Appendix 1: Terms in the field of Psychiatry and Neurology – Glossary of Psychiatry A

S

Schizophasia	A severe form of thought disorder.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)	A form of depressive illness only occurring during winter months, associated with overeating and sleepiness. Responsive to antidepressants and phototherapy. Little researched and scientifically controversial.
Screen memory	A consciously tolerable memory that serves as a cover for an associated memory that would be emotionally painful if recalled.
Secondary gain	The external gain derived from any illness, such as personal attention and service, monetary gains, disability benefits, and release from unpleasant responsibilities. See also primary gain.
Secondary process	In psychoanalytic theory, mental activity and thinking characteristic of the ego and influenced by the demands of the environment. Characterized by organization, systematization, intellectualization, and similar processes leading to logical thought and action in adult life. See also primary process; reality principle.
Sensory extinction	Failure to report sensory stimuli from one region if another region is stimulated simultaneously, even though when the region in question is stimulated by itself, the stimulus is correctly reported.
Separation anxiety disorder	A disorder with onset before the age of 18 consisting of inappropriate anxiety concerning separation from home or from persons to whom the child is attached. Among the symptoms that may be seen are unrealistic concern about harm befalling or loss of major attachment figures; refusal to go to school (school phobia) in order to stay at home and maintain contact with this figure; refusal to go to sleep unless close to this person; clinging; nightmares about the theme of separation; and development of physical symptoms or mood changes (apathy, depression) when separation occurs or is anticipated.
Separation-individuation	Psychological awareness of one's separateness, described by Margaret Mahler as a phase in the mother-child relationship that follows the symbiotic stage. In the separation-individuation stage, the child begins to perceive himself or herself as distinct from the mother and develops a sense of individual identity and an image of the self as object. Mahler described four subphases of the process: differentiation, practicing, rapprochement (i.e., active approach toward the mother, replacing the relative obliviousness to her that prevailed during the practicing period), and separation-individuation proper (i.e., awareness of discrete identity, separateness, and individuality).
Sex	A person's biological status as male, female, or uncertain. Depending on the circumstances, this determination may be based on the appearance of the external genitalia or on karyotyping.
Sign	An objective manifestation of a pathological condition. Signs are observed by the examiner rather than reported by the affected individual.
Shaping	Reinforcement of responses in the patient's repertoire that increasingly approximate sought-after behavior.
Sick role	An identity adopted by an individual as a "patient" that specifies a set of expected behaviors, usually dependent.
Signal anxiety	An ego mechanism that results in activation of defensive operations to protect the ego from being overwhelmed by an excess of excitement. The anxiety reaction that was originally experienced in a traumatic situation is reproduced in an attenuated form, allowing defenses to be mobilized before the current threat does, in fact, become overwhelming.
Simultanagnosia	Inability to comprehend more than one element of a visual scene at the same time or to integrate the parts into a whole
Sleep terror disorder	One of the parasomnias, characterized by panic and confusion when abruptly awakening from sleep. This usually begins with a scream and is accompanied by intense anxiety. The person is often confused and disoriented after awakening. No detailed dream is recalled, and there is amnesia for the episode. Sleep terrors typically occur during the first third of the major sleep episode.
Social adaptation	The ability to live and express oneself according to society's restrictions and cultural demands.
Somatic delusion	A delusion whose main content pertains to the appearance or functioning of one's body.
Somatic hallucination	A hallucination involving the perception of a physical experience localized within the body (such as a feeling of electricity). A somatic hallucination is to be distinguished from physical sensations arising from an as-yet undiagnosed general medical condition, from hypochondriacal preoccupation with normal physical sensations, and from a tactile hallucination.
Spatial agnosia	Inability to recognize spatial relations; disordered spatial orientation.
Splitting	A mental mechanism in which the self or others are reviewed as all good or all bad, with failure to integrate the positive and negative qualities of self and others into cohesive images. Often the person alternately idealizes and devalues the same person.
Stereotypies	Uniform, repetitive non goal-directed actions (may take a variety of forms from simple movement to an utterance. Usually ascribed to schizophrenia but may be due to an organic disorder.
Stereotyped movements	Repetitive, seemingly driven, and nonfunctional motor behavior (e.g., hand shaking or waving, body rocking, head banging, mouthing of objects, self-biting, picking at skin or body orifices, hitting one's own body).
Stockholm syndrome	A kidnapping or terrorist hostage identifies with and has sympathy for his or her captors on whom he or she is dependent for survival.
Stressor	Any life event or life change that may be associated temporally (and perhaps causally) with the onset, occurrence, or exacerbation of a mental disorder.
Structural theory	Freud's model of the mental apparatus composed of id, ego, and superego.
Stupor (Akinetic Autism)	A state of unresponsiveness with immobility and mutism More or less complete loss of activity with no response to stimuli; may mark a progression of motor retardation; found in a wide range of neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Sublimation	A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable, are diverted into personally and socially acceptable channels.
Substitution	A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which an unattainable or unacceptable goal, emotion, or object is replaced by one that is more attainable or acceptable.
Suggestibility	Uncritical compliance or acceptance of an idea, belief, or attribute. suggestion The process of influencing a patient to accept an idea, belief, or attitude suggested by the therapist.
Superego	In psychoanalytic theory, that part of the personality structure associated with ethics, standards, and self-criticism. It is formed by identification with important and esteemed persons in early life, particularly parents. The supposed or actual wishes of these significant persons are taken over as part of the child's own standards to help form the conscience.
Suppression	The conscious effort to control and conceal unacceptable impulses, thoughts, feelings, or acts.
Symbiosis	A mutually reinforcing relationship between two persons who are dependent on each other; a normal characteristic of the relationship between the mother and infant child. See separation-individuation
Symbolization	A general mechanism in all human thinking by which some mental representation comes to stand for some other thing, class of things, or attribute of something. This mechanism underlies dream formation and some symptoms, such as conversion reactions, obsessions, and compulsions. The link between the latent meaning of the symptom and the symbol is usually
Symptom	A subjective manifestation of a pathological condition. Symptoms are reported by the affected individual rather than observed by the examiner.
Syndrome	A grouping of signs and symptoms, based on their frequent co-occurrence, that may suggest a common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection.
Synesthesia	A condition in which a sensory experience associated with one modality occurs when another modality is stimulated, for example, a sound produces the sensation of a particular color.
Syntaxic mode	The mode of perception that forms whole, logical, coherent pictures of reality that can be validated by others.
Systematic desensitization	A behavior therapy procedure widely used to modify behaviors associated with phobias. The procedure involves the construction of a hierarchy of anxiety-producing stimuli by the subject, and gradual presentation of the stimuli until they no longer produce anxiety.

