Cyclothymia

cyclothymia

[‚sī·klō′thī·mē·ə]

(psychology)

A disposition marked by alterations of mood between elation and depression out of proportion to apparent external events and stimulated, rather, by internal factors.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cyclothymia

 

the term used in Soviet psychiatry to designate a mild form of manic-depressive psychosis. In other countries the same term is used in psychiatry to designate a variation from the psychic norm—namely, a predisposition to manic-depressive psychosis. The term “cyclothymic constitution” refers to one of the Kretschmer personality types (after the German psychiatrist E. Kretschmer, 1888–1964). As used by the German psychiatrist K. Schneider (1887–1967), the term “cyclothymia” may also refer to all manic-depressive states, ranging from slight fluctuations in mood to pronounced psychotic manifestations.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.