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  • Lots of Neuro-Psych Terms
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  • Neuro/Psych Medications
  • Phobias
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  • Sleep Related Abbreviations
  • Sleep Related Terms
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  • Sample Reports - Psychiatry / Psychology
  • Sample Reports - Neurology

• Mental Health Related Terms

- S -

• Schizoid Personality Disorder

People with this disorder are often cold, distant, introverted and have an intense fear of intimacy and closeness. They are often so absorbed in their own thinking and daydreaming that they stay detached from others and reality.



• Schizophrenia

A complex mental health disorder involving a severe, chronic and disabling disturbance of the brain.



• School Based Services

School-based treatment and support interventions designed to identify emotional disturbances and/or assist parents, teachers, and counselors in developing comprehensive strategies for addressing these disturbances. School-based services also include counseling or other school-based programs for emotionally disturbed children, adolescents, and their families within the school, home and community environment.



• Screen memory

A consciously tolerable memory that serves as a cover for an associated memory that would be emotionally painful if recalled.



• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

A mood disorder characterized by depression related to a certain season of the year -- especially winter.



• Secondary gain

The external gain derived from any illness, such as personal attention and service, monetary gains, disability benefits, and release from unpleasant responsibilities. See also primary gain.



• Secondary process

In psychoanalytic theory, mental activity and thinking characteristic of the ego and influenced by the demands of the environment. Characterized by organization, systematization, intellectualization, and similar processes leading to logical thought and action in adult life. See also primary process; reality principle.



• Sedatives

A group of drugs used to produce sedation (calmness). Sedatives include sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs.



• Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIS)

A commonly prescribed class of drugs for treating depression. SSRIs work by stopping the reuptake of serotonin, an action that allows more serotonin to be available to be taken up by other nerves.



• Self-esteem

Feelings about one's self.



• Sensory extinction

Failure to report sensory stimuli from one region if another region is stimulated simultaneously, even though when the region in question is stimulated by itself, the stimulus is correctly reported.



• Separation anxiety disorder

A disorder with onset before the age of 18 consisting of inappropriate anxiety concerning separation from home or from persons to whom the child is attached. Among the symptoms that may be seen are unrealistic concern about harm befalling or loss of major attachment figures; refusal to go to school (school phobia) in order to stay at home and maintain contact with this figure; refusal to go to sleep unless close to this person; clinging; nightmares about the theme of separation; and development of physical symptoms or mood changes (apathy, depression) when separation occurs or is anticipated.



• Separation-individuation

Psychological awareness of one's separateness, described by Margaret Mahler as a phase in the mother-child relationship that follows the symbiotic stage. In the separation-individuation stage, the child begins to perceive himself or herself as distinct from the mother and develops a sense of individual identity and an image of the self as object. Mahler described four subphases of the process: differentiation, practicing, rapprochement (i.e., active approach toward the mother, replacing the relative obliviousness to her that prevailed during the practicing period), and separation-individuation proper (i.e., awareness of discrete identity, separateness, and individuality).



• Serious emotional disturbances

Diagnosable disorders in children and adolescents that severely disrupt their daily functioning in the home, school, or community. Serious emotional disturbances affect one in 10 young people. These disorders include depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity, anxiety disorders, conduct disorder, and eating disorders. Pursuant to section 1912(c) of the Public Health Service Act 'children with a serious emotional disturbance' are persons: (1) from birth up to age 18 and (2) who currently have, or at any time during the last year, had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria specified within DSM-III-R. Federal Register Volume 58 No. 96 published Thursday May 20, 1993 pages 29422 through 29425.



• Serotonin

A chemical that transmits nerve impulses in the brain (neurotransmitter), causes blood vessels to narrow at sites of bleeding and stimulates smooth muscle movement in the intestines. It is thought to be involved in controlling states of consciousness and mood.



• Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors

A commonly prescribed class of drugs for treating depression, which work by inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin and norepinephrine, an action that allows serotonin and norepinephrine to be available to be taken up by other nerves.



• Sexual abuse

Psychological or physical injury of a sexual nature, such as rape, incest, fondling and indecent exposure.



• Shaping

Reinforcement of responses in the patient's repertoire that increasingly approximate sought-after behavior.



• Sick role

An identity adopted by an individual as a 'patient' that specifies a set of expected behaviors, usually dependent.



• Sign

An objective manifestation of a pathological condition. Signs are observed by the examiner rather than reported by the affected individual.



