Terminology

• Disorders of emotion:

  • Mood = sustained and pervasive emotional tone subjectively experienced and reported by the patient and observed by others e.g. depression, anger
  • Affect = Used to indicate the subjective and immediate short lived or transient experience of emotion. Also refers to facial expressions e.g. flat
• Disorders of mood:

  • Euthymic = normal range of mood (absence of abnormal or pathological moods)
  • Disorders of mood may be unpleasant or pleasant
• Unpleasant moods:

  • Dysphoric mood - unpleasant mood, general dissatisfaction
  • Irritable mood
  • Depression
  • Anhedonia - lack of ability to experience pleasure and loss of interest in all regular pleasurable activities
  • Fear
• Pleasant moods:

  • Euphoria - exaggerated feeling of well-being that is inappropriate to real events
  • Elation - elevated mood with feelings of joy, euphoria and intense self-satisfaction and optimism
  • Ecstasy - feeling of intense elation
• Disorders of perception:

  • Illusions - misinterpretation of real external sensory stimuli e.g. mistaking a rope for a snake
  • Hallucinations - false perception in the absence of any external stimulus
• Depersonalisation:

  • An experience where the self is felt to be unreal, detached from reality or different in some way. Depersonalisation can be triggered by tiredness, dissociative episodes or partial epileptic seizures
• Derealisation:

  • An experience where the person perceives the world around them to be unreal. The experience is linked to depersonalisation