Thinking disorders are usually manifested in speech, in the statements of the patient. Depending on the types of thinking disorders - content, flow, and structure and function disorders - a person may have intrusive or delusional thoughts of various content. He may constantly utter significant amounts of words or be prone to constant digressions. Check what are thinking disorders.

Thinking disorderstestify to an abnormality in the complex process of creating new mental representations by transforming available information. Thinking disorders are divided intodisturbances in the content of thinkinganddisturbances in the form of thinking , which includedisorders of the courseandstructure and function of thinking . Thinking disorders may manifest themselves in speech, in the statements of the patient, as well as in his behavior and behavior.

Disturbance in thinking - disturbances in the content of thinking

  • Overvalued thoughts (ideas)

These are beliefs, judgments, ideas held by a person, which are basically true (not delusional), but exert an excessive influence on decisions, behaviors and the entire behavior of a person. A person overwhelmed by overvalued thoughts is not detached from reality, but his behavior is one-sided, radical, and sometimes even fanatical, and therefore takes on the characteristics of a personality disorder. An overvalued thought may concern, for example, religious issues, which is associated with its passionate promotion, or, for example, the issue of racial segregation and related discrimination. Overvalued thoughts may also appear in inventors, scientists who are so absorbed in their research that they neglect family and social life.

  • Delusions

Delusions are morbid, unjustified judgments that persist under the influence of logical arguments or evidence that they are untrue or illogical. Delusions can be of various, but always absurd, content. For example, a sick person may be convinced that he is being followed, overheard, that everyone is talking about him, that someone is reading his mind, etc.

  • Mental automatism

The sick person has no influence on their own thoughts, speech or movements. In the patient's opinion, they are happeningautomatically, they are not subject to will.

  • Intrusive thoughts (obsessions)

The sick person cannot free himself from intrusive thoughts, pictures or from performing the same activities over and over, despite attempts and effort put into separating them, e.g. counting in mind to a certain number before performing a given activity.

Abnormal thinking - abnormal thinking

  • slowing down / inhibiting- various degrees of limitation in the speed of thinking and speaking. The sick person needs more time to formulate his statement. Slowing down is characteristic of schizophrenic disorders, and complete inhibition of thinking is characteristic of depression;
  • acceleration- increasing the speed of thinking and speaking. The patient is characterized by increased talkability, talkativeness, racing thoughts;
  • damaging- a momentary, usually unexpected pause in the course of thoughts and statements. It may feel like a light-headed feeling.Thinking disordercharacteristic ofschizophrenia;
  • crowds (mantism)- a sense of an excess of spontaneously appearing threads and topics of thought. A sick person may lose control over the course of thoughts;
  • verbosity, meticulousness- tendency to start new, usually unnecessary, threads of speech, despite not completing the previous ones, which disturbs the main thread of thought. Excessive detailing of these threads is meticulousness. The disorder is often seen in organic mental disorders;
  • verbigerations- automatic repetition of words and phrases following their sound, without logical justification, e.g. school, circles, pains, calls;
  • stereotypes, perseverations, iterations- various forms of repetition, narrowing down thinking and statements to the same topics, sentences or phrases;
  • mutism- complete lack of verbal communication. It is observed in psychogenic, organic, and schizophrenic (catatonic) mental disorders.
  • Słoworok- the patient constantly utters a large number of words;

    • Thinking disorders - disturbances in the structure and function of thinking

  • impoverishment of thinking (alogy)- this is a limitation of the quantitative or content-related content of the patient's thinking and statements;
  • paralogical thinking- the patient does not base his thinking on specific logical rules, but on his own "logic":

    • - magical thinking - a person equates thinking with action (if I think that the lantern will light up, it will happen), his thinking is often associated with belief in superstition or with thinkingwishful thinking (e.g. if the bus number 10 comes first, I will pass the exam); - ambivalent thinking - coexistence of contradictory thoughts, and thus - contradictory statements; - dereistic thinking - thinking detached from reality, filled with pseudo-philosophical or absurd content;

  • incoherent thinking- the sick person is unable to combine the components of thinking into a coherent whole due to the loss of grammatical correctness of thinking;
  • non-communicative thinkinge - characterized by a lack of understanding by the interlocutor;
  • distraction- the patient's statements become incomprehensible or incomprehensible;
  • confusion- utterances are extremely incomprehensible, incoherent, inert. The way of thinking is inconsistent and follows random associations;

    • Bibliography:Psychiatry. Handbook for Nursing Students , pod. ed. Krupki-Matuszczyk I, ed. Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice 2007.

    Category:

    Psychiatry