| avoidant disorder of childhood | A mental disorder occurring in childhood or adolescence characterised by an excessive shrinking away from contact with people who are unfamiliar. Synonym: avoidant disorder of adolescence. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| behaviour disorder | General term used to denote mental illness or psychological dysfunction, specifically those mental, emotional, or behavioural subclasses for which organic correlates do not exist. See: antisocial personality disorder. (05 Mar 2000) |
| bipolar disorder | <psychiatry> Perviously referred to as manic depressive illness, characterised by the occurrence of mania (euphoria) alternating with bouts of depression. (19 Jan 1998) |
| body dysmorphic disorder | A psychosomatic (somatoform) disorder characterised by preoccupation with some imagined defect in appearance in a normal-appearing person. Synonym: dysmorphophobia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| borderline personality disorder | <psychiatry> An individual who is impulsive and unpredictable with fluctuations in intense moods. Occasionally psychotic. (27 Sep 1997) |
| major mood disorder | See: bipolar disorder, affective psychosis, endogenous depression, dysthymia. (05 Mar 2000) |
| panic disorder | Symptoms of panic attack usually begin abruptly and include rapid heartbeat, chest sensations, shortness of breath, dizziness, tingling, and anxiousness. Treatments include several medications and psychotherapy. (12 Dec 1998) |
| Gaucher disorder | <disease> A chronic congenital disease of lipid metabolism caused by a deficiency of the beta-glucocerebrosidase enzyme. The defect is most common in Ashkenazi Jews. Clinical features are hepatosplenomegaly (enlargement of liver and spleen) and in severe early onset forms of the disease, with neurological dysfunction. Inheritance: autosomal recessive. (27 Sep 1997) |
| gene disorder | Hereditary disorder caused by a mutant allele of a single gene (e.g., Duchenne muscular dystrophy, retinoblastoma, sickle cell disease). Compare polygenic disorders. (05 Mar 2000) |
| manic-depressive disorder | An obsolete term for one of the mood disorders; i.e., bipolar disorder, depression; affective psychosis, affective disorder, bipolar disorder, and endogenous depression. (05 Mar 2000) |
| generalised anxiety disorder | Chronic, repeated episodes of anxiety reactions; a psychological disorder in which anxiety or morbid fear and dread accompanied by autonomic changes are prominent features. See: anxiety. (05 Mar 2000) |
| reactive attachment disorder | Markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate social relatedness that begins before age 5 and is associated with grossly pathological child care. The child may persistently fail to initiate and respond to social interactions in a developmentally appropriate way (inhibited type) or there may be a pattern of diffuse attachments with nondiscriminate sociability (disinhibited type). (12 Dec 1998) |
| paranoid disorder | A false belief, seen most often in psychosis (for example schizophrenia). (27 Sep 1997) |
| paranoid personality disorder | A personality disorder characterised by the avoidance of accepting deserved blame and an unwarranted view of others as malevolent. The latter is expressed as suspiciousness, hypersensitivity, and mistrust. (12 Dec 1998) |
| passive-aggressive personality disorder | A personality disorder characterised by an indirect resistance to demands for adequate social and occupational performance; anger and opposition to authority and the expectations of others that is expressed covertly by obstructionism, procrastination, stubbornness, dawdling, forgetfulness, and intentional inefficiency. (12 Dec 1998) |