Anticonvulsant Drugs  -  A class of drugs, such as carbamazepine (Tegretol) or valporic acid (Depakene), that has been proven an effective form of treatment of bipolar mood disorders. These drugs, which are characterized by such side effects as gastrointestinal distress, are usually prescribed to patients who have not responded well to lithium treatments.

Bipolar I  -  One of the bipolar disorders, bipolar I consists of individuals who have experienced at least one manic episode and who may or may not have experienced a depressive episode. (See Bipolar II.)

Bipolar II  -  One of the bipolar disorders that consists of individuals who have experienced at least one depressive episode, and have periods of hypomania instead of full-blown manic episodes. (See Bipolar I.)

Bipolar Mood Disorders  -  A type of mood disorder characterized by episodes of depression alternating with episodes of mania. Its subsets are bipolar I, bipolar II, and cyclothymia.

Chronic  -  Of long duration.

Cyclothymia  -  One of the bipolar disorders, cyclothymia is a chronic, but less severe, form of bipolar mood disorder, or the bipolar equivalent of dysthymia.

Depression  -  Refers to a symptom, mood, or clinical syndrome.

Depressive Mood Disorders  -  A class of mood disorders characterized by prolonged or frequent bouts of depression and consists of dysthymia and major depression as subsets.

Depressive Triad  -  A term coined by the psychologist Aaron Beck to describe the negative and demeaning views of the self, the world, and the future, that he believed central to the cognitive pattern exhibited by depressed individuals.

Dysphoria  -  An unpleasant mood.

Dysthymia  -  One of the depressive disorders, dysthymia is a mild form of depression characterized by a chronic course. It differs from major depression in terms of both severity and duration.

Explicit  -  That which is overtly expressed and part of the individual's consciousness and, therefore, part of his or her self-knowledge.

Expressed Emotion (EE)  -  A concept that describes negative and thus, damaging, behavior sometimes exhibited by the relatives of individuals suffering from a mental disorder. If the relatives display a lot of criticism and over-involvement toward the patient, then the family environment is said to be high in EE, and the patient therefore is said to be at a higher risk of relapse.

Group Cognitive Therapy  -  A form of therapy, involving treating more than one person at a time, that is based on the assumption that a patient's depression will be relieved if his or her irrational, distorted, and self-defeating beliefs are replaced with more rational and affirmative self-statements.

Hopelessness Theory  -  A theory that places great importance on the role that cognitive events play in the etiology of depression and proposes that depression is associated with the expectation that desirable outcomes will not occur and aversive, or undesirable, outcomes will occur regardless of any action taken by the individual.

Hypomania  -  Periods of increased energy that are less severe and shorter than manic episodes.

Iatrogenesis  -  A creation of a disorder by an attempt to treat it.

Implicit  -  That which may influence behavior or thought but does not itself enter into consciousness. Implicit measures therefore access the thoughts and beliefs of which the individual him- or herself may not be aware.

Interpersonal Therapy  -  A form of treatment of bipolar mood disorders that focuses on monitoring and handling the relationship between social interactions and behavior during episodes, and maintaining normal patterns of both sleep and work.

Light Therapy  -  A type of treatment proven to be an effective form of therapy for seasonal affective disorder, wherein the patient is exposed to a bright source of light on a daily basis.

Mania  -  A mood disturbance wherein the individual may possess such symptoms as a grandiose sense of self, an exaggerated feeling of physical and emotional well- being, elation, hyperactivity, and irritability.

Manic-Depressive Psychosis  -  A term coined by the psychologist Emil Kraeplin, used to describe a category within his classification system that was characterized by an episodic, recurrent course, with relatively good prognosis.

Monoamine Oxidase (MAO)  -  Enzymes that break down monoamines and therefore deplete the levels of certain neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin in the brain.

Monoamine Hypothesis  -  A biological theory stating that depression is caused by the underactivity in the brain of monoamines, such as dopamaine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors  -  A category of antidepressant drugs that inhibit the action of MAO's and therefore raise the levels of certain neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin in the brain.

Mood  -  A pervasive and sustained emotional response that may play an important role in influencing the individual's perception of events that occur in the world.

Mood Disorders  -  Mood disorders are a broad category of psychopathology characterized by prolonged and severe disruptions in mood, including depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. Categorical definitions depend on whether the individual's behavior is dominated by either clinical depression or mania.

Mutual Support Therapy  -  A form of treatment that builds communication and problem-solving skills, involving role-playing and non-directive discussions of social difficulties and unexpressed or unacknowledged negative emotions. Mutual support therapy has been shown to be effective in producing improvements in depressed individuals.

Predictive Study (longitudinal study)  -  A type of research design wherein subjects are studied over at an extended period of time (instead of at one point in time), thereby helping to identify and establish whether a hypothesized cause does in fact precede the effects of a disorder.

Proband  -  In behavior genetic studies, a term used to describe index cases of family members who have a disorder. The relatives of these probands are then examined for concordance rates.

Psychomotor Retardation  -  A decrease in, or slowing of, physical and emotional reactions. Frequently seen as a symptom of depression, psychomotor retardation is usually characterized by a slowing of movements and speech.

Reaction Formation  -  A type of defense mechanism wherein the mind turns a frightening thought or wish into its safer opposite.

Relapse  -  A regression after partial recovery from an illness, or more specifically, the reappearance of active symptoms of a disorder after a period of remission.

Remission  -  A lessening of intensity or severity of the symptoms of an illness, or more specifically, a stage of a disorder wherein previously present symptoms are now absent.

Schema  -  A general cognitive pattern or map that governs and guides the way in which an individual perceives, interprets, and subsequently interacts with his or her environment.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)  -  A type of mood disorder, either unipolar or bipolar, wherein there has been a regular temporal association between the presence of the individual's episodes and a particular time of the year. The most common form of seasonal affective disorder is characterized by a severe depression during the fall and winter apparently caused by or related to the reduced amounts of daylight.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)  -  A class of antidepressants that inhibit the reuptake of serotonin into the presynaptic nerve endings, thus promoting neurotransmission in serotonin pathways.

Theory of Learned Helplessness  -  Originally proposed by Martin Seligman, a behavioral theory proposing that, similar to the behavior of animals who had been exposed to inescapable shock in the lab, depressed individuals fail to realize the contingency between their behavior and outcomes in their environments. These individuals tend to believe that they are helpless--that they have no control over events that occur in their lives.

Theory of Multiplicity  -  A social-cultural theory proposing that the onset of a major depressive episode may be the result of the lost of an important social role, such as wife or mother, which therefore causes irreparable damage to the individual's concept of the self. Proponents of this theory thus state that it is healthy, and perhaps imperative, that individuals possess many different "selves" in order to have other domains to fall back on in the event that one role is lost.

Tricyclics  -  A class of antidepressants, including imipramine (Trofanil) and amitriptyline (Elaveil), that block the uptake of neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine and dopamine, from the synapse.

Unipolar Mood Disorder  -  (Also called major depressive disorder, major depression, clinical depression.) A type of depressive disorder characterized by episodes of severe depression and accompanied by additional symptoms such as fatigue, changes in appetite and weight, and sleeping difficulties, which lasts without remission for at least two weeks.