MENTAL DISTURBANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mental disturbance mean? 

• MENTAL DISTURBANCE (noun)
  The noun MENTAL DISTURBANCE has 1 sense:

1. (psychiatry) a psychological disorder of thought or emotion; a more neutral term than mental illness

  Familiarity information: MENTAL DISTURBANCE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MENTAL DISTURBANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(psychiatry) a psychological disorder of thought or emotion; a more neutral term than mental illness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

disturbance; folie; mental disorder; mental disturbance; psychological disorder

Hypernyms ("mental disturbance" is a kind of...):

disorder; upset (a physical condition in which there is a disturbance of normal functioning)

Domain category:

psychiatry; psychological medicine; psychopathology (the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mental disturbance"):

Asperger's syndrome (a psychiatric disorder usually noted during early school years; characterized by impaired social relations and by repetitive patterns of behavior)

anxiety disorder (a cover term for a variety of mental disorders in which severe anxiety is a salient symptom)

psychosomatic disorder (a mental disorder that causes somatic symptoms)

aberration (a disorder in one's mental state)

conversion disorder; conversion hysteria; conversion reaction (a mental disorder characterized by the conversion of mental conflict into somatic forms (into paralysis or anesthesia having no apparent cause))

delirium (a usually brief state of excitement and mental confusion often accompanied by hallucinations)

delusional disorder (any mental disorder in which delusions play a significant role)

encopresis (involuntary defecation not attributable to physical defects or illness)

folie a deux (the simultaneous occurrence of symptoms of a mental disorder (as delusions) in two persons who are closely related (as siblings or man and wife))

personality disorder (inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behavior)

affective disorder; emotional disorder; emotional disturbance; major affective disorder (any mental disorder not caused by detectable organic abnormalities of the brain and in which a major disturbance of emotions is predominant)

schizothymia (resembling schizophrenia but remaining within the bounds of normality)

neurosis; neuroticism; psychoneurosis (a mental or personality disturbance not attributable to any known neurological or organic dysfunction)

dissociative disorder (dissociation so severe that the usually integrated functions of consciousness and perception of self break down)

 Context examples 

It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)