Science / Psychiatry Glossary

Psychomotor Agitation: Excessive motor activity associated with a feeling of inner tension. When severe, agitation may involve shouting and loud complaining. The activity is usually nonproductive and repetitious, . . . View Full Definition

Psychomotor Retardation: Visible generalized slowing of movements and speech.

Psychosis: Any major mental disorder that involves change of personality and loss of contact with reality. This usually includes delusions and/or hallucinations.

Psychotherapy: Therapy involving psychological instead of medical treatment of mental disorders. It can include supportive dialogue, counseling, and cognitive behavioral approaches to achieve a thinking-fe . . . View Full Definition

Psychotropic Medication: Medication that affects thought processes or feeling states and used in the treatment of mental disorders.

Pure Word Deafness: words that are heard cannot be comprehended

Rationalization: defense mechanism in which an attempt is made to explain in a logical way affects, ideas or wishes that may otherwise be unpalatable or unacceptable

Reaction Formation: A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which a person adopts affects, ideas, and behaviours that are the opposites of impulses harboured either consciously or unconsciously. For ex . . . View Full Definition

Receptive Aphasia: difficulty in comprehending word meanings or received speech or language

Receptor: A protein molecule that resides on the surface or in the nucleus of a cell. Receptors recognise and bind specific molecules of an appropriate size, shape and charge.

Reciprocal Inhibition: In behavior therapy, the hypothesis that if anxiety-provoking stimuli occur simultaneously with the inhibition of anxiety (e.g., relaxation), the bond between those stimuli and the anxiety w . . . View Full Definition

Reduplication Phenomena: part or all of the body is felt to be reduplicated

Reflex Hallucination: stimulus in one sensory field leads to a hallucination in another sensory field

Repetition Compulsion: In psychoanalytic theory, the impulse to reenact earlier emotional experiences. Considered by Freud to be more fundamental than the pleasure principle. Defined by Jones in the following way: . . . View Full Definition

Repression: defense mechanism in which unacceptable affects, ideas or wishes are pushed away so that they remain in the unconscious

Residual Schizophrenia: Blunted or inappropriate affect, social withdrawal, eccentric behavior, loose associations without prominent psychotic symptoms.

Respondent Conditioning: Elicitation of a response by a stimulus that normally does not elicit that response. The response is one that is mediated primarily by the autonomic nervous system (such as salivation or a c . . . View Full Definition

Retrospective Falsification: false details are added to the recollection of an otherwise real memory

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