Health by Credo Reference: 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.

Anxiety is a reaction to a perceived threat, as is fear. Unlike fear, however, which is a reaction to a specific stimulus or event, anxiety is often more diffuse or of uncertain origin. In general, compared to fear, which occurs immediately after an event has transpired, anxiety is centered on a possible experience in the future.

Any of several psychological disorders of mood characterized usually by alternating episodes of depression and mania — called also manic depression, manic-depressive illness.

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.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) has been one of the most controversial diagnostic categories in the history of psychiatry.

The term ‘eating disorders’ covers 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.

(PTSD), 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.

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.

In an early attempt to define counseling, the Society of Counseling Psychology 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.”

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.

The term is usually applied to the study and synthesis of drugs used in the control of psychiatric illnesses, namely the antipsychotic, antianxiety, antidepressant, and antimanic medications.

The treatment of mental and emotional disorders using psychological methods.