Health in Credo: Mental Health

Disease characterized by impaired control over the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

Lack of desire to eat, or refusal to eat, especially the pathological condition of anorexia nervosa, most often found in adolescent girls and young women.

Anticipatory tension or vague dread persisting in the absence of a specific threat. In contrast to fear, which is a realistic reaction to actual danger, anxiety is generally related to an unconscious threat. Anxiety is an unpleasant affect accompanied by a myriad of physiologic manifestations (quickened heart beat, gastrointestinal distress, ‘butterflies’ and diarrhoea, a tightening in the chest, tremulousness, sweating, muscle tension) as well as psychological manifestations (a sense of dread and impending danger, of helplessness, of insecurity and uncertainty).

Bipolar disorder, formerly manic-depressive disorder or manic-depression, severe mental disorder involving manic episodes that are usually accompanied by episodes of depression. Any of several psychological disorders of mood characterized usually by alternating episodes of depression and mania.

Disorder best defined as a collection of psychological symptoms including sadness; unhappy thoughts characterized by worry, poor self-image, self-blame, guilt and low self-confidence; downbeat views on the future; and a feeling of hopelessness. As a diagnosis, depression is part of a cycle or syndrome (also called a depressive illness) which used to be called melancholia because of its association with low spirits. Depression is commonly used as a definition of an emotion like despondency, dejection, or gloom.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) has been one of the most controversial diagnostic categories in the history of psychiatry. According to conventional definitions, it occurs when an individual acquires separate, multiple identities, some of which may be amnesic for others and some of which may have full awareness of the others.

The eating disorders are characterised by overvalued beliefs about the importance of body weight and shape. The term ‘eating disorders’ covers many different issues including obesity, feeding problems in childhood, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa.

The term mental illness refers to severe emotional or thought disturbance that negatively affects one’s health and safety.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a chronic, disabling anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive, persistent thoughts and repetitive behaviors. While obsessions and compulsions are fairly common mental phenomena that most people have experienced, when they become severe enough to interfere with one's functioning it may be OCD. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is defined in the DSM-IV as the presence of either obsessions or compulsions (or both). Obsessions are defined as recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress.

Mental disorder that follows an occurrence of extreme psychological stress, such as that encountered in war or resulting from violence, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, or serious accident.

In psychiatry, a broad category of mental disorder encompassing the most serious emotional disturbances, often rendering the individual incapable of staying in contact with reality.

Group of severe mental disorders characterized by reality distortions resulting in unusual thought patterns and behaviors.

Self-destruction as an intentional act.

Abnormal psychology is the area of psychological investigation concerned with understanding the nature of individual pathologies of the mind, mood, and behavior.

Efforts to categorize and describe “madness” date back to ancient Greece; however, interest in psychiatric categorization has intensified since the turn of the twentieth century.

Any of a variety of testing procedures for measuring psychological traits and behavior, or for studying some specialized aspect of ability. Several forms of testing have arisen from the need to understand personality and its relationship to psychological disorders.

Science or study of the thought processes and behavior of humans and other animals in their interaction with the environment. Psychologists study processes of sense perception, thinking, learning, cognition, emotions and motivations, personality, abnormal behavior, interactions between individuals, and interactions with the environment.

Stress is most commonly thought of as psychological tension (“I feel stressed”); this description is partly accurate.

This entry reviews the definition and history of psychological trauma, some possible effects of psychological trauma (including posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] and resilience), treatment, and types of psychological trauma, including collective trauma, national trauma, intergenerational trauma, and international trauma.

Any of a wide range of drugs used to treat psychic depression. They are given to elevate mood, counter suicidal thoughts, and increase the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

In art therapy, work with images is at the core of treatment. “‘ I could draw it,’ a dreamer often says to us, ‘but I don’t know how to say it.’” So said Sigmund Freud (1963, p. 90). Considering that Freud regarded dreams to be “the royal road to the unconscious,” it is surprising that he did not ask his patients to do so.

In an early attempt to define counseling, the Society of Counseling Psychology, which is Division 17 of the American Psychological Association, described counseling as a process of “helping individuals toward overcoming obstacles to personal growth, wherever these may be encountered, and toward achieving optimum development of personal resources.” Generally speaking, counseling represents a set of problem-solving actions—developing a working relationship, assessing the problem, initiating behavior change, maintaining change, and evaluating the outcomes.

In psychiatry, treatment of mood disorders by means of electricity; the broader term "shock therapy" also includes the use of chemical agents.

A means of changing behavior and emotional patterns, based on the premise that much of human behavior and feeling involves the individual's adaptation and response to other people.

Branch of medicine that concerns the diagnosis and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, including major depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety.

In its broadest sense, the study of all pharmacological agents that affect mental and emotional functions. The term is usually applied more specifically to the study and synthesis of drugs used in the control of psychiatric illnesses, namely the antipsychotic, antianxiety, antidepressant, and antimanic medications.

Treatment of mental and emotional disorders using psychological methods. Psychotherapy, thus, does not include physiological interventions.