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Mental Health Terms

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  • Case Mix

  • A measure of the mix of cases being treated by a particular health care provider that is intended to reflect the patients' different needs for resources. Case mix is generally established by estimating the relative frequency of various types of patients seen by the provider in question during a given time period and may be measured by factors such as diagnosis, severity of illness, utilization of services, and provider characteristics.

  • Catalepsy

  • Waxy flexibility--rigid maintenance of a body position over an extended period of time.

  • 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

  • Categorically Needy

  • Persons whose Medicaid eligibility is based on their family, age or disability status. Persons not falling into these categories cannot qualify, no matter how low their income. The Medicaid statute defines over 50 distinct population groups as potentially eligible, including those for which coverage is mandatory in all states and those that may be covered at a state's option. The scope of covered services that states provide to the categorically needy is much broader than the minimum scope of services for the other, optional groups receiving Medicaid benefits.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

  • Licensed physicians who specialize in the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in children and adolescents.

  • Chronic

  • A term used to describe long-term persistence. In some mental health disorders, chronic is specified as persisting for six months or longer.

  • Chronically Mentally Ill (CMI)

  • A term sometimes used to describe adults with serious and persistent mental illnesses. Currently, the term SMI, seriously mentally ill, is preferred when referring to the population. Individuals with psychiatric disabilities is also used frequently.

  • 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.

  • Clanging

  • A type of thinking in which the sound of a word, rather than its meaning, gives the direction to subsequent associations.

  • Claustrophobia

  • A fear of enclosed spaces.

  • Climacteric

  • Menopausal period in women. Sometimes used to refer to the corresponding age period in men. Also called involutional period.

  • Cognitive

  • Pertaining to thoughts or thinking. Cognitive disorders are disorders of thinking, for example, schizophrenia.

  • Cognitive Disorders

  • The class of disorders consisting of significant impairment of cognition or memory that represents a marked deterioration from a previous level of functioning.

  • Cognitive Therapy

  • A method of treating psychiatric disorders that focuses on revising a person's thinking, perceptions, attitudes and beliefs.

  • Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

  • A method of treating psychiatric disorders based on the idea that the way we think about the world and ourselves (our cognitions) affects our emotions and behavior.

  • 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.

  • Compartmentalization

  • A process of separating parts of the self from awareness of other parts and behaving as if one had separate sets of values.

  • 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.

  • Compulsive Overeating

  • A tendency toward binging on large amounts of food, followed by extreme guilt.

  • Conative

  • Pertains to one's basic strivings as expressed in behavior and actions

  • Concrete 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.

  • Conduct Disorders

  • Children with conduct disorder repeatedly violate the personal or property rights of others and the basic expectations of society. A diagnosis of conduct disorder is likely when these symptoms continue for 6 months or longer. Conduct disorder is known as a 'disruptive behavior disorder' because of its impact on children and their families, neighbors, and schools.

  • Confabulation

  • Fabrication of stories in response to questions about situations or events that are not recalled.

  • 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.

  • Consumer Run Services

  • Mental health treatment or support services that are provided by current or former mental health consumers. Includes social clubs, peer-support groups, and other peer-organized or consumer-run activities.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Couples Counseling and Family Therapy

  • These two similar approaches to therapy involve discussions and problem-solving sessions facilitated by a therapist-sometimes with the couple or entire family group, sometimes with individuals. Such therapy can help couples and family members improve their understanding of, and the way they respond to, one another. This type of therapy can resolve patterns of behavior that might lead to more severe mental illness. Family therapy can help educate the individuals about the nature of mental disorders and teach them skills to cope better with the effects of having a family member with a mental illness-such as how to deal with feelings of anger or guilt.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Cycling

  • The swings in mood in bipolar disorder from depression to mania.

  • Cyclothymia

  • A mood disorder of at least two years' duration viewed as a mild variant of bipolar disorder. Cyclothymia is characterized by numerous periods of mild depressive symptoms not sufficient in duration or severity to meet the criteria for major depression interspersed with periods of hypomania.


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