Psychology glossary

Alexithymia

Difficulty identifying and naming your own emotions. Not their absence — you feel them in the body, but lack the word that describes them.

Anhedonia

The loss of the ability to feel pleasure from things that used to produce it. One of the two core symptoms of depression.

Anticipatory anxietypre-event anxiety

Anxiety produced by waiting for an event rather than by the event itself — usually longer and more intense than what follows.

Anxious attachmentpreoccupied attachment, anxious-ambivalent

A relational pattern in which closeness is intensely wanted and simultaneously felt as unsafe — hence the constant need for reassurance and extreme sensitivity to signs of distance.

Assertivenessassertive communication

Saying what you need directly, without erasing yourself and without trampling the other person — the third option between submission and aggression.

Avoidant attachmentdismissive attachment, avoidant-dismissive

A pattern in which independence is overvalued and closeness feels like a threat to autonomy — usually not from an absence of needs, but from having learned that needs are not received.

Burnoutoccupational burnout, exhaustion syndrome

A three-part syndrome — exhaustion, cynical detachment and a drop in the sense of efficacy — classified by the WHO as an occupational phenomenon, not a disease.

Catastrophising

The automatic jump to the worst possible outcome, treated as though it were the most likely one. One of the core cognitive distortions in anxiety.

Codependencyrelational dependency

A pattern in which self-worth and a sense of purpose come to depend on caring for someone or keeping them stable — usually at the cost of your own needs.

Cognitive distortions

Systematically inaccurate thinking patterns that occur in everyone but multiply in anxiety and depression. Not errors of logic — shortcuts that misfire.

Complex traumacomplex PTSD, C-PTSD

The aftermath of repeated, prolonged exposure to traumatic events, usually relational and inescapable — recognised as a separate diagnosis in ICD-11.

Complicated griefprolonged grief disorder

Grief that stays at its initial intensity long after the loss and blocks functioning — not grief that is “too much”, but grief that does not move at all.

Compulsionsrituals, safety behaviours

Actions or mental rituals repeated to reduce the anxiety a thought produces — effective in the short term, and precisely why the problem persists in the long term.

Defence mechanismspsychological defences

Largely unconscious strategies by which the mind lowers the anxiety produced by something hard to accept — useful in small doses, costly when they become the default mode.

Dissociationdepersonalisation, derealisation

A disconnection from your own thoughts, feelings, body or surroundings — usually a protective mechanism, not a sign of madness.

Emotional neglectchildhood emotional neglect

Not what happened, but what did not — the absence of response to a child's emotional needs, in a home that may otherwise have been fine.

Emotional regulationself-regulation, affect regulation

The ability to influence which emotion you have, how intensely you feel it and how long it lasts — without suppressing it and without being swept away by it.

Emotional validation

Acknowledging that someone's emotion makes sense in their context — without agreeing with their conclusions and without trying to fix it.

Experiential avoidance

The effort not to feel something unpleasant — and the common mechanism sitting under anxiety, addiction, procrastination and emotional eating.

Flashbackreliving

Re-experiencing a past event as though it were happening now — not a memory you recall, but one you live through again.

Gaslightingreality manipulation

A pattern in which someone makes you systematically doubt your own memory, perception or judgement — until you no longer trust what you saw with your own eyes.

Hypervigilance

A state of permanent alertness in which the nervous system continuously scans the environment for danger — even when there is none.

Impostor syndromeimpostor phenomenon

The persistent belief that your success is undeserved and that someone will soon notice — resistant to evidence, because each piece of evidence is reread as luck.

Insightrealisation, awareness

The moment you understand why you do something — necessary in many cases, sufficient almost never.

Intrusive thoughtsunwanted thoughts, obsessions

Thoughts or images that arrive uninvited, often shocking or contrary to your values — universal as a phenomenon, problematic only in how hard you fight them.

Maladaptive perfectionismneurotic perfectionism, rigid standards

Not high standards themselves, but the inability to be satisfied when they are met — plus the belief that your worth depends on meeting them.

Mindfulnesspresent-moment awareness

Attention deliberately directed at present experience, without judging it — a trainable skill, not a state of calm.

Neuroplasticitybrain plasticity

The brain's capacity to change its structure and connections in response to experience — the biological basis for therapy being able to work at all.

Panic attackpanic episode, anxiety attack

A sudden surge of intense fear with strong physical symptoms, peaking in about ten minutes and passing on its own — though while it lasts it feels like it never will.

Personal boundariesboundaries, healthy limits

The line between what is your responsibility and what is someone else's — expressed through what you accept, what you decline and what you do when someone crosses it.

Projectionpsychological projection

Attributing to someone else a feeling or trait you cannot acknowledge in yourself — which then becomes, suddenly, highly visible in them.

Resistance in therapyambivalence about change

Everything that slows the therapeutic process — historically read as the patient's opposition, today understood more as a signal about pace, safety or the fit of the method.

Ruminationcircular thinking

Going over the same thoughts about a problem repeatedly without reaching a solution. The strongest maintaining factor in depression.

Self-esteemself-worth, self-regard

The overall judgement you make of your own worth — less stable and less useful than commonly assumed, which is why recent research has shifted toward self-compassion.

Self-sabotageself-handicapping

Behaviours that wreck something you want — usually not from lack of motivation, but because failing with an excuse hurts less than failing without one.

Somatisation

Psychological distress expressed through real physical symptoms — pain, tension, digestive trouble — with no medical cause that fully explains them.

Toxic shamechronic shame, internalised shame

The belief that the flaw is not in what you did but in what you are — which is why it is not repaired by apology and not extinguished by achievement.

Transferencetherapeutic transference

The replaying, in the relationship with the therapist, of an old relational pattern — disruptive if ignored, and one of the most useful sources of information if noticed.

Triggeractivating cue

A cue that reactivates a reaction learned from an earlier experience — a smell, a tone of voice, a time of day — at an intensity out of proportion to the present situation.

Window of toleranceoptimal arousal zone

The band of arousal in which you can feel and think at the same time — below it you numb out, above it you flood, and learning happens in neither.

These definitions are informational. They do not replace an assessment by a professional and are not enough for self-diagnosis.