Glossary of Mental Health Terms
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Acute
- mental illness short time only have recent onset
of severe clinical symptoms of mental illness.
Anorexia - A serious eating disorder in which
there is a big loss of weight due to refusing to eat even when hungry.
A person has a fear of becoming 'fat and out of control' and even though they
are thin, see themselves as fat.
Anxiety - A normal feeling people experience
when faced with threat or danger or when stressed. For example people get
anxious before an exam or doing assignments for school or university. Someone
with an anxiety disorder expereinces severe levels of stress.
Bipolar Affective Disorder
- excited few weeks depressed few weeks up down up down but have normal life
inbetween when good mental health.
Blunted Affect - Person has difficulty in
expressing emotion. Eg Someone tells a joke and everyone laughs, but this
person shows no emotion on face
Brief Psychotic Disorder - brain
not work properly for short time. A disturbance that involves the sudden onset
of at least one of the following positive psychotic symptoms: delusions,
hallucinations, disorganised speech.
Bulimia - A serious eating disorder in which
a person may feel out of control where food is concerned. A person
will eat large amounts of food and then make themselves vomit to avoid weight
gain
Chronic - Means long time problem.
People can be chronically ill - this means that the illness continues for
a long time and the person will expereince symptoms for a long time.
Comorbidity - person has the symptoms of more than one underlying disorder. Depression and Alcholism is one example. Depressed people can drink heavily and people who are dependent on alcohol eventually become depressed.
Compulsive - doing something
(eg wash hands) again and again and again - feel cannot stop yourself. The
person is compelled to carry out certain actions, such as repetitive hand
washing based on a fear of contamination, or the person feels like they must
complete these activities over and over before leaving the house or other
settings.
Delirium - confused state. Associated with someone being agitated, heightened hyperactivity. Disorganised thinking and difficulty keeping attention. Short lived state and can be the side effects of medication.
Delusion - Believe something but
its not true. for example, you believe people want to hurt you or kill you but
its not true. The person believes their family are really aliens or monsters.
They might believe they are Jesus or the devil. Delusions are called irrational
beliefs. Delusions cannot be altered by rational argument. In mental illness
it is often a false belief that the person is persecuted by others, or is a
victim of physical disease.
Dysphoria - negative mood states. These trigger binge eating in people with bulimia nervosa.
Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT)
- Treatment where electricity through brain makes you have fit. Sometimes
used for severe depression, schizophrenia and mania.
Flashbacks - like really bad
experience from past happen again and again in brain. A
vivid involuntary reliving of the experiences. The person must have had no
recent Hallucinogen Intoxication and must show no current drug toxicity.
Flight of Ideas - A pattern of speech
characterized by a rapid transition from one topic to another, frequently without
completing the original thought. This behaviour is characteristic of
manic states.
Hallucination - See something
no other person can see. Hear something (like voice) but no other person can
hear. Feel something on skin but nothing there. Same with taste and smell.
False sensory perception of something that is not really there. It may involve
any of the senses, such as hearing, vision, touch, taste or smell.
Incongruence
A person sends different messages on verbal and nonverbal levels. (A
person saying 'My father has just died' but is laughing) .
Insight (lack of) - mental illness
or problem don't believe have Insight - Know and accept mental illness have.
Terms which relates to the person's recognition
or lack of recognition that he/she has a mental illness Loose Associations
- talking but not clear meaning, little bit connected. A
communication pattern characterized by lack of clarity of connection between
one thought and the next. ( Nurse: How can we improve your nursing care
Mr J? Mr J: Improve? Cant improve. Cant prove a thing. Got me in this
jail, but cant prove anything.)
Mania - Excited, happy, cranky,
busy, cant rest, talk fast, sometimes hard to understand, maybe believe they
are powerful, nothing can hurt. Eg Believe you very rich, go to pub buy drinks
for everyone, dance on table, strip. Normally wont do those things.
A state of mind characterised by excessive cheerfulness
and increased activity. The mood is euphoric and changes rapidly to
irritability. Thought and speech are rapid to the point of incoherence
and behaviour may be overactive, extravagant, overbearing. There may
be grandiose delusions.
Medication - Tablets, wafers
or injections prescribed to decrease the symptoms of an illness.
Mental Health - Feeling good
about oneself, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Neologisms - Words that are invented
by the person and understood only by him/her.
Neurosis - Mental illness but
still understand everything that's happening A
mental illness in which insight is retained but there is a maladaptive way
of behaving or thinking that causes suffering. For example depression, anxiety,
phobias or obsessions.
Neurotransmitters - Chemicals
in the brain that help messages pass from one area of the brain to another.
Paranoid - people have delusions, they think others will hurt them. They might think the police are chasing them. They might feel persecuted.
Phobia - very frightened. Afraid of something, a place or an animal (spiders). The person is too afraid to go to the place.
Psychosis - Serious mental illness
where you don't know what is real and what is not real. A
severe disease or disorder of the mind characterised by derangement of personality
and loss of contact with reality. There is often a lack of insight,
although memory and intellect tend to remain intact.
Stigma - A mark or sign of shame,
disgrace or disapproval, of being shunned or rejected by others.
Suicidal Ideation - Having thoughts
of killing oneself - can often occur with hallucinations of a persecutory
nature
Thought Disorder - Thoughts may
be jumbled and speech is difficult to follow. They may jump from one subject
to another with no logical connection. They may believe that someone is interfering
with their mind / thoughts.
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