T

Tactile hallucination	A hallucination involving the perception of being touched or of something being under one's skin. The most common tactile hallucinations are the sensation of electric shocks and formication (the sensation of something creeping or crawling on or under the skin).
Tangentiality	Replying to a question in an oblique or irrelevant way. Compare with circumstantiality.
Tardive dyskinesia	An abnormal involuntary movement disorder which may manifest as lipsmacking bucco-lingual movements or grimacing, truncal movements or athetoid limb movements.
Temperament	Constitutional predisposition to react in a particular way to stimuli.
Terminal insomnia	Awakening before one's usual waking time and being unable to return to sleep.
Termination	The act of ending or concluding. In psychotherapy, termination refers to the mutual agreement between patient and therapist to bring therapy to an end. The idea of termination often occurs to both, but usually it is the therapist who introduces the subject into the session as a possibility to be considered. In psychoanalytic treatment, the patient's reactions are worked through to completion before the treatment ends. The early termination that is characteristic of focal psychotherapy and other forms of brief psychotherapy often requires more extensive work with the feelings of loss and separation.
Therapeutic community	A term of British origin, now widely used, for a specially structured mental hospital milieu that encourages patients to function within the range of social norms.
Therapeutic window	A well-defined range of blood levels associated with optimal clinical response to antidepressant drugs, such as nortriptyline. Levels above or below that range are associated with a poor response.
Thought Alienation	the collective grouping for thought insertion, withdrawal and broadcasting
Thought block(-ing)	The unpleasant experience of having one's train of thought curtailed absolutely, often more a sign than a symptom. An objective phenomenon in which the patient abruptly breaks off his conversation and is silent for a few seconds and then resumes on a different topic. Subjectively they experience a complete cessation of all thought.
Thought broadcasting	The experience that one's thoughts are being transmitted from one's mind and broadcast to everyone. Thought broadcasting The delusion that one's thoughts are being broadcast out loud so that they can be perceived by others. - the experience of thoughts escaping from the boundaries of the self and being known to others, even strangers or people some distance away.
Thought disorder	A disorder of the form of thought, where associations between ideas are lost or loosened.
Thought echo	Where thoughts are heard as if spoken aloud, when there is some delay these are known as echo de la pensée and when heard simultaneously, Gedankenlautwerden. A form of auditory hallucination in which the patient hears his thoughts spoken aloud, either simultaneous with him thinking it or a moment or two afterwards.
Thought insertion	The delusion that certain of one's thoughts are not one's own, but rather are inserted into one's mind. The subjective feeling that thoughts in one's mind are not one's own often explained by a secondary delusion of insertion by some outside agency.
Thought withdrawal	The experience of thoughts being removed or extracted from one's mind. - the subjective feeling that thoughts are missing from one's mind of,e.g.explained by a secondary delusion of extraction by some outside agency
Tic	An involuntary, sudden, rapid, recurrent, nonrhythmic, stereotyped motor movement or vocalization.
Token economy	A system involving the application of the principles and procedures of operant conditioning to the management of a social setting such as a ward, classroom, or halfway house. Tokens are given contingent on completion of specified activities and are exchangeable for goods or privileges desired by the patient.
Tolerance	A characteristic of substance dependence that may be shown by the need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or the desired effect, by markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance, or by adequate functioning despite doses or blood levels of the substance that would be expected to produce significant impairment in a casual user.
Transference	The unconscious assignment to others of feelings and attitudes that were originally associated with important figures (parents, siblings, etc.) in one's early life. The transference relationship follows the pattern of its prototype. The psychiatrist utilizes this phenomenon as a therapeutic tool to help the patient understand emotional problems and their origins. In the patient-physician relationship, the transference may be negative (hostile) or positive (affectionate). See also countertransference.
Transitional object	An object, other than the mother, selected by an infant between 4 and 18 months of age for self-soothing and anxiety-reduction. Examples are a "security blanket" or a toy that helps the infant go to sleep. The transitional object provides an opportunity to master external objects and promotes the differentiation of self from outer world.
Transsexualism	Severe gender dysphoria, coupled with a persistent desire for the physical characteristics and social roles that connote the opposite biological sex.
Transvestism	Sexual pleasure derived from dressing or masquerading in the clothing of the opposite sex, with the strong wish to appear as a member of the opposite sex. The sexual origins of transvestism may be unconscious.
Trichotillomania	The pulling out of one's own hair to the point that it is noticeable and causing significant distress or impairment.

