Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Commitment

    A legal process for admitting a mentally ill person to a psychiatric treatment program. The legal definition and procedure vary from state to state although commitment usually requires a court or judicial procedure. Commitment may also be voluntary. A legal process for admission to a psychiatric hospital. An act of legally making someone enter a…

  • Cerebral arteriosclerosis

    Hardening of the arteries of the brain sometimes resulting in an organic mental dis- order that may be either primarily neurologic (e.g. convulsions, aphasia, chorea, athetosis, parkinsonism, etc.) or primarily psychologic (e.g. intellectual dulling, memory deficits, emotional lability, paranoid delusions, and confusion) or a combination of both. In dsm-iv-tr, it is termed vascular dementia. Arteriosclerosis…

  • Brigham, Amariah (1798-1849)

    One of the original thirteen founders of the American Psychiatric Association (1844) and the founder and first editor of its official journal, now the American Journal of Psychiatry.    

  • Brief reactive psychosis

    A DSM-III-R category for a psychosis lasting less than one week, with sudden onset after major stress. A disorder in which the person has a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms, such as incoherence, loosening of associations, delusions, and hallucinations, immediately after a severely disturbing event. The symptoms last more than a few hours, but for…

  • Bradykinetic syndrome

    Neurologic condition characterized by a generalized slowness of motor activity.  

  • Board-eligible psychiatrist

    A psychiatrist who is eligible to take the examinations of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; a psychiatrist who has completed an approved psychiatric residency training program.  

  • Bleuler, Eugene (1857-1939)

    Swiss psychiatrist whose investigations of dementia praecox led him to outline a modern concept of schizophrenia.  

  • Mixed

    Characterized by concomitant manic and depressive symptoms. Consisting of two or more intermingling substances.  

  • Bipolar 2

    A disorder characterized by mild hypomania generally not requiring treatment. The patients may also have depressive episodes.      

  • Bipolar 1

    A disorder characterized by moderate to severe hypomanic or manic episodes requiring treatment or hospitalization for the excited state. These patients generally have recurrent episodes of depression.  

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