Dementia
Mutism
Abstention from speech or refusal to speak. Common in catatonia.
Negativism
In catatonia, complete opposition and resistance to suggestion.
Neologism
In schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, the invention of new "words" which are meaningful to the patient but meaningless to everyone else. To form the neologisms, the patient fuses together and combines syllables or other elements from existing words.
Obsession
Recurring and intrusive images, thoughts, ideas, or wishes that dominate and exclude other cognitions. The patient often finds the contents of his obsessions unacceptable or even repulsive and actively resists them, but to no avail. Common in schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Obsessions in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Panic Attack
A form of severe anxiety attack accompanied by a sense of losing control and of an impending and imminent life-threatening danger (where there is none). Physiological markers of panic attacks include palpitation, sweating, tachycardia (rapid heart beats), dyspnea or apnoea (chest tightening and difficulties breathing), hyperventilation, light-headedness or dizziness, nausea, and peripheral paresthesias (an abnormal sensation of burning, prickling, tingling, or tickling). In normal people it is a reaction to sustained and extreme stress. Common in many mental health disorders.
Sudden, overpowering feelings of imminent threat and apprehension, bordering on fear and terror. There usually is no external cause for alarm (the attacks are uncued or unexpected, with no situational trigger) - though some panic attacks are situationally-bound (reactive) and follow exposure to "cues" (potentially or actually dangerous events or circumstances). Most patients display a mixture of both types of attacks (they are situationally predisposed).
Bodily manifestations include shortness of breath, sweating, pounding heart and increased pulse as well as palpitations, chest pain, overall discomfort, and choking. Sufferers often describe their experience as being smothered or suffocated. They are afraid that they may be going crazy or about to lose control.
Misdiagnosing General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) as Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Paranoia
Psychotic grandiose and persecutory delusions. Paranoids are characterized by a paranoid style: they are rigid, sullen, suspicious, hypervigilant, hypersensitive, envious, guarded, resentful, humorless, and litigious. Paranoids often suffer from paranoid ideation - they believe (though not firmly) that they are being stalked or followed, plotted against, or maliciously slandered. They constantly gather information to prove their "case" that they are the objects of conspiracies against them. Paranoia is not the same as Paranoid Schizophrenia, which is a subtype of schizophrenia.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Perseveration
Repeating the same gesture, behavior, concept, idea, phrase, or word in speech. Common in schizophrenia, organic mental disorders, and psychotic disorders.
Phobia
Dread of a particular object or situation, acknowledged by the patient to be irrational or excessive. Leads to all-pervasive avoidance behavior (attempts to avoid the feared object or situation). A persistent, unfounded, and irrational fear or dread of one or more classes of objects, activities, situations, or locations (the phobic stimuli) and the resulting overwhelming and compulsive desire to avoid them. See: Anxiety.
Posturing
Assuming and remaining in abnormal and contorted bodily positions for prolonged periods of time. Typical of catatonic states.
Poverty of Content (of Speech)
Persistently vague, overly abstract or concrete, repetitive, or stereotyped speech.
Poverty of Speech
Reactive, non-spontaneous, extremely brief, intermittent, and halting speech. Such patients often remain silent for days on end unless and until spoken to.
Pressure of Speech
Rapid, condensed, unstoppable and "driven" speech. The patient dominates the conversation, speaks loudly and emphatically, ignores attempted interruptions, and doesn't care if anyone is listening or responding to him or her. Seen in manic states, psychotic or organic mental disorders, and conditions associated with stress. See: Flight of Ideas.
Psychomotor Agitation
Mounting internal tension associated with excessive, non-productive (not goal orientated), and repeated motor activity (hand wringing, fidgeting, and similar gestures). Hyperactivity and motor restlessness which co-occur with anxiety and irritability.
Psychomotor Retardation
Visible slowing of speech or movements or both. Usually affects the entire range of performance (entire repertory). Typically involves poverty of speech, delayed response time (subjects answer questions after an inordinately long silence), monotonous and flat voice tone, and constant feelings of overwhelming fatigue.
