Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
62 results found in mental health.
- Email Anxiety (Inbox Anxiety)
- Intense anxiety, dread, or avoidance behavior around checking, opening, and responding to emails, commonly experienced by people with ADHD. Email anxiety can involve physical symptoms like racing hear…
- Emotional Dysregulation (Emotion Dysregulation, Emotional Impulsivity, Affective Dysregulation, Deficient Emotional Self-Regulation)
- Difficulty managing emotional responses, characterized by rapid, intense, and often disproportionate reactions to stimuli with limited reflection or regulation. Emotional dysregulation is a core yet f…
- Emotional Regulation (Emotion Regulation, Affect Regulation)
- The ability to manage, modify, and respond to emotional experiences in ways that are situationally appropriate and aligned with one's goals. Emotional regulation is a significant challenge for people …
- Empathetic technical support (Humanizing tech support)
- Technical assistance that combines practical problem-solving with emotional attunement to the user's affective state, particularly important when supporting disabled users who may experience frustrati…
- Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP, Exposure Therapy)
- The gold-standard evidence-based treatment for OCD in which individuals gradually confront situations that trigger their obsessions (exposure) while refraining from performing their usual compulsive r…
- Harm OCD (Harm Obsessions)
- A subtype of OCD characterized by intrusive, unwanted thoughts about causing harm to oneself or others, despite having no desire or intention to act on these thoughts. People with harm OCD may experie…
- Hypervigilance
- A state of heightened alertness and sensitivity to potential threats in one's environment, commonly associated with PTSD, anxiety disorders, and trauma. Hypervigilant individuals may constantly scan f…
- Imposter syndrome (Impostor phenomenon)
- A psychological pattern in which individuals doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as a fraud, despite evidence of competence. Imposter syndrome is particularly prevalent among neurodiver…
- Impostor Syndrome (Impostor Phenomenon, Impostorism)
- A psychological pattern in which individuals doubt their accomplishments and fear being exposed as fraudulent despite evidence of competence. For people with disabilities, impostor syndrome is often i…
- Internalized stigma (Self-stigma, Internalized ableism)
- The process by which individuals with disabilities or neurodivergent conditions absorb and internalize negative societal attitudes about their condition, leading to shame, reduced self-worth, and relu…
- Just-in-Time Intervention (JITI, Just-in-Time Adaptive Intervention, JITAI)
- A technology-delivered intervention that provides the right type and amount of support at the right time, adapting to the user's current context, mental state, and needs. Unlike scheduled therapy sess…
- Medical Gaslighting
- The dismissal, minimization, or invalidation of a patient’s reported symptoms or experiences by healthcare providers, often leading patients to doubt their own perceptions. The phenomenon disproportio…
- Mental Health (Mental Well-Being, Psychological Health)
- A state of well-being encompassing emotional, psychological, and social functioning, in which an individual can cope with normal stresses of life, work productively, and contribute to their community.…
- Mental Health Self-Management (Self-Management, Mental Health Self-Care)
- The practices and strategies that individuals use to manage their mental health symptoms independently in daily life, outside of formal therapy sessions. For OCD, self-management includes applying the…
- Mental Health Stigma (Psychiatric Stigma, Mental Illness Stigma)
- Negative attitudes, beliefs, and discrimination directed toward people with mental health conditions, leading to social exclusion, reduced help-seeking, and diminished self-esteem. For people with OCD…
- Negativity bias in online communities (Online negativity bias)
- The tendency for negative experiences and opinions to be disproportionately represented in online discussion forums and social media communities compared to the broader population's experiences. In di…
- Non-visible disability (Hidden disability, Non-apparent disability)
- A disability that is not immediately apparent to others through visual observation. Non-visible disabilities include neurodivergent conditions (autism, ADHD, dyslexia), mental health conditions (anxie…
- Obsession (Obsessive Thought, Intrusive Thought)
- Recurrent, persistent, unwanted thoughts, urges, or mental images that cause significant anxiety or distress. In OCD, obsessions are experienced as intrusive and involuntary, and the person recognizes…
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- A mental health condition affecting approximately 2% of the world population, characterized by recurrent, intrusive, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) that cause significant anxiety, and repetitive behav…
- PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder, Post-traumatic stress)
- A psychiatric condition that can develop after exposure to traumatic events, characterized by intrusive memories, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, negative changes in mood and cognition, and heigh…