Glossary of Signs & Symptoms (AbPsy)

A process by which repressed material, particularly a painful experience or a conflict, is brought back to consciousness; in this process, the person not only recalls but also relives the repressed material, which is accompanied by the appropriate affective response.

abreaction

Thinking characterized by the ability to grasp the essentials of a whole, to break a whole into its parts, and to discern common properties. To think symbolically.

abstract thinking

Reduced impulse to act and to think, associated with indifference about consequences of action. Occurs as a result of neurological deficit, depression, and schizophrenia.

abulia

Loss of ability to do calculations; not caused by anxiety or impairment in concentration. Occurs with neurological deficit and learning disorder.

acalculia

Disordered speech in which statements are incorrectly formulated. Patients may express themselves with words that sound like the ones intended but are not appropriate to the thoughts, or they may use totally inappropriate expressions.

acataphasia

Lack of feeling associated with an ordinarily emotionally charged subject; in psychoanalysis, it denotes the patient’s detaching or transferring of emotion from thoughts and ideas. Also called decathexis. Occurs in anxiety, dissociative, schizophrenic, and bipolar disorders.

acathexis

Loss of sensation of physical existence.

acenesthesia

Dread of high places.

acrophobia

Behavioral response to an unconscious drive or impulse that brings about temporary partial relief of inner tension; relief is attained by reacting to a present situation as if it were the situation that originally gave rise to the drive or impulse. Common in borderline states.

acting out

Nonsense speech associated with marked impairment of comprehension. Occurs in mania, schizophrenia, and neurological deficit.

aculalia

Inability to perform rapid alternating movements. Occurs with neurological deficit and cerebellar lesions.

adiadochokinesia

Weakness and fatigability, characteristic of neurasthenia and depression.

adynamia

Excessive swallowing of air. Seen in anxiety disorder.

aerophagia

The subjective and immediate experience of emotion attached to ideas or mental representations of objects. Affect has outward manifestations that may be classified as restricted, blunted, flattened, broad, labile, appropriate, or inappropriate. See also mood.

affect

Lack or impairment of the sense of taste. Seen in depression and neurological deficit.

ageusia

Forceful, goal-directed action that may be verbal or physical; the motor counterpart of the affect of rage, anger, or hostility. Seen in neurological deficit, temporal lobe disorder, impulse-control disorders, mania, and schizophrenia.

aggression

Severe anxiety associated with motor restlessness.

agitation

Inability to understand the import or significance of sensory stimuli; cannot be explained by a defect in sensory pathways or cerebral lesion; the term has also been used to refer to the selective loss or disuse of knowledge of specific objects because of emotional circumstances, as seen in certain schizophrenic, anxious, and depressed patients. Occurs with neurological deficit. For types of agnosia, see the specific term.

agnosia

Morbid fear of open places or leaving the familiar setting of the home. May be present with or without panic attacks.

agoraphobia

Speech in which the patient forms words into a sentence without regard for grammatical rules. Seen in Alzheimer’s and Pick’s disease.

agrammatism

Loss or impairment of a previously possessed ability to write.

agraphia

Dread of cats.

ailurophobia

A form of disordered speech in which thoughts cannot be expressed directly but are expressed indirectly such as by making a similar sound (displacement paralogia) or by being derailed into another thought (derailment paralogia). See also derailment.

akataphasia

Subjective feeling of motor restlessness manifested by a compelling need to be in constant movement; may be seen as an extrapyramidal adverse effect of antipsychotic medication. May be mistaken for psychotic agitation.

akathisia

Lack of physical movement, as in the extreme immobility of catatonic schizophrenia; may also occur as an extrapyramidal effect of antipsychotic medication.

akinesia

Absence of voluntary motor movement or speech in a patient who is apparently alert (as evidenced by eye movements). Seen in psychotic depression and catatonic states.

akinetic mutism

Loss of a previously possessed reading facility; not explained by defective visual acuity. Compare with dyslexia.

alexia

Inability or difficulty in describing or being aware of one’s emotions or moods; elaboration of fantasies associated with depression, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

alexithymia

Dread of pain.

algophobia

Inability to speak because of a mental deficiency or an episode of dementia.

alogia

Coexistence of two opposing impulses toward the same thing in the same person at the same time. Seen in schizophrenia, borderline states, and obsessive compulsive disorders (OCDs).

