inability or difficulty in defecating.

Appropriate affect

Condition in which the emotional tone is in harmony with the accompanying idea, thought, and speech.

Inappropriate affect

Disharmony between the emotional feeling tone and the idea, thought, or speech accompanying it.

Blunted affect

A disturbance in affect manifested by a severe reduction in the intensity of externalized feeling tone.

Restricted or constricted affect

Reduction in intensity of feeling tone, less severe than blunted affect but clearly reduced.

Flat affect

Absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression; monotonous voice, immobile face.

Labile affect

Rapid and abrupt changes in emotional feeling tone, unrelated to external stimuli.

Anxiety

Feeling of apprehension caused by anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external.

Fear

Anxiety caused by consciously recognized and realistic danger.

Free-floating anxiety

Pervasive, unfocused fear not attached to any idea.

Tension

Increased motor and psychological activity that is unpleasant.

Panic

Acute, episodic, intense attack of anxiety associated with an overwhelming feeling of dread and autonomic discharge.

Agitation

Severe anxiety associated with motor restlessness.

Apathy

Dulled emotional tone associated with detachment and indifference ("I don't care").

Ambivalence

Coexistence of two opposing impulses toward the same thing in the person at the same time.

Abreaction

Emotional release or discharge after recalling a painful experience.

Shame

Failure to live up to self-expectation.

Guilt

Emotion secondary to doing something perceived as wrong.

Echopraxia

Pathological imitation of the movements of one person by another.

Negativism

Motiveless resistance to all attempts to be moved or to all instruction.

Cataplexy

Temporary loss of muscle tone and weakness precipitated by a variety of emotional states.

Stereotype

Repetitive fixed pattern of physical action or speech.

Mannerism

Ingrained habitual involuntary movement.

Automatism

Automatic performance of an act or acts generally representative of unconscious symbolic activity.

Mutism

Voicelessness without structural abnormalities.

Catatonia

A neuropsychiatric syndrome characterized by abnormal movements, behaviors, and withdrawal.

Catalepsy

General term for an immobile position that is constantly maintained.

Catatonic excitement

Agitated, purposeless motor activity, uninfluenced by external stimuli.

Catatonic stupor

Markedly slowed motor activity, often to a point of immobility and seeming unawareness of surroundings.

Catatonic rigidity

Voluntary assumption of a rigid posture, held against all efforts to be moved.

Waxy flexibility

The person can be molded into a position that is then maintained; when the examiner moves the person's limb, it feels as if made of wax.

Psychomotor agitation

Excessive motor and cognitive overactivity; usually nonproductive and in response to inner tension.

Hyperactivity (hyperkinesia)

Restless, aggressive, destructive activity; often associated with underlying brain pathology.

Tic

Involuntary, spasmodic motor movement.

Sleepwalking

Motor activity during sleep.

Akathisia

Inability to remain still, or a subjective feeling of muscular tension secondary to antipsychotic or other medication, causing restlessness, pacing, and repeated sitting and standing.

Ataxia

Failure of muscle coordination; irregularity of muscle action.

Compulsion

An uncontrolled impulse to perform an act repetitively, or a pathological need to act on an impulse that, if resisted, produces anxiety.

Dipsomania

A compulsion to drink alcohol.

Kleptomania

A compulsion to steal.

Trichotillomania

A compulsion to pull out one's hair.

Hypokinesis

Decreased motor and cognitive activity, as in psychomotor retardation; visible slowing of thought, speech, and movements.

Mimicry

The spontaneous imitation of an interaction partner.

Acting out

Direct expression of an unconscious wish or impulse in action; unconscious fantasy is lived out impulsively in behavior.

Neologism

A new word created by the patient, often by combining syllables of other words for idiosyncratic psychological reasons.

Word salad

Incoherent mixture of words and phrases.

Circumstantiality

Indirect speech that is delayed in reaching the point but eventually gets from the original point to the desired goal; characterized by an over-inclusion of details and parenthetical remarks.

Tangentiality

Inability to have goal-directed association of thought; the patient never gets from the point to the desired goal.

Incoherence

Thought that generally is not understandable; running together of thoughts or words with no logical or grammatical connection, resulting in disorganization.

Perseveration

Pathological repetition of the same response to different stimuli; persistent repetition of specific words or concepts in the process of speaking.

Verbigeration

Meaningless repetition of specific words or phrases.

Echolalia

Psychopathological repeating of words or phrases of one person by another; tends to be repetitive and persistent, and may be spoken with mocking.

Loosening of associations

A thought disturbance demonstrated by speech that is disconnected and fragmented, with the individual jumping from one idea to another unrelated or indirectly related idea.

Flight of ideas

Rapid, continuous verbalizations or plays on words that produce constant shifting from one idea to another.

Clang association

Association of words similar in sound but not in meaning; words have no logical connection and may include rhyming and punning.

Blocking

Abrupt interruption in the train of thinking before a thought or idea is finished; after a brief pause, the person indicates no recall of what was being said.

Over-valued idea

Unreasonable, sustained false belief maintained less firmly than a delusion.

Delusion

False fixed belief, based on incorrect inference about external reality, not consistent with the service user's intelligence and cultural background, that cannot be corrected by reasoning.

Bizarre delusion

An absurd, totally implausible (illogical), strange false belief.

Systematized delusion

False belief or beliefs united by a single event or theme.

Mood-congruent delusion

Delusion with mood-appropriate content.

Mood-incongruent delusion

Delusion with content that has no association to mood.

Nihilistic delusion

False feeling that self, others, or the world is nonexistent or ending.

Somatic delusion

False belief involving the functioning of one's body.

Paranoid delusion (persecutory)

Fears, anxieties, and suspicions centered on perceived victimization or unwarranted feelings of being threatened by external forces.

Delusion of grandeur

Exaggerated conception of one's importance, power, or identity.

Delusion of self-accusation

False feeling of remorse and guilt.

Delusion of reference

False belief that the behavior of others refers to oneself, or that events and objects have a particular and unusual (usually negative) significance.

Delusion of control

False feeling that one's will, thought, or feeling is being controlled by external forces.

Thought withdrawal

Delusion that one's thoughts are being removed from one's mind by other people or forces.

Thought insertion

Delusion that thoughts are being implanted in one's mind by other people or forces.

Thought broadcasting

Delusion that one's thoughts can be heard by others, as though being broadcast into the air.

Egomania

Pathological self-preoccupation (self-importance).

Monomania

Preoccupation with a single object or idea.

Hypochondria

Exaggerated concern about health, based not on real organic pathology but on unrealistic interpretation of physical signs or sensations as abnormal.

Obsession

Pathological persistence of an irresistible thought or feeling that cannot be eliminated from consciousness by logical effort.

Phobia

Persistent, irrational, exaggerated, and pathological dread of a specific stimulus or situation, resulting in a compelling desire to avoid it.

Specific phobia

Circumscribed dread of a discrete object or situation (e.g., spiders or snakes).

Social phobia

Dread of public humiliation, as in fear of public speaking, performing, or eating in public.