Appendix 1: Terms in the field of Psychiatry and Neurology – Glossary of Psychiatry A

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Basal ganglia	Clusters of neurons located deep in the brain; they include the caudate nucleus and the putamen (corpus striatum), the globus pallidus, the subthalamic nucleus, and the substantia nigra. The basal ganglia appear to be involved in higher-order aspects of motor control, such as planning and execution of complex motor activity and the speed of movements. Lesions of the basal ganglia produce various types of involuntary movements such as athetosis, chorea, dystonia, and tremor. The basal ganglia are involved also in the pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and tardive dyskinesia. The internal capsule, containing all the fibers that ascend to or descend from the cortex, runs through the basal ganglia and separates them from the thalamus.
Bestiality	Zoophilia; sexual relations between a human being and an animal. See also paraphilia.
Beta-blocker	An agent that inhibits the action of beta-adrenergic receptors, which modulate cardiac functions, respiratory functions, and the dilation of blood vessels. Beta-blockers are of value in the treatment of hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, and migraine. In psychiatry, they have been used in the treatment of aggression and violence, anxiety-related tremors and lithium-induced tremors, neuroleptic-induced akathisia, social phobias, panic states, and alcohol withdrawal.
Bizarre delusion	A delusion that involves a phenomenon that the person's culture would regard as totally implausible.
Blind spot	Visual scotoma, a circumscribed area of blindness or impaired vision in the visual field; by extension, an area of the personality of which the subject is unaware, typically because recognition of this area would cause painful emotions.
Blocking	A sudden obstruction or interruption in spontaneous flow of thinking or speaking, perceived as an absence or deprivation of thought.
Blunted affect	An affect type that represents significant reduction in the intensity of emotional expression
Body image	One's sense of the self and one's body.
Bouffée délirante	is a French term used in past for acute and transient psychotic disorders (F23 in ICD-10). In DSM-IV, it is described as "Brief Psychotic Disorder" (298.8). The symptoms usually have an acute onset and reach their peak within two weeks. The symptoms start resolving in a few weeks and complete recovery usually occurs within 2-3 months.
Bradykinesia	Neurologic condition characterized by a generalized slowness of motor activity.
Broca's aphasia	Loss of the ability to comprehend language coupled with production of inappropriate language.
Bruxism	Grinding of the teeth, occurs unconsciously while awake or during stage 2 sleep. May be secondary to anxiety, tension, or dental problems.
Bulimia nervosa	Described by Russell in 1979, bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterised by lack of control. Abnormal eating behaviour including dieting, vomiting, purging and particularly bingeing may be associated with normal weight or obesity. The syndrome is associated with guilt, depressed mood, low self-esteem and sometimes with childhood sexual abuse, alcoholism and promiscuity. May be asociated with oesophageal ulceration and parotid swelling (Green's chubby chops sign).

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Capgras' syndrome or Illusion des sosies	In Capgras syndrome, the patient feels that a person familiar to him , usually a family member has been replaced by a double i.e. an identical looking imposter. Capgras Syndrome and Fregoli syndrome are characterized as delusional misidentifications. It is named after Joseph Capgras(1873-1950), a French psychiatrist who first described the disorder in a paper by Capgras and Reboul-Lachaux1,2 in 1923. They used the term l'illusion des sosies (the illusion of doubles) to describe the case of a French woman who complained that various doubles had taken the place of people she knew. However, the term illusion has a subtly different meaning from delusion in psychiatry so Capgras delusion is used as a more suitable name. The delusion that others, or the self, have been replaced by imposters. It typically follows the development of negative feelings toward the other person that the subject cannot accept and attributes, instead, to the imposter. The syndrome has been reported in paranoid schizophrenia and, even more frequently, in organic brain disease.
Catalepsy Waxy flexibility	rigid maintenance of a body position over an extended period of time. Episodes of sudden bilateral loss of muscle tone resulting in the individual collapsing, often in association with intense emotions such as laughter, anger, fear, or surprise. The patient maintains a fixed posture that can be changed by the examiner without any resistance unlike waxy flexibility (see below).
Catatonia	A state of excited or inhibited motor activity in the absence of a mood disorder or neurological disease. It includes a number of other terms:
Cerea flexibilitas, meaning "waxy flexibility,"	is characterized by a patient's movements having the feeling of a plastic resistance, as if the person were made of wax. This occurs in catatonic schizophrenia, and a person suffering from this condition can have his limbs placed in fixed positions as if the person were in fact made from wax.
Coenestopathic state	A patient in a coenestopathic statehas a localized distortion of body awareness.
Cotard's syndrome	is a nihilistic delusional disorder in which, for example, patient believes that he denies his own existence or existence of his body parts and belongings etc. and has a firm conviction about that.
Catatonic behavior	Marked motor abnormalities including motoric immobility (i.e., catalepsy or stupor), certain types of excessive motor activity (apparently purposeless agitation not influenced by external stimuli), extreme negativism (apparent motiveless resistance to instructions or attempts to be moved) or mutism, posturing or stereotyped movements, and echolalia or echopraxia
Catharsis	The healthful (therapeutic) release of ideas through "talking out" conscious material accompanied by an appropriate emotional reaction. Also, the release into awareness of repressed ("forgotten") material from the unconscious. See also repression.
