Common terms we use - what they mean and why clarity is important

Common terms we use - what they mean and why clarity is important

We employ numerous terms in our written content. If you find yourself asking the question, 'What does it mean to be ...' then you will want to check out this blog.

This blog outlines various terms to enhance your understanding of their significance.

Accountability - the duty or readiness to take accountability for one's actions.

Adult Ego State of Mind -  describes the psychological mindset during a specific interaction, event, or transaction.

Amygdala - The amygdala situated in the brain is an almond-shaped structure found in the temporal lobe.

Anxiety - an emotional state characterized by worry, nervousness, or unease, often triggered by an impending event or uncertain outcome.

Avoidant Attachment - Avoidant attachment is characterized by discomfort with emotional intimacy, a desire for independence, and difficulty trusting others. In essence, the individual avoids getting too close to others.

Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment - Dismissive-avoidant attachment is a type of attachment style marked by avoiding vulnerability, closeness, and intimate attachment to others. A dismissive-avoidant person may avoid relationships and desire independence.

Fearful Avoidant Attachment - A fearful-avoidant attachment style can involve: A profound fear of being alone or without a romantic partner. Vigilantly scanning their surroundings for any indication of abandonment, rejection, or betrayal from a loved one. Distrust towards individuals in their social circle.

Anxious-Avoidant Attachment - Those with anxious-avoidant attachments are the reverse of needy. Rather than seeking emotional closeness, they avoid forming connections with others. They may prefer self-reliance, desire independence, and struggle with emotions. It's likely their parents were unavailable during childhood.

Personal Boundaries - Personal boundaries are the limits and rules we establish in relationships. A person with healthy boundaries can say "no" when needed and also engage in close relationships.

Brain - a soft nervous tissue organ located in the skull of vertebrates, responsible for coordinating sensation, intellectual activity, and nervous functions. The brain regulates various bodily functions like awareness, movement, thinking, speech, and the 5 senses.

CBT - Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment approach for a range of mental and emotional health issues, including anxiety and depression. CBT aims to help you identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and to learn practical self-help strategies.

Central Nervous System - The brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system (CNS), which serves as the body's processing center.

Child Ego State of Mind - The child ego state is that part of the personality preserved from actual childhood; it contains all the impulses a person was born with. It focuses on spontaneous feelings, needs, and wants of the child. It is a key aspect of transactional analysis.

Childhood Trauma - Child trauma denotes a frightening, perilous, violent, or life-threatening incident that occurs to a child (0-18 years of age). This event may also occur to an acquaintance of your child, resulting in an impact on your child from witnessing or hearing about the person's injury.

Codependent Behavior - In psychology, codependency explains imbalanced relationships where one person enables another's self-destructive behavior like addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.

Conscious Mind - the conscious mind holds thoughts and feelings that are actively perceived: Some memories surface easily, while others are stored in the subconscious and accessed less frequently.

Conscious Thought - Upon achieving 'conscious' awareness of something, you will observe and understand its occurrence: this constitutes a conscious thought.

Coping Tool - Coping tools are skills and strategies you can learn to navigate challenging situations.

Depression - Depression is a condition characterized by persistent feelings of sadness and loss of interest.

Dysregulated - used to describe individuals who struggle with regulating their emotions compared to others.

Ego States of Mind - Ego States were conceptualized by Eric Berne, the creator of Transactional Analysis. They are consistent patterns of feeling, thinking and behavior that we all possess and categorize into three Ego States, known as Parent, Adult, and Child.

EMDR - Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a mental health treatment technique that involves moving your eyes a specific way while processing traumatic memories, aiming to help you heal from trauma or other distressing experiences.

Emotional Intelligence - Involves managing your own emotions and understanding those of others. EI consists of five key elements: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

Emotional Regulation (Emotional self-regulation or emotion regulation) - is the skill to react to the continual demands of experience with a full range of emotions in a socially acceptable way and with enough flexibility to allow for spontaneous responses or delayed reactions as required.

Emotions - emotions involve a complex reaction, encompassing experiential, behavioral, and physiological aspects. Individuals use emotions to navigate personal significance.

Empath - An individual highly sensitive to the energies and emotions of others may be classified as an empath. Empaths are known to deeply experience the emotions of others, sometimes to their detriment.

Empathy - is often defined as the capacity to adopt someone else's point of view, comprehend, sense, and perhaps participate and react to their encounter.

Feeling - Feelings are subjective, evaluative, and independent emotional reactions. They are always assessed as positive or negative, but they can possess more distinct intrapsychic attributes, such that the affective tone of fear differs from that of anger.

