Mental health

One challenge to treating a mental health problem is that a person can’t just point to a part of their body and say, “This hurts, please fix it.” Without a diagram to label, experts who study and treat mental health problems have to develop concepts and metaphors in order to communicate, and it can, understandably, get very complicated.
The words and concepts weren’t selected systematically but rather were chosen based on the researchers’ experiences as teachers, textbook writers, journal editors, and academic writers who also write for popular audiences, and what they observe other experts doing. The goal was to provide a compendium of words that everyone—academics, 
journalists, and casual readers of pop psychology—could use some clarification on. 

envy” vs. “jealousy”

In common usage, “envy” and “jealousy” are deployed interchangeably, but they are indeed distinct.

Envy is something you feel toward another person. It is a desire to be them or have what they have: physical attributes, money, success, that carefree joie de vivre. Jealousy is technically the fear of losing something through some kind of rivalry. Jealousy implies a relationship; if you are jealous, you feel the loss of your ex to his or her new partner, your relationship with your boss to your colleague, or your connection with your mother to your sibling. 

psychopathy” vs. “sociopathy”

“Psychopathy” is typically used to describe a personality disorder characterized by severe antisocial behavior, poor impulse control, lack of empathy, and unstable moods. “Sociopathy” is typically used to describe the same thing.Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a category called “antisocial personality disorder.

obsession” vs. “compulsion”

Obsessions and compulsions are very close in definition. Obsessions are repeated, unwanted thoughts and urges, while compulsions are repeated behaviors, urges, or thoughts that are a response to an obsession. A person might be obsessed with symmetry, and in response they might have a compulsion to ordering and reordering the items on their desk. “Obsessions are anxiety producing, whereas compulsions are anxiety reducing, at least in the short term. 

mind-body therapies”

Labeling meditation, yoga, and Reiki as “mind-body therapies” implies that the mind and body are separate. In reality, most mainstream scientists would say there is no mind separate from the body; it’s a part of the body. 

chemical imbalance

The idea of a “chemical imbalance” implies there there’s such a thing as a chemical balance. There is no known ‘optimal’ level of neurotransmitters in the brain, so it is unclear what would constitute an ‘imbalance,'” they write. “Nor is there evidence for an optimal ratio among different neurotransmitter levels.”