Common psychological terms

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Schizophrenia: ‫_اضطراب فكري يرافقه اوهام مرتبطة بالواقع يؤمن بها دون نظام معين‬
Schizophrenia is a disorder of a person’s thinking. It is not common but it is serious.
• The person may experience delusions: ‫( اوهام‬have beliefs that no-one else sees as
rational). Their talking may be erratic and very hard to follow.
• They may experience hallucinations : ‫( هلوسة‬they see or hear things that no-one
else can see or hear). The person believes these thoughts and experiences them as
rational and real. They can’t simply be talked out of them.
• The may also have ‘negative signs’ of schizophrenia, meaning they lack things
that were usual to them before.
• They may lack motivation:,‫ دافع‬seem to have limited emotional responses to
things they might usually have felt happy or sad about.
• They may feel emotionally detached from others. Often their life will be very
disorganized.

Bi-polar disorder. :‫المزاجية المتقلبة بين الفرح و الكتئاب دون سيطرة‬

Bi-polar disorder, also called manic-depressive disorder, is marked by cycles of mood
over weeks or months where the person is depressed for a time and then becomes high or
manic. They then will become depressed again. Sometimes there is a period of normal
mood in between the highs and lows, at other times there is not.
Mania :‫ النشاط الزائد‬is a period of high energy and activity, the person needs much less
sleep than normal and they will feel excessively happy. They may make decisions too
quickly and often make bad decisions at these times.

Depression.‫الكتئاب‬:
Depression is marked by feelings of sadness, emptiness, guilt, or worthlessness. The
person may be tearful a lot and has a lot less interest in things they used to enjoy. Their
appetite will change (eating more or eating less) and they will not sleep much or else
sleep a lot more than usual. They will have low motivation and little energy for doing
things, and will have difficulty concentrating. The risk of depression is greater in
families that have a history of people with depression.

Anxiety disorders.‫الخوف الشديد دون سيطرة‬:

There are a number of anxiety disorders but what they have in common is that the person
feels anxious : ‫متلهف او خائف‬or frightened of something. They are usually aware that their
anxiety is greater than the situation deserves but they are not able to reduce the anxiety
alone. Generally they will avoid the place or thing that causes the anxiety or they will
have strategies that help them cope in the short term but these strategies make life harder
or more complicated. Anxiety disorders are more common if the person comes from a
family where there were other people (usually parents) who were anxious.

Phobia. ‫الخوف الشديد بدون سيطرة من مكان او شيء‬

Phobia is an irrational fear of a thing, a situation, or a place. The person may either
remain in the situation but endure high levels of anxiety, or they will flee from the
situation, or else they will avoid it completely. Sometimes a bad event will have led to
the phobia developing but at other times there is no identifiable cause. Phobias are very
common. Common feared objects are snakes and other animals; situations such as high
places, or small places such as elevators; and social situations such as meeting people in a
group or for the first time. A specific form of phobia is one where the person fears being
in public places (called agoraphobia) and so finds it very hard to go out of their home.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder ‫الفكار الكمالية المسيطرة و المقيدة‬:Obsessive-compulsive

disorder causes anxious thoughts that the person cannot put out of their mind. They feel
compelled ‫مقيدة‬: (as if they have no choice) to carry out actions that reduce their anxiety.
For example, someone might have continual thoughts about germs and feel that they
have to clean their house or wash their hands again and again. Each time they wash their
hands they are relieved of anxiety for a short time, but the thoughts and anxiety soon
return so they have to clean their hands again.
A particular type of obsessive compulsive disorder is perfectionism :‫ الكمال‬which is when
the person has thoughts about not being good enough and continually tries to improve
some aspect of their lives but it feels to them that it is never good enough so they keep
trying to improve. For example a student may keep trying to improve an essay but never
feel it is good enough so they work on it again and again but they do not get it submitted.

Acute stress reaction and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): :

‫التوتر المزمن جراء أحداث حادة سابقة‬
Acute stress reaction ‫رد فعل‬: will often occur when a person has been in a situation where
they were very frightened and where they saw or experienced something terrible. Their
sleep may be disturbed by intrusive thoughts and images of the event, or nightmares;
they may be emotional (either tearful or angry, or both); and they may isolate themselves
from others. They may also have flashbacks ‫ استعادة ذ كرى‬to the event when they feel they
are re-experiencing what happened as a visual image or as a feeling. During the early
stages after an event they may also have en exaggerated startle ‫ترقب مبالغ فيه‬: response
where they startle or jump at small noises or frights. They may also be irritable, getting
angry very easily. Over the days and weeks following the event most people will
gradually recover, although specific reminders, such as the anniversary of the event, may
cause some symptoms to come back temporarily.

If the symptoms of acute stress reaction do not go away after a month or more the person
can be regarded as having symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder ‫التوتر و‬
‫الضطرابات‬:. The symptoms are the same but are longer lasting and so can be harder to
treat. In addition to the symptoms for acute stress reaction they may also describe
emotional numbing : ‫عدم المبالة‬, which means that they have trouble recognizing or
experiencing any emotions at all. They may also have periods of dissociation ‫العيش بعالم‬
‫خيالي‬: which means that they ‘switch off’ or detach themselves from present reality. This
can affect their relationships with people they would normally be close to.

Grief. ‫حزن وأسى‬:

Acute stress reaction and PTSD are not the same as grief. Grief is the normal reaction
people have when they lose someone close to them through death or when a very
significant part of their lives, such as a home, is destroyed. Grief can become a
psychological problem if it goes on too long or if seriously affects the person’s
relationships with others.