NCM 117 behavioral

• Normal thought includes judgment, comprehension, memory, and reasoning, leading to a reality-oriented conclusion
• Disturbance of thought or association in schizophrenia can manifest as haphazard, purposeless, logical, confused, incorrect, abrupt, and bizarre thinking
• Fundamental symptoms of schizophrenia by Eugen Bleuler include associative looseness, autism, apathy, and ambivalence
• Dereism, or dereistic thinking, emphasizes the disconnections between a patient's mental processes and ongoing experiences, not following reality, logic, or experience
• Autism can occur as a character trait, with individuals being bashful, shy, retiring, shut in, inaccessible, or introverted
• Neologism refers to the coinage of new words with symbolic meaning or conferring new meanings upon commonly used words
• Word salad is a disconnected flow of communication with meaningless words, phrases, and sentences, often a product of dissociation and pressure of invading thoughts
• Intellectualization is a defense mechanism involving anxious pondering about abstract issues to avoid objectionable feelings or impulses
• Circumstantiality is a disorder of association where many unnecessary details and scattered thoughts are included in conversation, delaying the reaching of the conversation's goal point
• Stereotype is the constant repetition of any speech or action
• Verbigeration is the continuous reiteration of a specific phrase, often seen in schizophrenia
• Perseveration is the psychopathological repetition of the same word or idea in response to different questions
• Incoherence results from disorderly thinking where thoughts do not follow a logical sequence, making verbalizations incomprehensible
• Volubility or logorrhea is copious speech that may be coherent and logical but difficult for the listener to interrupt
• Pressure of speech is voluble speech that is difficult for the listener to interrupt
• Flight of ideas is a continuous stream of conversation with rapid shifts in topics due to pressure of thoughts, sometimes characterized as topic jumping
• Clang association is the linkage of similar word sounds to compensate for defects in memory and communication, often seen in schizophrenia
• Aphasia is a general term for all disturbances of language and communication due to brain lesions
• Fantasy is a mental representation of a scene or occurrence that is recognized as unreal but expected or hoped for
• Phobia is an exaggerated and pathological dread of a specific stimulus or situation, with various types like acrophobia, agoraphobia, and more
• Sitophobia: dread of eating
• Taphophobia: dread of being buried alive
• Toxophobia: dread of being poisoned
• Xenophobia: dread of strangers
• Zoophobia: dread of animals
• Obsession is the pathological presence of a persistent and irresistible thought, feeling, or impulse that cannot be eliminated from consciousness by any logical effort
• Trend or preoccupation of thought occurs when thought content centers around a particular idea and is associated with a strong affective tone
• Delusion is a false belief not consistent with the patient's intelligence and cultural background that cannot be corrected by reasoning or presenting evidence
• Delusion of grandeur is an exaggerated perception of one's importance
• Delusion of persecution is a false belief that one is being persecuted, often found in litigious patients
• Delusion of reference is a false belief that the behavior of others refers to oneself
• Delusion of self-accusation is a false feeling of remorse
• Delusion of control is a false feeling that one is being controlled by others
• Delusion of infidelity is a false belief derived from pathological jealousy that one's lover is unfaithful
• Paranoid delusion is oversuspiciousness leading to persecutory delusions
• Disturbances in judgment involve the mental act of comparing or evaluating alternatives within a given set for the purpose of deciding on a course of action
• Disturbances of consciousness involve a faculty of perception that draws on information from the outer world directly through the sense organs and indirectly through stored memory traces
• Levels of consciousness exist on a continuum, with maximum alertness at one extreme and absolute unconsciousness or coma on the other, in between are confusion, clouding of consciousness, delirium, and stupor
• Clouding of consciousness involves a disturbance in perception, attention, and thought and subsequent amnesia
• Confusion is characterized by disorientation as to time, place, and person and a feeling of bewilderment