Dictionary

psychotropism en · NOUN

Etymology

From psycho- + -tropism.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The desire for or pursuit of altered states of consciousness.
   • When the level of illicit drug use is added to this, it becomes apparent that psychotropism is something which affects something like half the population in America. 1984, Brian M. Stableford, Future Man, page 139:
   • In this way, we established a trajectory of youth psychotropism based on drug users' life histories. 2000, Jane Fountain, Gloria Greenwood, Understanding and Responding to Drug Use, page 144:
   • "Project MKULTRA” was the govemment's secret attempt to penetrate the occult interior of psychotropism—it appears to have failed miserably. 1999, Journal of Cognitive Liberties - Volume 1, page 37:
2. (countable, uncountable) The alteration of one's mental state or brain structure.
   • Of the various heterocyclic systems, the indole nucleus has been reported as a common denominator of psychotropism and is of great value in the field of medicine and biochemistry. 2003, Indian Journal of Chemistry: Organic including medicinal:
   • Analgesics do not only influence pain receptors, but also the subjective experience of pain, thus exhibiting a latent psychotropism, as when a patient states that a certain analgesic 'does him good'. 1993, J. H. Stewart, Analgesic and NSAID-induced kidney disease, page 51:
   • It seems that N-methyl substitution tends unspecifically to increase psychotropism of different compounds without predetermining the quality of the effect being enhanced. 1967, Edwin Dunlop, Psychosomatic Medicine, page 150:
   • It assays the following functions: depression, anxiety, obsession/compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychotropism. 1996, W. M. Edgar, D. M. O'Mullane, Saliva and Oral Health, page 58:
   • ...different factors like psychotropism (neuronal growth) or neuronal changes (both growth and depletion), and other organic considerations. 2015, Ronald William Maris, Pillaged: Psychiatric Medications and Suicide Risk:
3. (countable, uncountable) The desire for mental stimulation and knowledge.
   • According to Fraisse (I966), “biogenic motivations," which control adaptive behaviors necessary for survival (psychotropisms, escape phenomena, aggression, etc), are among the most archaic and involve defense mechanisms that implicate a high degree of vigilance (i.e., so-called states of overarousal). 1982, Frederick M. Brown, R. Curtis Graeber, Rhythmic Aspects of Behavior, page 373:
   • What is the explanation of this greatest of all the tropic or turning responses of nature – psychotropism? 1921, George Park Fisher, George Burton Adams, Henry Walcott Farnam, The Yale Review - Volume 11, page 341:
   • I believe that this peculiarity offers the bias toward the development of a dynamic property of sexual psychotropism which makes for biological reasons for the child (growing individual) to gravitate toward the opposite sex. 1955, The Psychoanalytic Review, page 283:

Forms

Relateds

psychotropic