Category: R

A physician who is in board-approved graduate training to qualify as a specialist in a particular field of medicine, such as psychiatry. The American board of psychiatry and neurology (ABPN) requires 4 years of postgraduate training (after medical school) in an approved program to qualify to take the board examination in psychiatry. Someone who lives…

An alkaloid (of Rauwolfia serpentina) used to treat hypertension and formerly used to treat psychosis and other psychiatric disorders. A major tranquilizer. A drug that has catecholamine-depleting activity with respect to the adrenal chromaffin cells. A drug extracted from rauwolfia and used to lower high blood pressure and, occasionally, to relieve anxiety. It is administered…

Brand name for the antiparkinsonian drug ropinirole.  

A defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, that banishes unacceptable ideas, fantasies, affects, or impulses from consciousness or that keeps out of consciousness what has never been conscious. The repressed material may sometimes emerge in disguised form. Often confused with the conscious mechanism of suppression. The prevention of synthesis of certain enzymes when their reaction products are…

An impulse-control disorder defined as repeated destruction of body tissue without suicidal intent. Examples include severe scratching, skin cutting or burning, and self-hitting.  

In psychoanalytic theory, the impulse to reenact earlier emotional experiences. Considered by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) to be more fundamental than the pleasure principle. According to Jones, “The blind impulse to repeat earlier experiences and situations quite irrespective of any advantage that doing so might bring from a pleasure-pain point of view.” A Freudian concept pertaining…

Rapid eye movement sleep. This is the time of vivid dreaming. A phase of sleep during which the eyes move quickly (REM stands for “rapid eye movement), heartbeat and metabolism speed up, and toes and fingers twitch. Dreaming takes place during REM sleep. The acronym for rapid eye movement sleep, the sleep phase characterized by…

The time lag between sleep onset (Stage II sleep) and the first rem period minus any awake time, often shortened during an episode of major depression. Following the onset of sleep, the duration until the initial occurrence of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep varies.  

Former brand name for the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor drug galantamine. In 2005, in response to reports of prescribing errors (resulting in two deaths) arising from the name’s similarity to the diabetic drug amaryl, the manufacturer began marketing reminyl under a new product name, razadyne.