864 articles
Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale
The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is a 30-item clinician-rated interview measuring schizophrenia symptom severity, widely used as a gold standard and a primary endpoint in drug trials.
Positive psychotherapy
Positive psychotherapy is a strength-based therapy for depression that builds positive emotions, character strengths, and meaning, introduced by Martin Seligman, Tayyab Rashid, and Acacia Parks in 2006.
Possession trance disorder
Possession trance disorder, ICD-11 code 6B63, is a dissociative disorder in which a possessing spirit or deity involuntarily replaces a person's identity, causing distress; diagnosis excludes cultural or religious practices.
Post-acute-withdrawal syndrome
Post-acute-withdrawal syndrome (PAWS), also called protracted withdrawal syndrome, is persistent withdrawal symptoms lasting months to years after acute withdrawal, mainly from alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants; it has no DSM-5 diagnostic criteria.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): trauma-related mental disorder with re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal; 3.9% lifetime prevalence; treated with PE, CPT, EMDR, and SSRIs.
Postpartum depression
Postpartum depression, also called postnatal depression, is depression starting within 12 months of childbirth that affects about one in eight new mothers and needs treatment.
Postpartum psychosis
Postpartum psychosis (puerperal psychosis): rare psychiatric emergency after childbirth, 1–2 per 1,000 deliveries, sudden onset within 2 weeks, hallucinations, delusions, mania; strongly linked to bipolar disorder; lithium first-line.
Poto and Cabengo
Poto and Cabengo: names Grace and Virginia Kennedy, San Diego identical twins born 1970, gave each other in a private language used until about age eight; also Jean-Pierre Gorin's 1979 documentary about them.
Poverty of speech
Poverty of speech (alogia, ICD-11 MB23.K) is a negative symptom of schizophrenia: reduced spontaneous speech or content, distinguished from aphasia and mutism, rated by SANS and measurable by speech analysis.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), formerly late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, is a severe DSM-5 cyclic mood disorder affecting about 5% of reproductive-aged women, treated first-line with SSRIs.
Prepubertal anorexia nervosa
Prepubertal anorexia nervosa, also called early-onset anorexia nervosa, is a rare eating disorder of prepubescent children, defined by onset before puberty and generally before age 13.
Pressured speech
Pressured speech (pressure of speech; ICD-11 MB23.L) is rapid, loud, urgent speech that is hard to interrupt, a cardinal sign of manic episodes in bipolar disorder, also seen in schizophrenia and anxiety.
Primal therapy
Primal therapy, also known as primal scream therapy, is a psychotherapy developed by American psychologist Arthur Janov, who introduced it in 1970 with his book The Primal Scream.
Primary progressive aphasia
Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative language-led dementia with three variants (nonfluent/agrammatic, semantic, logopenic), prevalence about 3 per 100,000, variant-linked survival of 7 to 12 years, and growing speech-therapy and TMS treatment evidence.
Problem gambling
Problem gambling is gambling behavior causing harm to the gambler or others, from risky play to gambling disorder (DSM-5, ICD-11). WHO estimates 1.2% of adults have the disorder; harmful gamblers generate about 60% of losses.
Problem Video Game Playing Questionnaire
Problem Video Game Playing Questionnaire (PVP, Problem Video Game Playing Scale), a nine-item yes/no self-report screen for problematic gaming by Tejeiro Salguero and Bersabé Morán, validated on Spanish adolescents, scored problematic at six or more positive answers.
Problem-solving skills training
Problem-solving skills training (PSST) is a structured cognitive-behavioral method, introduced by Alan Kazdin in 1987, that teaches clients to solve personal and interpersonal problems step by step.
Problem-solving therapy
Problem-solving therapy (PST) is a cognitive-behavioral intervention that trains clients to define problems, generate and evaluate solutions, and cope with stressors, best established as a treatment for depression in 4 to 12 sessions.
Progressive muscle relaxation
Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a relaxation technique developed by Edmund Jacobson in 1924 that reduces anxiety and stress by tensing and releasing muscle groups in a fixed order.
Progressive non-fluent aphasia
Progressive non-fluent aphasia (PNFA, nfvPPA, PPA-G), a frontotemporal dementia variant with agrammatism, effortful speech, and apraxia of speech, usually tau pathology, adult onset, no approved drug treatment.
Prolonged grief disorder
Prolonged grief disorder (PGD, ICD-11 6B42) is a diagnosable mental disorder of persistent, impairing grief after bereavement, added to DSM-5-TR in March 2022, with yearning and preoccupation as core symptoms and grief-focused CBT as leading treatment.
Promoting Resilience in Stress Management
Promoting Resilience in Stress Management (PRISM) is a brief behavioral intervention that teaches stress management and resilience skills to adolescents and young adults with serious illness.
Promotion of anorexia
Promotion of anorexia, commonly called pro-ana, is the advocacy and glorification of anorexia nervosa through online communities presenting it as a lifestyle choice rather than an illness.
Prozac Nation
Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1994 Houghton Mifflin memoir of depression and Prozac treatment, a Gen X best seller that helped launch the 1990s memoir boom.
Prozac Nation (film)
Prozac Nation is a 2001 American-German drama directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg, starring Christina Ricci as Elizabeth Wurtzel, with Jessica Lange as her mother, adapted from Wurtzel's memoir.
Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy
Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, also known as psilocybin therapy, is a treatment in which supervised psilocybin dosing sessions are embedded in structured psychological support, studied mainly for treatment-resistant depression.
Psychedelic experience
Psychedelic experience: an altered state of consciousness from psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD, MDMA), defined by hallucinations and ego dissolution, shaped by set and setting, and used in psychedelic-assisted therapy with integration sessions.
Psychedelic therapy
Psychedelic therapy, or psychedelic-assisted therapy, uses psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, or ayahuasca with psychological support to treat depression, PTSD, and substance use disorders; investigational, FDA-guided, not yet approved.
Psychiatric assessment
Psychiatric assessment: comprehensive clinical evaluation for mental disorder diagnosis, built on the psychiatric interview, history taking, and mental state examination; structured interviews such as the SCID outperform unstructured ones, organized against DSM-5-TR and ICD criteria.
Psychiatric genetics
Psychiatric genetics is the field of research studying the role of genes in mental illness, with twin studies showing heritability from 37% for depression to 85% for schizophrenia.