Delusions
Extreme disorders of thinking, involving persistent false beliefs. The hallmark of paranoid disorders.
Medical Model
The view that mental disorders are diseases that, like ordinary physical diseases, have objective physical causes and require specific treatments.
Social-cognitive-behavioral approach
A psychological alternative to the medical model that views psychological disorder through a combination of the social cognitive and behavioral perspectives.
DSM-IV
The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association.
Psychosis
A disorder involving profound disturbances in perception, rational, thinking, or affect.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Technically Seasonal pattern specifier this DSM-IV course specifier for mood disorders, form of depression caused by deprivation of sunlight.
Bipolar Disorder
A mental abnormality involving swings of mood from mania to depression.
Panic Disorder
A disturbance marked by panic attacks that have no obvious connection with events in the persons' present experience.
Phobias
A group of anxiety disorders involving a pathological fear of a specific object or situation.
Obsessive-Compulsive disorder
A condition characterized by patterns of persistent, unwanted thoughts and behaviors.
Somatoform disorders
Psychological problems appearing in the form of bodily symptoms or physical complaints such as weakness or excessive worry about disease.
Dissociative disorders
A group of pathologies involving "fragmentation" of the personality in which some parts of the personality have become detached or dissociated from other parts.
Anorexia nervosa
An eating disorder that involves persistent loss of appetite that endangers an individuals health and stems from emotional os psychological reasons rather than from organic causes.
Bulimia nervosa
Eating disorder, eating binges, followed by purges.
Schizophrenia
Psychotic disorder involving distortions in thoughts perceptions and or emotions.
Personality disorders
Conditions involving a chronic pervasive inflexible and maladaptive pattern of thinking emotion social relationships or impulse control.
Autism
Development disorder marked by disabilities in language social interaction and the ability to understand another persons state of mind.
Dyslexia
A reading disability thought by some experts to involve a brain disorder.
ADHD
Development disorder involving short attention span.
Insanity
Legal term not psychological or psychiatric one referring to a person who is unable because of mental disorder of defect to conform his or her behavior to the law.