Psychiatry
Study, Treatment, & prevention of
mental disorders
Definitions
Psychiatrist – doctor who specializes in psychiatry
Psychologist – qualified person in psychology,
- usually not a doctor,
- not able to prescribe medication
-studies human behaviour
Word parts
Word root Combining form Meaning
Psych psych/o soul or mind
Phob -phobia fear
Epilept epileptic/i/o seizure
Phren phren/i/o,phrenic/o diaphragm / mind /
phrenic nerve
Ment ment/o mind / chin
Mental disorders
Anxiety disorders – emotional states where person
fears an imagined danger
Symptoms include rapid pulse, sweating, trembling,
nausea, tension, & apprehension
Psychosis – people find it difficult to distinguish fact
from fantasy
Psychosomatic – symptoms feel real to the person
but are of emotional or imagined origin
Mental Disorders
Confabulation – fabricated memories. person has
no intention to deceive& believes memories are true
Hallucinations – sensory experiences e.g. seeing,
hearing things that do not exist
Schizophrenia – any of several psychotic disorders
characterised by disturbances of mood, thought,
sense of self & behaviour, contact with reality
Mental Disorders
Delusions- fixed beliefs of things that are untrue, e.g. person is
Jesus
Illusions – are misinterpretations of real sensory experience e.g.
a mirage of seeing water in the dessert.
Panic disorders – episodes of extreme fear & can include
physical symptoms of anxiety disorder
Repression – unpleasant thoughts, feelings, & ideas are
suppressed or removed from consciousness
Mental Disorders
Conversion disorder – stress & anxiety are
converted into body symptoms
Major depression
Word Parts
Mania madness
Neur/ nerve
-path disease
phren/o mind, diaphragm
psych/o mind
psychosomatic relating to both mind and body
psychotrophic drugs with effect on psychic function,
brhaviour, & the body
schiz split,division
Diagnostic Terms
Amnesia inability to recall events following trauma
(anteretrograde)
Amnesia Inability to recall events preceding a trauma
(retrograde)
Bipolar disorder affective disorder - episodes of both mania &
depression
paranoid characterised by fixed & logically elaborated
delusions of persecution e.g. schizophrenia
Neurosis person recognises they are ill. E.g. anxiety
disorder, phobias, obsessive compulsive
Psychosis abnormal pattern of thought, action & feeling.
Patient does not recognise they are ill
Conditions & terms
Catatonia patient is unresponsive with fixed posture & refuses to talk
Cyclothymia alternating periods of elation & depression
delerium organic reaction resulting in alteration in consciousness &
attention
Dementia acquired reduction in intelligent functioning that occurs after
the brain has matured
Dissociation Dissociative experiences are characterised bycertain mental
events that would ordinarily be expected to be processed
together (e.g.,thoughts, emotions, motor activity, sensations,
memories and sense of identity) are functionally isolated from
one another and, in some cases, rendered inaccessible to
consciousness and/or voluntary recall (Steinberg, 1994).
Conditions and Terms
Mania mood disorder – elation, increased
activity, rapid speech, decreased
need for sleep
Defence The means by which the psych
mechanism protects itself e.g. panic
Mutism unwillingness or inability to speak
repression removal of disturbing impulses,
thoughts and feelings from
conscious awareness
Treatments
Antidepressants
Cognitive therapy - form of psychotherapy that
helps a person to change unhelpful or unhealthy
thinking habits, feelings and behaviours.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - electrical
impulse is applied to the brain to induce a seizure
psychotherapy
Is thought that ECT-induced seizures interrupt
electrochemical messages and ‘reset’ the brain. ACT
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