Cathexis	Attachment, conscious or unconscious, of emotional feeling and significance to an idea, an object, or, most commonly, a person.
Causalgia	A sensation of intense pain of either organic or psychological origin.
Cerea flexibilitas	The "waxy flexibility" often present in catatonic schizophrenia in which the patient's arm or leg remains in the position in which it is placed.
Circumstantiality	Pattern of speech that is indirect and delayed in reaching its goal because of excessive or irrelevant detail or parenthetical remarks. The speaker does not lose the point, as is characteristic of loosening of associations, and clauses remain logically connected, but to the listener it seems that the end will never be reached. Irrelevant wandering in conversation. Talking at great length around the point.
Clanging	A type of thinking in which the sound of a word, rather than its meaning, gives the direction to subsequent associations.
Climacteric	Menopausal period in women. Sometimes used to refer to the corresponding age period in men. Also called involutional period.
Cognitive disorders	are disorders of thinking, for example, schizophrenia.
Comorbidity	The simultaneous appearance of two or more illnesses, such as the co-occurrence of schizophrenia and substance abuse or of alcohol dependence and depression. The association may reflect a causal relationship between one disorder and another or an underlying vulnerability to both disorders. Also, the appearance of the illnesses may be unrelated to any common etiology or vulnerability.
Compensation	A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which one attempts to make up for real or fancied deficiencies. Also a conscious process in which one strives to make up for real or imagined defects of physique, performance skills, or psychological attributes. The two types frequently merge. See also overcompensation.
Compulsion	Repetitive ritualistic behavior such as hand washing or ordering or a mental act such as praying or repeating words silently that aims to prevent or reduce distress or prevent some dreaded event or situation. The person feels driven to perform such actions in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly, even though the behaviors are recognized to be excessive or unreasonable. The behavioural component of an obsession. The individual feels compelled to repeat a behaviour which has no immediate benefit beyond reducing the anxiety associated with the obsessional idea. For instance for a person obsessed by the idea that they are dirty, repeated ritual handwashing may serve to reduce anxiety. Repetitive, apparently purposeful behaviour performed in a stereotyped way accompanied by a subjective sense that it must be carried out despite the recognition of its senselessness and often resistance by the patient. Recognised as morbid by the affected individual. Often associated with an obsession.
Conative	Pertains to one's basic strivings as expressed in behavior and actions
Concrete thinking	Cognitive Pertaining to thoughts or thinking. Thinking characterized by immediate experience, rather than abstractions. It may occur as a primary, developmental defect, or it may develop secondary to organic brain disease or schizophrenia.
Condensation	A psychological process, often present in dreams, in which two or more concepts are fused so that a single symbol represents the multiple components.
Confabulation	Fabrication of stories in response to questions about situations or events that are not recalled. Changing, loosely held and false memories created to fill in organically-derived amnesia Giving a false account to fill a gap in memory.
Confrontation	A communication that deliberately pressures or invites another to self-examine some aspect of behavior in which there is a discrepancy between self-reported and observed behavior.
Constricted affect	Affect type that represents mild reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression.
Constructional apraxia	An acquired difficulty in drawing two-dimensional objects or forms, or in producing or copying three-dimensional arrangements of forms or shapes.
Contingency reinforcement	In operant or instrumental conditioning, ensuring that desired behavior is followed by positive consequences and that undesired behavior is not rewarded.
Conversion	A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which intrapsychic conflicts that would otherwise give rise to anxiety are instead given symbolic external expression. The repressed ideas or impulses, and the psychological defenses against them, are converted into a variety of somatic symptoms. These may include such symptoms as paralysis, pain, or loss of sensory function. Unconscious mechanism of symptom formation that operates in conversion disorders or is the transposition of a psychological conflict into somatic symptoms.
Coping mechanisms	Ways of adjusting to environmental stress without altering one's goals or purposes; includes both conscious and unconscious mechanisms.
Coprophagia	Eating of filth or feces.
Counterphobia	Deliberately seeking out and exposing onself to, rather than avoiding, the object or situation that is consciously or unconsciously feared.
Countertransference	The therapist's emotional reactions to the patient that are based on the therapist's unconscious needs and conflicts, as distinguished from his or her conscious responses to the patient's behavior. Countertransference may interfere with the therapist's ability to understand the patient and may adversely affect the therapeutic technique. Currently, there is emphasis on the positive aspects of countertransference and its use as a guide to a more empathic understanding of the patient.
Cretinism	A type of mental retardation and bodily malformation caused by severe, uncorrected thyroid deficiency in infancy and early childhood.
Cri du chat	A type of mental retardation. The name is derived from a catlike cry emitted by children with this disorder, which is caused by partial deletion of chromosome 5.
Conversion symptom	A loss of, or alteration in, voluntary motor or sensory functioning suggesting a neurological or general medical condition. Psychological factors are judged to be associated with the development of the symptom, and the symptom is not fully explained by a neurological or general medical condition or the direct effects of a substance. The symptom is not intentionally produced or feigned and is not culturally sanctioned.
Culture-specific syndromes	Forms of disturbed behavior specific to certain cultural systems that do not conform to western nosologic entities. Some commonly cited syndromes are the following: amok; koro; latah; piblokto, and windigo.
Cyclothymia	A variability of mood over days or weeks, cycling from positive to negative mood states. The variability is not as severe in amplitude or duration as to be classified as a major affective disorder.