Common Terms

Accessibility — Designing resources so everyone, regardless of symptoms or abilities, can easily understand and use them.

Attachment — Attachment refers to how you relate in close relationships. Secure attachment usually means you feel safe and can cope with conflict; insecure attachment means you may worry about rejection or feel uncomfortable with closeness.

Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) — The part of your nervous system that automatically controls things like heart rate and breathing, and plays a big role in stress and calm states.

Beginner’s Mind — Approaching experience as if it’s new, with curiosity rather than automatic expectations.

Body‑Based Approach — Any technique that works through movement, breath, or touch to calm the nervous system (e.g., gentle physiotherapy, yoga, tai chi).

Body Scan — Systematically bringing attention through parts of the body to notice sensations and shifts.

Body Sensations — The subtle internal experience of emotion and physiology (pressure, heat, tightness, breath changes) that guides tracking and regulation.

Bottom-Up — A therapy approach that starts with what you can feel in your body right now—breath, tension, posture, heart rate, sensations—then uses grounding and small, paced shifts to calm or regulate your nervous system before you work with thoughts or memories.

Brain plasticity — the brain’s ability to change over time—strengthening or rewiring connections based on experience, learning, attention, and repetition.

Care Team — The group of professionals and support partners who work together on your wellness plan.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) — A structured talk therapy that teaches practical ways to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) — A chronic pain condition that sometimes occurs alongside FND.

Conversion Disorder — An outdated medical term once used for FND. At FNDcourage use “FND” instead.

Co-regulation — When one person helps another’s nervous system calm and stabilize—often through things like a steady voice, supportive touch (if welcome), rhythm (breathing or tone), eye contact, patience, and a sense of safety.

Dissociation — Dissociation is a change in how connected you feel to your thoughts, body, feelings, or surroundings. It can range from mild “zoning out” to feeling detached or unreal, like you’re watching yourself from the outside. Common signs include feeling numb, time seeming to blur, memory gaps, difficulty concentrating, feeling emotionally disconnected, or feeling disconnected from your body.

Dissociative Seizure — Another name for functional seizures

Dorsal Vagal — Refers to the dorsal vagal pathway of the vagus nerve, which can be involved in a “freeze/shutdown” response—often linked to strong stress, feeling overwhelmed, or sometimes after prolonged threat. In FND people may describe symptoms like sudden fatigue, feeling disconnected/numb, slowed breathing or heart rate, weakness, and a sense of going “still” or “shutting down,” paralysis, or an inability to feel or think.

EEG (Electroencephalogram) — A test that records brain-wave patterns; in FND, results look normal even during a functional seizure.

Evidence‑Based — Backed by high‑quality research rather than anecdote or opinion.

Flare — A short spell when your usual FND symptoms suddenly get worse.

Functional Movement Disorder (FMD) — A movement‑focused form of FND that may cause tremors, jerks, or gait changes.

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) — A brain‑body communication problem that leads to real symptoms—such as seizures, weakness, or movement changes—despite normal scans.

Functional Overlay — When FND symptoms co-exist with another neurological condition (e.g., epilepsy), making the picture more complex.

Functional Seizure — Seizure‑like episodes in FND. They look like epilepsy on the outside, but brain‑wave tests are different. Also called PNES or dissociative seizures.

Functional Somatic Syndromes (FSS) — A family of conditions—like fibromyalgia and irritable‑bowel syndrome—where body symptoms happen without clear tissue damage.

Functional Weakness — Real muscle weakness that changes from moment to moment because of mis‑signals between brain and body, not because the muscle is damaged.

Grounding — Simple techniques (like feeling your feet on the floor) that brings attention to the present moment and calm the nervous system.

Healthcare Provider — Any licensed professional involved in diagnosis, treatment, or support (e.g., neurologist, physiotherapist, psychologist).

Interoception — Your ability to sense internal body signals like heartbeat or hunger; often targeted in FND therapies.

Loving-kindness (metta) — Practicing phrases or intentions of goodwill toward self and others.

Mindfulness — paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way—notice what you’re sensing, thinking, and feeling as it happens, and gently bring your attention back when it wanders.

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) — A scan that shows the brain’s structure; in FND, it usually looks normal because the problem is in function, not damage.

Multidisciplinary Care — Treatment that brings together experts from different fields to address FND from many angles.

Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) — A group of specialists—like neurologists, psychologists, and physiotherapists—who work together on complex cases.

Neurologist — A doctor who specializes in the brain and nervous system and often leads FND diagnosis.

Neurobehavioral Therapy (NBT) — A rehabilitation program that retrains movement and thinking patterns to reduce FND symptoms.

Neuroplasticity — The brain’s ability to change and create new connections—a hopeful engine for recovery.

Neuroplastic Exercise — A practice (movement, breath, or mind-body task) designed to help the brain build healthier pathways.

Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder (NEAD) — Another name for Functional Seizure (also called PNES). It describes real seizure-like episodes that look like epilepsy on the outside, but brain-wave tests are different. See Functional Seizure / PNES for details.

Non-judgment — Relating to experience with neutrality—observing “thinking” or “feeling” rather than labeling as good/bad.

Orientingresponse — Briefly turning attention toward present cues (sight/sound/body) to update your threat assessment in the here-and-now.

Pacing — Balancing activity and rest to avoid the “boom-bust” cycle of overdoing it one day and crashing the next.

Parasympathetic Nervous System — “Rest and digest” mode that supports recovery and slowing down.

Polyvagal Theory — A science model explaining how the vagus nerve influences feelings of safety or threat in the body.

Prefrontal cortex — the front part of the brain responsible for higher-level control—planning, decision-making, attention regulation, impulse control, and managing emotional responses.

Present-Moment Awareness —Noticing what’s happening right now—sounds, sensations, thoughts, and emotions—without getting pulled into the past or future.

Procedural Memory — Body-based learning of threat responses stored in movement and autonomic patterns, not always accessible by narrative. Also called muscle memory.

Proprioception — Your body’s sense of where it is in space—how your muscles and joints tell you position, movement, and balance without needing to look.

Psychogenic Non‑Epileptic Seizure (PNES) — An outdated and stigmatizing term for functional seizures.

Quality of Life (QoL) — A broad measure of how satisfied you feel with your daily functioning and wellbeing.

Resilience - the ability to adapt and bounce back after stress, change, or FND setbacks—using coping skills, support, and problem-solving to recover and keep functioning.

Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) — A listening therapy using filtered music to help the nervous system feel safer and more regulated.

Self‑Regulation — Skills that help you notice and shift your physical or emotional state toward calm.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy — a form of therapy that helps people understand and change how stress and trauma show up in the body and in movement—things like posture, muscle tension, breathing, reflexes, and habitual actions. It blends talk therapy with hands-on/experiential techniques (often focusing on sensation, breath, and mindful attention to bodily cues) so you can notice what your nervous system is doing in the moment, build more choice and regulation, and gradually retrain responses that keep you stuck.

Sensorimotor Retraining — Therapy that retrains how the brain plans and senses movement to reduce FND symptoms.

Sensory Grounding — Using senses—like noticing three things you see or hear—to bring attention back to the present moment.

Somatic Exercise — Movement or posture practice that focuses on sensing and releasing body tension.

Somatic Symptom Disorder (SSD) — A condition where ongoing body symptoms cause a lot of worry and life disruption, even after doctors rule out major disease.

Somatic Tracking — Paying gentle, curious attention to a symptom in the body to help the brain “recalibrate” its alarm signals.

Social engagement system —Polyvagal theory describing experiences that help you connect safely—facial expression, voice prosody, posture, and attunement that support regulation.

Support Partner — A friend, family member, or caregiver who actively helps someone living with FND.

Sympathetic Activation — means your “fight-or-flight” branch of the autonomic nervous system is turned on—your body preparing for danger. This can cause FND symptoms like twitches, seizures, fast heart rate/palpitations, sweating, shakiness, anxiety or panic, faster breathing, elevated blood pressure, and sometimes nausea, urgency, or a tense body sensation. It often happens after stress, pain, fear, illness, or when your body perceives threat (including panic or physical triggers).

Top-down — An approach that starts with thoughts, beliefs, interpretations, or meaning (like reframing, analyzing, and planning), then uses that mental direction to influence attention, emotion, and ultimately how your body feels and responds.

Touch-and-Go — a quick, brief contact with a challenging feeling, thought, or physical sensation and then withdrawing, resourcing —staying on the edge rather than fully engaging, to avoid overload or dysregulation.

Tracking — at FNDcourage we use tracking as a way of noticing what you experience (emotions, thoughts, physical sensations), how the experience changes over time, and which internal or external resources are helpful in positively impacting your experience.

Trauma‑Informed Care — An approach that assumes past trauma may influence current health and prioritizes safety, choice, and empowerment.

Trigger — Anything—like stress, noise, or lack of sleep—that can set off or worsen FND symptoms. Here at FNDcourage we try to stay away from the term “trigger” as for a lot of people those are hard to identify and the inability to identify can bring feelings of shame.

Vagal Tone — How strongly the vagus system helps regulate heart rate and calm the body.

Vagus Nerve — The longest cranial nerve, central to Polyvagal Theory, that influences calm, digestion, and heart rate.

Ventral Vagal — Ventral vagal refers to the ventral vagus pathway of the vagus nerve, which is associated with a “social engagement” or rest-and-connect state—feeling safer, calmer, more able to connect, and regulated.

Whole‑Person Approach — Looking at physical, emotional, and social factors together, rather than treating symptoms in isolation.