| acrophobia | The fear of high places.
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| agoraphobia | An anxiety disorder characterized by fear of being in any situation from which escape might be difficult and in which help would be unavailable in the event of panic symptoms.
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| antidepressant drugs | Drugs used to elevate mood in depressed patients.
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| anxiety | A state of fear that affects many areas of functioning and that involves three basic components: subjective reports of tension and dread, behavioral inhibitions and impairments, and certain physiological responses.
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| anxiety disorders | Disturbances characterized either by manifest anxiety or by behavior patterns aimed at warding off anxiety.
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| benzodiazepines | A group of anti-anxiety drugs that reduce anxiety by activating the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA.
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| claustrophobia | The fear of enclosed places.
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| compulsion | An action that a person feels compelled to repeat again and again in a stereotyped fashion, though he or she has no conscious desire to do so.
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| exposure | A behavioral treatment for anxiety in which the client is confronted (suddenly or gradually) with his or her feared stimulus.
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| flooding | A method of imagined exposure in which the person is confronted with the feared stimulus for long periods of time.
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| generalized anxiety disorder | A chronic state of diffuse anxiety characterized by excessive worry, over a period of at least six months, about several life circumstances (most often family, money, work, and health).
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| MAO inhibitors | The first important class of antidepressants. Although named on the assumption that they block the action of monoamine oxidase (MAO), their mechanism has not been established.
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| minor tranquilizers | Drugs taken to reduce anxiety or tension.
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| obsession | A thought or an image that keeps unwillingly intruding into a person's consciousness, though the person may consider it senseless or even unpleasant.
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| obsessive-compulsive disorder | Involuntary dwelling on an unwelcome thought (obsession) and/or involuntary repetition of an unnecessary action (compulsion).
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| panic attack | An attack of almost unbearable anxiety, beginning suddenly and unexpectedly and usually lasting several minutes, though possibly continuing for hours.
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| panic disorder | A syndrome characterized by chronic pain that is more severe or persistent than can be explained by medical causes.
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| phobia | An intense and persistent fear of an object or a situation that poses no real threat.
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| posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | A severe psychological reaction to intensely traumatic events, including assault, rape, natural disasters, and wartime combat. Victims may reexperience the traumatic event in recollections or in nightmares, show diminished responsiveness to their present surroundings, and suffer physical symptoms and intense irritability. Generally appearing shortly after the trauma, the symptoms usually disappear within six months, but some may last for years.
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| selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) | A class of antidepressants that work by blocking the reuptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
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| social phobia | A phobic disorder in which the person's anxiety is aroused by one or more social situations and is related to the person's fear of being humiliated or criticized. In childhood, this disorder typically takes the form of a paralyzing fear of strangers—peers as well as adults.
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| specific phobia | A phobic disorder with a particular stimulus, such as heights, enclosed places, injury, or a certain type of animal.
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| systematic desensitization | A behavior therapy technique in which the patient, while in a relaxed state, imagines his or her anxiety-provoking stimuli or is presented with the actual stimuli. Progressing from the least to the most feared situations, the patient learns to remain relaxed—a response that should carry over to real-life situations.
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| tricyclics | A class of drugs widely used to treat depression, which generally works by blocking the reuptake of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine by the presynaptic neuron.
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| withdrawal | Temporary psychological and physiological disturbances resulting from the body's attempt to readjust to the absence of a drug.
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