Psychosis
Chaotic thinking that is the result of a severely impaired reality test ( the patient cannot tell inner fantasy from outside reality). Some psychotic states are short-lived and transient (microepisodes). These last from a few hours to a few days and are sometimes reactions to stress. Persistent psychoses are a fixture of the patient's mental life and manifest for months or years.
Psychotics are fully aware of events and people "out there". They cannot, however separate data and experiences originating in the outside world from information generated by internal mental processes. They confuse the external universe with their inner emotions, cognitions, preconceptions, fears, expectations, and representations.
Consequently, psychotics have a distorted view of reality and are not rational. No amount of objective evidence can cause them to doubt or reject their hypotheses and convictions. Full-fledged psychosis involves complex and ever more bizarre delusions and the unwillingness to confront and consider contrary data and information (preoccupation with the subjective rather than the objective). Thought becomes utterly disorganized and fantastic.
There is a thin line separating nonpsychotic from psychotic perception and ideation. On this spectrum we also find the schizotypal personality disorder.
Narcissism, Psychosis, and Delusions
Reality Sense
The way one thinks about, perceives, and feels reality.
Reality Testing
Comparing one's reality sense and one's hypotheses about the way things are and how things operate to objective, external cues from the environment.
Schneiderian First-rank Symptoms
A list of symptoms compiled by Kurt Schneider, a German psychiatrist, in 1957 and indicative of the presence of schizophrenia. Includes:
Auditory hallucinations
Hearing conversations between a few imaginary "interlocutors", or one's thoughts spoken out loud, or a running background commentary on one's actions and thoughts.
Somatic hallucinations
Experiencing imagined sexual acts couple with delusions attributed to forces, "energy", or hypnotic suggestion.
Thought withdrawal
The delusion that one's thoughts are taken over and controlled by others and then "drained" from one's brain.
Thought insertion
The delusion that thoughts are being implanted or inserted into one's mind involuntarily.
Thought broadcasting
The delusion that everyone can read one's mind, as though one's thoughts were being broadcast.
Delusional perception
Attaching unusual meanings and significance to genuine perceptions, usually with some kind of (paranoid or narcissistic) self-reference.
Delusion of control
The delusion that one's acts, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and impulses are directed or influenced by other people.
Stereotyping or Stereotyped movement (or motion)
Repetitive, urgent, compulsive, purposeless, and non-functional movements, such as head banging, waving, rocking, biting, or picking at one's nose or skin. Common in catatonia, amphetamine poisoning, and schizophrenia.
Stupor
Restricted and constricted consciousness akin in some respects to coma. Activity, both mental and physical, is limited. Some patients in stupor are unresponsive and seem to be unaware of the environment. Others sit motionless and frozen but are clearly cognizant of their surroundings. Often the result of an organic impairment. Common in catatonia, schizophrenia, and extreme depressive states.
Tangentiality
Inability or unwillingness to focus on an idea, issue, question, or theme of conversation. The patient "takes off on a tangent" and hops from one topic to another in accordance with his own coherent inner agenda, frequently changing subjects, and ignoring any attempts to restore "discipline" to the communication. Often co-occurs with speech derailment. As distinct from loosening of associations, tangential thinking and speech are coherent and logical but they seek to evade the issue, problem, question, or theme raised by the other interlocutor.
Thought Broadcasting, Though Insertion, Thought Withdrawal
See: Schneiderian First-rank Symptoms
Thought Disorder
A consistent disturbance that affects the process or content of thinking, the use of language, and, consequently, the ability to communicate effectively. An all-pervasive failure to observe semantic, logical, or even syntactical rules and forms. A fundamental feature of schizophrenia.
Vegetative Signs
A set of signs in depression which includes loss of appetite, sleep disorder, loss of sexual drive, loss of weight, and constipation. May also indicate an eating disorder.
Read more about eating disorders - click on these links:
http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/article.cfm/eating_disorders_and_personality
http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq65.html
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Symptoms are the patient's complaints. They are highly subjective and amenable to suggestion and to alterations in the patient's mood and other mental processes.
