Search Engines & Resources for Medical Transcription
MT911 - Your Transcription Helpline Search Engines & Resources for Medical Transcription
Subscribe to
Email Updates
Name:
Email:
Search:
|

Mental Health Terms

- R -

  • Rage

  • A state of intense emotional experience associated with uncontrolled destructive behavior.

  • Rationalization

  • A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which an individual attempts to justify or make consciously tolerable by plausible means, feelings or behavior that otherwise would be intolerable. Not to be confused with conscious evasion or dissimulation. See also projection.

  • Reaction formation

  • A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which a person adopts affects, ideas, and behaviors that are the opposites of impulses harbored either consciously or unconsciously. For example, excessive moral zeal may be a reaction to strong but repressed asocial impulses.

  • Reality principle

  • In psychoanalytic theory, the concept that the pleasure principle, which represents the claims of instinctual wishes, is normally modified by the demands and requirements of the external world. In fact, the reality principle may still work on behalf of the pleasure principle but reflects compromises and allows for the postponement of gratification to a more appropriate time. The reality principle usually becomes more prominent in the course of development but may be weak in certain psychiatric illnesses and undergo strengthening during treatment. reality testing The ability to evaluate the external world objectively and to differentiate adequately between it and the internal world. Falsification of reality, as with massive denial or projection, indicates a severe disturbance of ego functioning and/or of the perceptual and memory processes upon which it is partly based.

  • Reciprocal inhibition

  • In behavior therapy, the hypothesis that if anxiety-provoking stimuli occur simultaneously with the inhibition of anxiety (e.g., relaxation), the bond between those stimuli and the anxiety will be weakened.

  • Regression

  • Partial or symbolic return to earlier patterns of reacting or thinking. Manifested in a wide variety of circumstances such as normal sleep, play, physical illness, and in many mental disorders.

  • Reinforcement

  • The strengthening of a response by reward or avoidance of punishment. This process is central in operant conditioning.

  • Relapse

  • The recurrence of a disease after apparent recovery, or the return of symptoms after remission.

  • Remission

  • A return to the asymptomatic state, usually accompanied by a return to the usual level of functioning.

  • Repetition compulsion

  • In psychoanalytic theory, the impulse to reenact earlier emotional experiences. Considered by Freud to be more fundamental than the pleasure principle. Defined by Jones in the following way: 'The blind impulse to repeat earlier experiences and situations quite irrespective of any advantage that doing so might bring from a pleasure-pain point of view.

  • Repression

  • A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, that banishes unacceptable ideas, fantasies, affects, or impulses from consciousness or that keeps out of consciousness what has never been conscious. Although not subject to voluntary recall, the repressed material may emerge in disguised form. Often confused with the conscious mechanism of suppression. resistance One's conscious or unconscious psychological defense against bringing repressed (unconscious) thoughts into conscious awareness.

  • Residual phase

  • The phase of an illness that occurs after remission of the florid symptoms or the full syndrome.

  • Respite care

  • A service that provides a break for parents who have a child with a serious emotional disturbance. Trained parents or counselors take care of the child for a brief period of time to give families relief from the strain of caring for the child. This type of care can be provided in the home or in another location. Some parents may need this help every week.

  • Respite Residential Services

  • Provision of periodic relief to the usual family members and friends who care for the clients/patients.

  • Respondent conditioning (CLASSICAL CONDITIONING, PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING)

  • Elicitation of a response by a stimulus that normally does not elicit that response. The response is one that is mediated primarily by the autonomic nervous system (such as salivation or a change in heart rate). A previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly presented just before an unconditioned stimulus that normally elicits that response. When the response subsequently occurs in the presence of the previously neutral stimulus, it is called a conditioned response, and the previously neutral stimulus, a conditioned stimulus.


Tell a Friend

Mental Health Related Terms


Home | Search | Sitemap | Tell a Friend | Contact Us | Disclaimer
MTHelpLine | MTSetup | MTDictionary | MTSamples | MedicalTranscriptionSamples
Designed for IE.
Best viewed in 1024 x 768