Author: Glossary
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Polydipsia
Excessive or abnormal thirst. Patients with obsessive compulsive disorder and other psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, may have polydipsia, which may produce a type of diabetes insipidus. Abnormally intense thirst; a typical symptom of diabetes. Excessive thirst; a symptom of diabetes. A condition, often caused by diabetes insipidus, in which a person is unusually thirsty.…
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Poinephobia
The fear of punishment.
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Pleasure principle
The psychoanalytic concept that people instinctually seek to avoid pain and discomfort and strive for gratification and pleasure. In personality development theory, the pleasure principle antedates and subsequently comes in conflict with the reality principle. In psychoanalysis, the demand that an instinctual need be immediately gratified regardless of reality. In psychoanalytic theory, tendency to pursue…
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Play therapy
A treatment technique using the child’s play as a medium for expression and communication between patient and therapist. A form of psychotherapy used chiefly with children who have emotional problems. The method consists of allowing a child to play with a variety of objects or toys with the intent that the child will reveal sources…
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Placebo effect
The production or enhancement of psychological or physical effects with the use of pharmacologically inactive substances administered under circumstances in which suggestion or expectation leads the subject to believe a particular effect will occur. An improvement of a health condition that cannot be ascribed to the treatment used. A physical or emotional change that occurs…
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Pimozide
A conventional antipsychotic medication (a diphenylbutylpiperidine) used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders as well as the motor and phonic tics of tourette’s disorder. Marketed under the brand name orap. A major tranquilizer used to relieve hallucinations and delusions occurring in schizophrenia. It is administered by mouth; side-effects may include skin rashes, tremors, and…
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Piloerection
Gooseflesh, or the diffuse erection of hair follicles in the skin in response to cold, fright, opioid withdrawal, or other conditions. Hair standing up in response to the cold or to fear. Elevation of the hair above the skin as a result of contraction of the arrector pili muscles. This may occur after exposure to…
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Pick’s disease
A presenile degenerative disease of the brain, possibly hereditary, that affects the cerebral cortex focally, particularly the frontal lobes. Symptoms include intellectual deterioration, emotional instability, and loss of social adjustment. A form of presenile dementia. A rare form of presenile dementia, in which a disorder of the lipoid metabolism causes mental impairment, anaemia, loss of…
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Pica
A feeding and eating disorder of infancy or early childhood characterized by developmentally inappropriate, persistent, or recurring eating of nonnutritive substances (e.g., dirt). An unnatural desire for foods; alternative words are cissa, cittosis, and allotriophagy. Also a perverted appetite (eating of earth, sand, clay, paper, etc.). An eating disorder consisting of the craving and eating…
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Piblokto
Observed primarily among Eskimo communities, piblokto is an abrupt dissociative episode accompanied by extreme excitement of up to 30 minutes’ duration and frequently followed by convulsive seizures and coma lasting up to 12 hours. Also referred to as arctic hysteria. A syndrome, apparently culturally specific for Eskimo women, in which the person screams, removes or…