ambivalence

Lack of the ability to make gestures or to comprehend those made by others.

amimia

Partial or total inability to recall past experiences; may be organic (amnestic disorder) or emotional (dissociative amnesia) in origin.

amnesia

Disturbed capacity to name objects, even though they are known to the patient. Also called anomic aphasia.

amnestic aphasia

Depending on others, especially as the infant on the mother; analytic depression in children results from an absence of mothering.

anaclitic

State in which one feels little or no pain. Can occur under hypnosis and in dissociative disorder.

analgesia

Repetitious or stereotyped behavior or thought usually used as a tension relieving device; used as a synonym for obsession and seen in obsessive–compulsive (anankastic) personality.

anancasm

Combination of culturally determined female and male characteristics in one person.

androgyny

Lack of energy. anhedonia

anergia

Inability to recall the names of objects.

anomia

Loss or decrease in appetite. In anorexia nervosa, appetite may be preserved, but the patient refuses to eat.

anorexia

Inability to recognize a physical deficit in oneself (e.g., patient denies paralyzed limb).

anosognosia

Loss of memory for events subsequent to the onset of the amnesia; common after trauma. Compare with retrograde amnesia.

anterograde amnesia

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

anxiety

Dulled emotional tone associated with detachment or indifference; observed in certain types of schizophrenia and depression.

apathy

Any disturbance in the comprehension or expression of language caused by a brain lesion. For types of aphasia, see the specific term.

aphasia

Loss of voice. Seen in conversion disorder.

aphonia

Awareness of the meaning and significance of a particular sensory stimulus as modified by one’s own experiences, knowledge, thoughts, and emotions. See also perception.

apperception

Emotional tone in harmony with the accompanying idea, thought, or speech.

appropriate affect

Inability to perform a voluntary purposeful motor activity; cannot be explained by paralysis or other motor or sensory impairment. In constructional apraxia, a patient cannot draw two- or three-dimensional forms.

apraxia

Inability to stand or to walk in a normal manner, even though normal leg movements can be performed in a sitting or lying down position. Seen in conversion disorder.

astasia abasia

Inability to identify familiar objects by touch. Seen with neurological deficit. See also neurological amnesia.

astereognosis

Disorder of language in which the patient combines unconnected ideas and images. Commonly seen in schizophrenia.

asyndesis

Lack of coordination, physical or mental. (1) In neurology, refers to loss of muscular coordination. (2) In psychiatry, the term intrapsychic ataxia refers to lack of coordination between feelings and thoughts; seen in schizophrenia and in severe OCD.

ataxia

Lack of muscle tone. See waxy flexibility.

atonia

Concentration; the aspect of consciousness that relates to the amount of effort exerted in focusing on certain aspects of an experience, activity, or task.  Usually impaired in anxiety and depressive disorders.

attention

False perception of sound, usually voices, but also other noises, such as music. Most common hallucination in psychiatric disorders.

auditory hallucination

A form of auditory hallucination in which everything the patient thinks or speaks is repeated by the voices. Also known as thought echoing.

audible thoughts

(1) Warning sensations, such as automatisms, fullness in the stomach, blushing, and changes in respiration, cognitive sensations, and mood states usually experienced before a seizure. (2) A sensory prodrome that precedes a classic migraine headache.

aura

Thinking in which the thoughts are largely narcissistic and egocentric, with emphasis on subjectivity rather than objectivity, and without regard for reality; used interchangeably with autism and dereism. Seen in schizophrenia and autistic disorder.

autistic thinking

Strict obedience of command without critical judgment. The person may respond to an inner voice, as in schizophrenia, or to another person’s command, as in hypnosis.

automatic obedience

Activity carried out without conscious knowledge.

automatism

Seeing oneself or a double as part of a brief hallucinatory experience.

autoscopy

Sum total of the psyche that includes impulses, motivations, wishes, drives, instincts, and cravings, as expressed by a person’s behavior or motor activity. Also called conation.

behavior

A person showing disinterest in his or her physical complaint. Occurs in conversion disorder.

belle indifference

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

bereavement

False belief that is patently absurd or fantastic (e.g., invaders from space have implanted electrodes in a person’s brain). Common in schizophrenia. In nonbizarre delusion, content is usually within the range of possibility.