U

Unconscious	That part of the mind or mental functioning of which the content is only rarely subject to awareness. It is a repository for data that have never been conscious (primary repression) or that may have been conscious and are later repressed (secondary repression).
Undoing	A mental mechanism consisting of behavior that symbolically atones for, makes amends for, or reverses previous thoughts, feelings, or actions.
Urophilia	One of the paraphilias, characterized by marked distress over, or acting on, sexual urges that involve urine.

V

Verbigeration	Stereotyped and seemingly meaningless repetition of words or sentences.
Visual hallucination	A hallucination involving sight, which may consist of formed images, such as of people, or of unformed images, such as flashes of light. Visual hallucinations should be distinguished from illusions, which are misperceptions of real external stimuli.
Vorbeigehen; Vorbeireden	In vorbeigehen or vorbeireden, a patient will answer a question in such a way that one can tell the patient understood the question, although the answer itself may be very obviously wrong. This condition occurs in Ganser's syndromeand has been observed in prisonersawaiting trial. Vorbeigehen(giving approximate answers) was the original term used by Ganser but Vorbeireden (talikng past the point) is the term generally in use (Goldin 1955).
Voyeurism	Peeping; one of the paraphilias, characterized by marked distress over, or acting on, urges to observe unsuspecting people, usually strangers, who are naked or in the process of disrobing, or who are engaging in sexual activity.

W

Wahneinfall	Wahneinfallis alternate term for autochthonous delusions. This is one of the types of primary delusions in which a firm belief comes into the patient's mind 'out of the blue' or as an intution , hence called delusional intution. Other types of primary delusions include delusional mood (or atmosphere), delusional (apophanous perception) and delusional memories.
Wernicke's aphasia	Loss of the ability to comprehend language coupled with production of inappropriate language.
Windigo	A culture specific syndrome of Canadians involving delusions of being possessed by a cannibal-istic monster (windigo), attacks of agitated depression, oral sadistic fears and impulses.
Witzelsucht	is a tendency to tell inappropriate joke and creating excessive facetiousness and inappropriate or pointless humor. It is seen in Frontal lobe disorders usually alongwith #moria. Recent research has shown that it may also be seen in frontotemporal dementia.
Word salad	A mixture of words and phrases that lack comprehensive meaning or logical coherence; commonly seen in schizophrenic states. A severe form of thought disorder.

Z

Zeitgeist

The general intellectual and cultural climate of taste characteristic of an era. Zoophilia One of the paraphilias, characterized by marked distress over, or acting on, urges to indulge in sexual activity that involves animals.