X Glossary

Body illusion: A perception that one’s own body is significantly different from its actual configuration. For example, a person lying in bed may feel as if they are levitating.

Dissociative symptoms: The experience of detachment or feeling as if one is outside one’s body with loss of memory.

Entitlement: Unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment.

Ideas of reference: False beliefs that coincidental events relate to oneself. For example, a person shopping in a store sees two strangers laughing and believes they are laughing at them, when in reality the other two people do not even notice them.

Magical thinking: The idea that one can influence the outcome of specific events by doing something that has no bearing on the circumstances. For example, a person watching a baseball game exhibits magical thinking when believing that holding the remote control in a certain position caused their favorite player to hit a home run.

Personality: A relatively stable pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving that evolves over a person’s lifetime and is unique to each individual. It is influenced by one’s experiences, environment (surroundings and life situations), and inherited characteristics.

Personality disorder: An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates significantly from the expectations of one’s culture. Its onset can be traced back to adolescence or early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. This pattern of behavior is manifested in two or more of the following areas: cognition/perceptions, affect, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control.

Personality traits: Characteristics, whether considered good or bad, that make up one’s personality.

Splitting: A pattern of unstable and intense personal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.