Fight, Flight, Freeze Response (also known as fight-flight-freeze-fawn response) - The fight response is your body's method of confronting any perceived threat aggressively. Flight involves your body prompting you to flee from danger. Freeze is your body's incapacity to move or act in the face of a threat. Fawn is your body's stress reaction to attempt to appease someone to prevent conflict.

Glimmers - Glimmers are brief micro instances of delight—fleeting, daily occurrences that evoke feelings of happiness, thankfulness, tranquility, serenity, security, or kindness.

Historical Trauma - Historical trauma or collective trauma signifies the accumulated emotional damage from a traumatic experience or event on an individual.

Inner Child - an individual's presumed genuine or authentic identity, particularly when considered as harmed or hidden by adverse childhood experiences.

Manifest - a term often mentioned when discussing manifestation. Manifestation involves envisioning the future, channeling energy and intention into realizing that vision, and aligning thoughts, emotions, and actions to bring the vision to life.

Mental Health - comprises our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It impacts our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It also plays a role in our stress management, social interactions, and decision-making.

Narcissistic - displaying an intense preoccupation with oneself and one's physical attributes. Pertaining to narcissism.

Nervous System - Your nervous system is your body's command center and made up of your brain, spinal cord and nerves. 

Neurons - a cell type that transmits messages between the body and the brain.

Neuroscience - is the study of the nervous system, covering structure and function, development to degeneration, in health and disease. It mainly focuses on the brain.

Parent Ego State of Mind - The parent ego state is when individuals act, think, or feel as their parent/caregivers once did. It involves attitudes and behaviors observed and copied from parents or care-givers, known as spoken and unspoken rules.

Perception - relates to our sensory experience of the world. It involves using our senses to become aware of objects, relationships. By this process, we gain insights and information into the surrounding environment.

Physician - a person qualified to practice medicine. 

Play Therapy - a method of counseling in which play is utilized to assist children in expressing or communicating their emotions.

Psychology - is the scientific study of mind and behavior. It includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, conscious and unconscious phenomena, thoughts, feelings, and motives.

PTSD - is short for post-traumatic stress disorder and is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event that is either experienced or witnessed.

Reaction - is an act done or a sensation felt in reaction to a circumstance or occurrence.

Reflexive Response - involuntary responses to stimuli, free from conscious control (e.g., salivation from food presentation) serving as classical conditioning basis.

Regulation - Involves managing intricate systems based on established rules and trends.

Resilience -  is the capacity to manage mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status swiftly.

Reticular Activating System (RAS) - is a group of neurons in the brain stem that project to the hypothalamus to influence behavior.

Routines - a series of actions regularly followed; a set program.

Self-Regulation - is the skill to comprehend and control your behavior and responses to feelings that affect your emotions and events around you.

Self-Understanding - comprehension and recognition of personal actions and reactions.

Sensory Experience - refer to experiences when seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, or tasting

Signs and Symptoms - Signs and symptoms can show potential medical issues. Symptoms are personal, like back pain or fatigue, while signs are visible evidence of a disease, like a rash or lump.

Stages of Trauma - described as various stages one goes through after a traumatic event.

Subconscious Mind - is that portion of the mind not presently in focal awareness.

Systemic Trauma - factors in environments and institutions that cause trauma, sustain it, and affect posttraumatic reactions-provide a model for viewing various traumatic events

Therapist - is a professional offering therapy services. Therapists are trained experts in psychology, counseling, social work, etc. They assist individuals with mental and physical health concerns.

Therapy - is a treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder often by verbal communication and interaction.

Thought Patterns - a habit of thinking in a particular way. Another term used for a thought pattern is thought form.

Thoughts (also called thinking) – Thinking involves manipulating information, such as forming concepts, problem solving, reasoning, and decision-making whereas the act of thought generates additional thoughts.

Trauma - an intense and unsettling experience that can overpower the nervous system.

Trauma Bond - is the connection an abused individual has with their abuser, especially in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse.

Trauma Recovery - the rebuilding of safety and empowerment. Recovery means living in the present without being overwhelmed by past thoughts.

Triggers (or triggered) - an event that causes someone to feel upset and frightened by recalling a past trauma: A trigger sets off a flashback, returning the person to the traumatic experience.

Unconscious Thought - unconscious thought occurs when an object or task is outside of attention, reflecting the unconscious mind. It encompasses repressed feelings, hidden memories, habits, thoughts, desires, and reactions. Painful memories and emotions are stored in the vast reservoir of the unconscious mind.

We trust you found the explanation of these commonly used terms beneficial.

- The Lakunakai Team

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