• Sleep terror disorder

One of the parasomnias, characterized by panic and confusion when abruptly awakening from sleep. This usually begins with a scream and is accompanied by intense anxiety. The person is often confused and disoriented after awakening. No detailed dream is recalled, and there is amnesia for the episode. Sleep terrors typically occur during the first third of the major sleep episode.



• Social adaptation

The ability to live and express oneself according to society's restrictions and cultural demands.



• Social Phobia

An anxiety disorder in which a person has significant anxiety and discomfort related to a fear of being embarrassed, humiliated or scorned by others in social or performance situations.



• Somatization Disorder

A chronic disorder characterized by multiple, often long-standing physical complaints such as aches and pains.



• Spatial agnosia

Inability to recognize spatial relations; disordered spatial orientation.



• Specific Phobia

A type of phobia characterized by extreme fear of an object or situation that is not harmful under normal conditions.



• Split personality

A nonmedical term sometimes used to describe dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder) or, incorrectly, schizophrenia.



• Splitting

A mental mechanism in which the self or others are reviewed as all good or all bad, with failure to integrate the positive and negative qualities of self and others into cohesive images. Often the person alternately idealizes and devalues the same person.



• St John's wort

An herbal preparation from the Hypericum perforatum plant, sometimes used to treat depression.



• Stereotyped movements

Repetitive, seemingly driven, and nonfunctional motor behavior (e.g., hand shaking or waving, body rocking, head banging, mouthing of objects, self-biting, picking at skin or body orifices, hitting one's own body).



• Stigma

Negative attitudes about or toward those with mental illness, usually stemming from fear and misunderstanding, and resulting in disgrace, embarrassment or humiliation for those with mental illness.



• Stockholm syndrome

A kidnapping or terrorist hostage identifies with and has sympathy for his or her captors on whom he or she is dependent for survival.



• Stressor

Any life event or life change that may be associated temporally (and perhaps causally) with the onset, occurrence, or exacerbation of a mental disorder.



• Structural theory

Freud's model of the mental apparatus composed of id, ego, and superego.



• Stupor

A state of unresponsiveness with immobility and mutism



• Sublimation

A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which instinctual drives, consciously unacceptable, are diverted into personally and socially acceptable channels.



• Substitution

A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, by which an unattainable or unacceptable goal, emotion, or object is replaced by one that is more attainable or acceptable.



• Suggestibility

Uncritical compliance or acceptance of an idea, belief, or attribute.



• Suggestion

The process of influencing a patient to accept an idea, belief, or attitude suggested by the therapist.



• Suicidal Behavior

Actions taken by one who is considering or preparing to cause their own death.



• Suicidal Ideation

Thoughts of suicide or wanting to take one's life.



• Suicide

The intentional taking of one's life.



• Suicide Attempt

An act focused on taking one's life that is unsuccessful in causing death.



• Superego

In psychoanalytic theory, that part of the personality structure associated with ethics, standards, and self-criticism. It is formed by identification with important and esteemed persons in early life, particularly parents. The supposed or actual wishes of these significant persons are taken over as part of the child's own standards to help form the conscience.



• Supportive Therapy

Psychotherapy that focuses on the management and resolution of current difficulties and life decisions using the individual's strengths and available resources.



• Suppression

The conscious effort to control and conceal unacceptable impulses, thoughts, feelings, or acts.



• Symbiosis

A mutually reinforcing relationship between two persons who are dependent on each other; a normal characteristic of the relationship between the mother and infant child. See separation-individuation



• Symbolization

A general mechanism in all human thinking by which some mental representation comes to stand for some other thing, class of things, or attribute of something. This mechanism underlies dream formation and some symptoms, such as conversion reactions, obsessions, and compulsions. The link between the latent meaning of the symptom and the symbol is usually



• Symptom

A subjective manifestation of a pathological condition. Symptoms are reported by the affected individual rather than observed by the examiner.



• Symptom Breakthrough

The return of symptoms in the course of either the continuation or maintenance phase treatment.



• Synapse

The junction between two nerve cells (neurons).



• Syndrome

A grouping of signs and symptoms, based on their frequent co-occurrence, that may suggest a common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection.



• Synesthesia

A condition in which a sensory experience associated with one modality occurs when another modality is stimulated, for example, a sound produces the sensation of a particular color.



• Syntaxic mode

The mode of perception that forms whole, logical, coherent pictures of reality that can be validated by others.



• Systematic desensitization

A behavior therapy procedure widely used to modify behaviors associated with phobias. The procedure involves the construction of a hierarchy of anxiety-producing stimuli by the subject, and gradual presentation of the stimuli until they no longer produce anxiety.