Descriptionary

cognitive dissonance a clashing of thought pro­cesses that causes mental distress, as when someone who strongly believes murder is wrong kills someone. The person must maintain a positive image of him­self and therefore rationalizes or justifies his actions in order to rid himself of psychological distress. See consonance.

cognitive reprogramming replacing negative thoughts with positive thinking to change a person's perception of himself or the world around him.

comorbidity the suffering of two or more disorders simultaneously.

compensation an ego defense in which a person compensates for deficiencies by striving for superior­ity in other areas.

compulsion any ritualistic behavior, often senseless, that a person feels must be carried out.

compulsive personality a personality characterized by tenseness, rigidity, overconscientiousness, and an obsession for trivial details.

conduct disorder often evolving from oppositional defiance disorder and appearing in early adolescence, a range of behavior problems, including verbal and physical abuse, cruelty to animals, truancy, stealing, fire setting, vandalism, and more.

confabulation a fantasy, sometimes mixed with fact, that unconsciously becomes a subject's memory of an event and may be strongly influenced by the power of suggestion, as in false child abuse claims. A false memory.

conformity the altering of one's behavior to fit in and mimic that of one's peers, a result of peer pressure.

consensual validation determining if one person's perception of reality matches with another's.

consonance a harmony between one's thoughts and actions.

conversion the unconscious process through which stress is converted into a physical, physiological, or psychological symptom.

conversion reaction a neurotic reaction in which overwhelming anxiety manifests itself in a physical way through bodily paralysis or through uncontrol­lable emotional outburst.

coprolalia inappropriate but involuntary utterances of socially unacceptable words and sentences, as seen in some people with Tourette's syndrome.

coprophagia the eating of feces.

coprophilia abnormal interest in feces.

Cotard's syndrome a delusion in which one believes he does not exist or that parts of his body do not exist, seen in schizophrenia.

culture shock a combination of symptoms, includ­ing stress, anxiety, depression, alienation, and home­sickness, suffered for the first several months after moving to a foreign land.

cyberbullying the harassment, belittling, or threat­ening of someone via the Internet, e-mail, texting, blogs, social Web pages, etc.

dacnomania see mania.

decompensation the process of psychologic dete­rioration as a result of severe or long-term stress.

defense mechanism any thought or belief sys­tem employed to protect the ego from a lowering of esteem.

deindividualization the loss of social inhibitions and acting out of aggressions and impulses due to anonymity in a crowd or anonymity behind a mask or costume.

deja vu the haunting feeling that one has expe­rienced something or seen something before, even though there is no conscious memory of it.

delirium tremens alcohol poisoning characterized by hallucinations, trembling, and paranoia.

delusion a false belief about oneself or the world held despite evidence to the contrary.

delusional disorder a disorder characterized by frequent, irrational thoughts about being followed, poisoned, infected with a disease, lied to, or, some­times, being the subject of someone else's infatua­tion. The disorder, however, does not include out­landish delusions on the level of aliens removing part of one's brain or leprechauns living under one's bed.

dementia loss of intellectual faculties with accom­panying emotional disturbances due to organic brain disorder.

demonomania see mania.

denial an ego defense through which any harsh reality, such as the possibility of dying prematurely or that one is grossly overweight, is disbelieved or vigor­ously rejected.

dependent personality disorder a disorder charac­terized by passivity, helplessness, indecisiveness, and an overdependency on other people.

depersonalization a dissociative reaction character­ized by feelings of unreality, separation, isolation, and a loss of identity.

depression feelings of sadness, ranging from a tem­porary case of the blues, which is easily cured through pleasurable activities, to clinical depression, which requires medical intervention.

derailment going off one's conversational track into unrelated subjects.