Glossary
Mental Health Glossary
Plain-language definitions of therapy concepts and mental health terms. No jargon, no academic gatekeeping. Just clear explanations of the ideas that help you understand your mind.
A
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
A therapy that uses acceptance, mindfulness, and values-based action to build psychological flexibility.
Attachment Theory
A psychological framework explaining how early relationships with caregivers shape your patterns of connection throughout life.
Anhedonia
The inability to feel pleasure or interest in activities that used to be rewarding. A distinct clinical symptom — not laziness, not ingratitude.
B
Burnout
A state of chronic physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, typically related to work or caregiving.
Boundaries
The limits you set to protect your emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing in relationships and interactions.
Brain Rot
Oxford's 2024 Word of the Year. A colloquial term for the cognitive fog, attention fragmentation, and declining capacity for sustained focus associated with heavy short-form video and social media consumption.
C
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
A structured therapy that helps you identify and change unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors.
Cognitive Distortions
Systematic errors in thinking that distort reality—like catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, or mind-reading.
Catastrophizing
A cognitive distortion where you jump to the worst-case scenario and treat it as the most likely outcome.
Codependency
A pattern of excessive emotional reliance on another person, often sacrificing your own needs to maintain the relationship.
Cortisol
The primary stress hormone released by your adrenal glands—essential for survival but damaging when chronically elevated.
D
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
A therapy combining CBT with mindfulness, focusing on emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Dissociation
A disconnection from your thoughts, feelings, body, or surroundings—a protective mechanism when experiences become overwhelming.
Doomscrolling
The compulsive consumption of negative or anxiety-inducing content on a phone, even when you know it's making you feel worse.
E
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing—a therapy that uses bilateral stimulation to help process traumatic memories.
Emotional Regulation
The ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences in healthy ways, rather than being controlled by them.
Emotional Flooding
When emotions become so intense that your ability to think, communicate, and cope is temporarily overwhelmed.
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M
N
Nervous System & Anxiety
Your autonomic nervous system regulates your stress response. Dysregulation means your body stays in fight-or-flight even when there's no danger.
Neuroplasticity
The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life—the biological basis for learning, healing, and change.
P
Psychoeducation
Learning about your mental health condition—what it is, why it happens, how it works—as a therapeutic tool in itself.
People-Pleasing
A pattern of prioritizing others' approval and comfort over your own needs, often rooted in anxiety about rejection or conflict.
Popcorn Brain
The fragmented, jumpy, restless mental state caused by constant exposure to fast, varied digital stimuli — coined by Dr. David Levy in 2011 to describe attention that 'pops' from one input to the next without settling.
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S
T
Thought Spirals
When one anxious thought leads to another in an escalating chain, each thought more catastrophic than the last.
Trauma Response
An automatic reaction pattern (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) that develops after experiencing threatening or overwhelming events.
Toxic Positivity
The excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations—dismissing legitimate negative emotions.
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Understanding Is the First Step
Knowledge about mental health reduces fear and increases your capacity to cope. When you're ready to apply what you've learned, ILTY is here to help.