a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p r s t u v w z
halfway house: A homelike residence for people who are considered
too disturbed to remain in their accustomed surroundings but do not require
the total care of a mental institution.
hallucinations: Perceptions in any sensory modality without relevant
and adequate external stimuli.
hallucinogen: A drug or chemical whose effects include hallucinations.
Hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline are often
called psychedelic.
harm reduction therapy: A form of treating addiction and other
types of disorders that focuses on reducing the harmful consequences to
some degree rather than striving initially for absolute abstinence.
hashish: The dried resin of the Cannabis plant, stronger in its
effects than the dried leaves and stems that constitute marijuana.
health psychology: A branch of psychology dealing with the role
of psychological factors in health and illness. See also behavioural
medicine.
hebephrenia: See disorganized schizophrenia.
help seeking: The act of obtaining assistance from informal sources
(i.e., friends or family members) or formal sources (i.e., mental health
professionals).
helplessness: A construct referring to the sense of having no control
over important events; considered by many theorists to play a central
role in anxiety and depression. See learned
helplessness theory.
hermaphrodite: A person with parts of both male and female genitalia.
heroin: An extremely addictive narcotic drug derived from morphine.
heroin antagonists: Drugs, such as naloxone, that prevent a heroin
user from experiencing any high.
heroin substitutes: Narcotics, such as methadone, that are cross-dependent
with heroin and thus replace it and the body’s craving for it.
heterosexual: A person who desires or engages in sexual relations
with members of the opposite sex.
high-risk method: A research technique involving the intensive
examination of people who have a high probability of later becoming abnormal.
histrionic personality disorder: This person is overly dramatic
and given to emotional excess, impatient with minor annoyances, immature,
dependent on others, and often sexually seductive without taking responsibility
for flirtations; formerly called hysterical personality.
homophobia: Fear of, or aversion to homosexuality.
homosexuality: Sexual desire or activity directed toward a member
of one’s own sex.
homovanillic acid: A major metabolite of dopamine.
hormone: A chemical substance produced by an endocrine gland and
released into the blood or lymph for the purpose of controlling the function
of a distant organ or organ system. Metabolism, growth, and development
of secondary sexual characteristics are among the functions so controlled.
humanistic and existential therapies: A generic term for insight
psychotherapies that emphasize the individual’s subjective experiences,
free will, and ever-present ability to decide on a new life course.
humanistic therapy: An insight therapy that emphasizes freedom
of choice, growth of human potential, the joys of being a human being,
and the importance of the patient’s phenomenology; sometimes called an
experiential therapy. See also existential therapy.
Huntington’s chorea: A fatal disease passed on by a single dominant
gene. Symptoms include spasmodic jerking of the limbs, psychotic behaviour,
and mental deterioration.
5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA): The major metabolite of serotonin.
hyperactivity: See attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
hyperkinesis: See attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
hypertension: Abnormally high arterial blood pressure, with or
without known organic causes. See essential
hypertension.
hyperventilation: Very rapid and deep breathing associated with
high levels of anxiety; causes the level of carbon dioxide in blood to
be lowered with possible loss of consciousness.
hypnosis: A trancelike state or behaviour resembling sleep, induced
by suggestion, characterized primarily by increased suggestibility.
hypoactive sexual desire disorder: The absence of or deficiency
in sexual fantasies and urges.
hypochondriasis: A somatoform disorder in which the person, misinterpreting
rather ordinary physical sensations, is preoccupied with fears of having
a serious disease and is not dissuaded by medical opinion. Difficult to
distinguish from somatization disorder.
hypomania: An above-normal elevation of mood, but not as extreme
as mania.
hypothalamus: A collection of nuclei and fibres in the lower part
of the diencephalon concerned with the regulation of many visceral processes,
such as metabolism, temperature, and water balance.
hysteria: A disorder known to the ancient Greeks in which a physical
incapacity—a paralysis, an anaesthesia, or an analgesia—is not due to
a physiological dysfunction, for example, glove anaesthesia; an older
term for conversion disorder. In the late nineteenth century dissociative
disorders were identified as such and considered hysterical states.
hysterical neurosis: The DSM-II category for dissociative and
somatoform disorders.
