Author: Glossary

Lack of adequate and appropriate interpersonal and/or environmental experience, usually in the early developmental years. Isolation of an individual, especially an infant, from normal emotional stimuli. In infants this impairs mental and physical development. Emotional deprivation refers to the insufficiency of affectionate care and nurturing relationships during early childhood, leading to an inhibition of normal…

A state of arousal determined by a set of subjective feelings, often accompanied by physiological changes, that impels one toward action. Examples are fear, anger, love, and hate. An intense feeling that results in characteristic changes and the psychological need to act. Examples are love, hate, fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, envy, and others. There are…

A patient’s unauthorized departure from a psychiatric facility.  

Included in this group are functional encopresis and functional enuresis. Psychiatric classification for encopresis, or soiling, and enuresis, or bedwetting.  

A graphic (voltage vs. Time) depiction of the brain’s electrical potentials (brain waves) recorded by scalp electrodes. It is used for the diagnosis of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders (especially seizure disorders) and in neurophysiological research. Sometimes used interchangeably with electrocorticogram and depth record, in which the electrodes are in direct contact with brain tissue. A…

The female Oedipus complex; an infrequently used term describing the pathological relationship between a woman and a man based on unresolved developmental conflicts partially analogous to the Oedipus complex in a man. Excessive emotional attachment of a daughter to her father. A condition in which a girl feels sexually attracted to her father and sees…

Brand name for the monoamine oxidase (MAO) b inhibitor drug selegiline.  

Brand name (now discontinued) for the tricyclic antidepressant drug amitriptyline.  

An unconscious process consisting of expansion and embellishment of detail, especially with reference to a symbol or representation in a dream. In body metabolism, the formation of complex compounds from simpler substances (e.g., formation of proteins from amino acids).