| Term | Definition and Example |
| Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) | classifies psychological disorders by their symptoms |
| panic disorder | an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experriences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations. EX: smokers have a high chance of an attack because of nicotine |
| phobias | anxiety disorders marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation. EX: agoraphobia-fear of being out in public and acrophobia- fear of heights |
| obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) | an anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions). EX: tv show MONK |
| posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | an anxiety disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience. EX: SnakePit-main girl |
| conversion disorder | a somatoform disorder involving the actual loss of bodily function, due to excessive anxiety with no physiological cause. EX: someone may lose his voice when put in a position where he is afraid to speak. |
| hypochondriasis | a somatoform disorder involving persistent and excessive worry about developing a serous illness. EX: someone can have a family history of cancer and worry about getting cancer all their life |
| dissociative amnesia | a loss of memory for a traumatic event or period of time that is too painful for an individual to remember. EX: if someone witnesses a crime, they can black out the experience completly. |
| dissociative fugue | sometimes called the "traveling amnesiac," disorder in which a person moves away, assumes a new identity, and experiences amnesia related to the previous identity. EX:one woman goes missing and then found in a different state where she started a new life. |
| dissociative identity disorder (DID) | a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. EX: Trudy Chase |
| major depressive disorder | a mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or a medical condition, two or more weeks of significantly depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished interest or pleasure in most activities. |
| seasonal affective disorder | a mood disorder characterized by depression, lethargy, sleep disturbances, and craving for carbohydrates; generally occurs during the winter, when the amount of daylight is low; sometimes treated with exposure to bright lights. |
| bipolar disorder | a mood disorder in which the person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania. EX: a person can be extremly happy one moment and depressed the next. |
| learned helplessness | the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. EX: when animals and people experience no contol over repeated bad events, they often learn helplessness. |
| delusions | false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders. EX: a person could think they were a pro football player, but really they arn't. |
| hallucinations | false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus. EX: people who claim to be abducted by aliens recall being floated off their beds. |
| disorganized schizophrenia | a type of schizophrenia characterized primarily by disturbances of thought an inappropriate affect. EX: silly behavior or absence of emotions |
| catatonic schizophrenia | a psychotic disorder characterized by bizarre motor behavior. EX: sometimes takes the form of an immobile stupor and waxy flexibility. |
| undifferentiated schizophrenia | simple schizophrenia characterized by fragments of the symptoms of other different types of schixophrenia. EX: a person can be perfectly normal in every aspect of life except for one area of dysfunction. |
| personality disorders | psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behavior patterns that impair social functioning. EX: avoidant personality disorder and antisocial disorder |
| attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | a psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. EX: students who can't focus in the classroom. |
| autism | a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by definicient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind. EX:people have difficulty inferring others' thoughts and feelings. |
| anorexia nervosa | an eating disorder in which a normal-weight person diets and becomes significantly underweight, yet still, feeling fat, continues to starve. EX: girl who thinks she is fat, but really not, and starving herself to become even skinner. |
| bulimia nervosa | an eating disorder characterized by episodes of overeating, usually of high-calorie foods, followed by vomiting, laxative use, fasting, or excessive exercise. |