bizarre delusion

Amnesia experienced by alcoholics about behavior during drinking bouts; usually indicates reversible brain damage.

blackout

Abrupt interruption in train of thinking before a thought or idea is finished; after a brief pause, the person indicates no recall of what was being said or was going to be said (also known as thought deprivation or increased thought latency). Common in schizophrenia and severe anxiety.

blocking

Disturbance of affect manifested by a severe reduction in the intensity of externalized feeling tone; one of the fundamental symptoms of schizophrenia, as outlined by Eugen Bleuler.

blunted affect

Slowness of motor activity, with a decrease in normal spontaneous movement.

bradykinesia

Abnormally slow speech. Common in depression.

bradylalia

Inability to read at normal speed.

bradylexia

Grinding or gnashing of the teeth, typically occurring during sleep. Seen in anxiety disorder.

bruxism

Sensation of discomfort or pressure in the head.

carebaria

Condition in which persons maintain the body position into which they are placed; observed in severe cases of catatonic schizophrenia. Compare with waxy flexibility and cerea flexibilitas. See also command automatism.

catalepsy

Temporary sudden loss of muscle tone, causing weakness and immobilization; can be precipitated by a variety of emotional states and is often followed by sleep. Commonly seen in narcolepsy.

cataplexy

Extreme emotional state characterized by restlessness, irritability, crying, anxiety, and uncooperativeness. Seen in patients who have had a stroke.

catastrophic reaction

Excited, uncontrolled motor activity seen in catatonic schizophrenia. Patients in catatonic state may suddenly erupt into an excited state and may be violent.

catatonic excitement

Voluntary assumption of an inappropriate or bizarre posture, generally maintained for long periods of time. May switch unexpectedly with catatonic excitement.

catatonic posturing

Fixed and sustained motoric position that is resistant to change.

catatonic rigidity

Stupor in which patients ordinarily are well aware of their surroundings.

catatonic stupor

In psychoanalysis, a conscious or unconscious investment of psychic energy in an idea, concept, object, or person. Compare with acathexis.

cathexis

Burning pain that may be organic or psychic in origin.

causalgia

Change in the normal quality of feeling tone in a part of the body.

cenesthesia

Headache.

cephalagia

Condition of a person who can be molded into a position that is then maintained; when an examiner moves the person’s limb, the limb feels as if it were made of wax. Also called waxy flexibility. Seen in schizophrenia.

cerea flexibilitas

Movement disorder characterized by random and involuntary quick, jerky, purposeless movements. Seen in Huntington’s disease.

chorea

Disturbance in the associative thought and speech processes in which a patient digresses into unnecessary details and inappropriate thoughts before communicating the central idea. Observed in schizophrenia, obsessional disturbances, and certain cases of dementia. See also tangentiality.

circumstantiality

Association or speech directed by the sound of a word rather than by its meaning; words have no logical connection; punning and rhyming may dominate the verbal behavior. Seen most frequently in schizophrenia or mania.

clang association

Abnormal fear of closed or confining spaces.

claustrophobia

An involuntary, violent muscular contraction or spasm in which the muscles alternately contract and relax. Characteristic phase in grand mal epileptic seizure.

clonic convulsion

Any disturbance of consciousness in which the person is not fully awake, alert, and oriented. Occurs in delirium, dementia, and cognitive disorder.

clouding of consciousness

Disturbance of fluency involving an abnormally rapid rate and erratic rhythm of speech that impedes intelligibility; the affected individual is usually unaware of communicative impairment.

cluttering

Mental process of knowing and becoming aware; function is closely associated with judgment.

cognition

State of profound unconsciousness from which a person cannot be roused, with minimal or no detectable responsiveness to stimuli; seen in injury or disease of the brain, in systemic conditions such as diabetic ketoacidosis and uremia, and in intoxications with alcohol and other drugs. Coma may also occur in severe catatonic states and in conversion disorder.

coma

Coma in which a patient appears to be asleep but can be aroused (also known as akinetic mutism).

coma vigil

Condition in which suggestions are followed automatically.

command automatism

False perception of orders that a person may feel obliged to obey or unable to resist.

command hallucination

A feeling-toned idea.

complex