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barbituates: A class of synthetic sedative drugs that are addictive and in large doses can cause death by almost completely relaxing the diaphragm.

baseline: The state of a phenomenon before the independent variable is manipulated, providing a standard against which the effects of the variable can be measured.

bedlam: A term that describes a scene or place involving a wild uproar or confusion. The term is derived from the scenes at Bethlehem Hospital in London, where unrestrained groups of mentally ill people interacted with each other.

behaviour genetics: The study of individual differences in behaviour that are attributable to differences in genetic makeup.

behaviour modification: A term sometimes used interchangeably with behaviour therapy.

behaviour rehearsal: A behaviour therapy technique in which a client practices new behaviour in the consulting room, often aided by demonstrations and role-play by the therapist.

behaviour therapy: A branch of psychotherapy narrowly conceived as the application of classical and operant conditioning to the alteration of clinical problems, but more broadly conceived as applied experimental psychology in a clinical context.

behavioural assessment: A sampling of ongoing cognitions, feelings, and overt behaviour in their situational context. Contrast with projective test and personality inventory.

behavioural medicine: An interdisciplinary field concerned with integrating knowledge from medicine and behavioural science to understand health and illness and to prevent as well as to treat psychophysiological disorders and other illnesses in which a person’s psyche plays a role. See also health psychology.

behavioural observation: A form of behavioural assessment that entails careful observation of a person’s overt behaviour in a particular situation.

behavioural pediatrics: A branch of behavioural medicine concerned with psychological aspects of childhood medical problems.

behaviourism: The school of psychology associated with John B. Watson, who proposed that observable behaviour, not consciousness, is the proper subject matter of psychology. Currently, many who consider themselves behaviourists do use mediational concepts, provided they are firmly anchored to observables.

bell and pad: A behaviour therapy technique for eliminating nocturnal enuresis; if the child wets, an electric circuit is closed and a bell sounds, waking the child.

best practices model: An approach to treatment that focuses on the most efficacious interventions as determined by empirical research.

bilateral ECT: Electroconvulsive therapy in which electrodes are placed on each side of the forehead and an electrical current is passed between them through both hemispheres of the brain.

binge eating disorder: Categorized in DSM-IV as a diagnosis in need of further study; includes recurrent episodes of unrestrained eating.

biofeedback: Procedures that provide an individual immediate information on minute changes in muscle activity, skin temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, and other somatic functions. It is assumed that voluntary control over these bodily processes can be achieved through this knowledge, thereby ameliorating to some extent certain psychophysiological disorders.

biological paradigm: A broad theoretical view that holds that mental disorders are caused by some aberrant somatic process or defect.

bipolar I disorder: A term applied to the disorder of people who experience episodes of both mania and depression or of mania alone.

bisexuality: Sexual desire or activity directed toward both men and women.

blocking: A disturbance associated with thought disorders in which a train of speech is interrupted by silence before an idea is fully expressed.

body dysmorphic disorder: A somatoform disorder marked by preoccupation with an imagined or exaggerated defect in appearance, for example, facial wrinkles or excess facial or body hair.

borderline personality disorder: People with a borderline personality are impulsive and unpredictable, with an uncertain self-image, intense and unstable social relationships, and extreme mood swings.

brain stem: The part of the brain connecting the spinal cord with the cerebrum. It contains the pons and medulla oblongata and functions as a neural relay station.

brief reactive psychosis: A disorder in which a person has a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms—incoherence, loose associations, delusions, hallucinations—immediately after a severely disturbing event; the symptoms last more than a few hours but no more than two weeks. See schizophreniform disorder.

brief therapy: Time-limited psychotherapy, usually ego-analytic in orientation and lasting no more than twenty-five sessions.

Briquet’s syndrome: See somatization disorder.

bulimia nervosa: A disorder characterized by episodic uncontrollable eating binges followed by purging either by vomiting or by taking laxatives.