Author: Glossary

The relief from emotional conflict and the freedom from anxiety achieved by a defense mechanism. Contrast with secondary gain. In psychiatry, the relief of symptoms when the patient converts emotional anxiety to what he or she perceives as an organic illness (e.g., hysterical paralysis or blindness). The instantaneous alleviation of guilt, anxiety, or other undesirable…

The condition established as the primary reason for the patient seeking treatment from a health or mental health provider. The condition established after study to be the most severe condition for which the patient receives treatment. Diagnosis of the most important disease process or the underlying disease process afflicting a patient.  

In psychoanalytic theory, the real or fancied observation by the child of parental or other heterosexual intercourse and the meaning the child attaches to it. In psychology, a child’s first observation of sexual intercourse. In psychiatry, the term for a child’s first observation of sexual intercourse, real or imagined.  

In traditional medical usage, the prevention or prophylaxis of a disorder. In community psychiatry, the meaning of prevention encompasses the amelioration, control, and limitation of a mental disorder. Prevention of mental disorders is often categorized as follows: Primary prevention Measures implemented to prevent the occurrence of a mental disorder (e.g., by nutrition, substitute parents). Secondary…

Rapid, accelerated, frenzied speech. Sometimes it exceeds the ability of the vocal musculature to articulate, leading to jumbled and cluttered speech; at other times, it exceeds the ability of the listener to comprehend because the speech expresses a flight of ideas (as in mania) or unintelligible jargon.  

A proposed disorder (listed in dsm-iv-tr appendix b, “criteria sets and axes provided for further study”) characterized by rapidly changing feelings or persistent and marked anger, anxiety, or tension; depressed mood with feelings of hopelessness or self-deprecating thoughts; and many other symptoms, such as lethargy, difficulty in concentrating, overeating or food cravings, insomnia or hypersomnia,…

In psychoanalysis, refers to the period of early childhood before the genitals have begun to exert the predominant influence in the organization or patterning of sexual behavior. Oral and anal influences predominate during this period. In psychology, relating to that period when erotic interest in the reproductive organs and functions is not yet organized.