NCM 117 [PRELIM]: Dynamics of Behavior Patterns & Symptoms

• Normal Thought

  thought, or the cognitive, includes the processes of judgment, comprehension, memory, and reasoning. Normal rational thinking consists of a goal-directed flow of ideas, & associations initiated by a problem or task and leading to a reality-oriented conclusion.
• Disturbance of Thought or Association

  the flow of thought may become seemingly haphazard, purposeless, illogical, confused, incorrect, abrupt, and bizarre. This phenomenon is most conspicuous in schizophrenia. In fact Bleuler regarded disturbance in association as one of the fundamental symptoms of that disease.
• Dereism

  emphasizes the disconnections that have taken place between the patient’s mental processes and his ongoing actual experiences. The mental processes do not follow reality, logic or experience.
• Autism

  can occur as a character trait, referring to individuals who are bashful, shy, retiring, shut in, inaccessible, or introverted.
• Neologism

  refers to the coinage of new words that have symbolic meaning, or the conferring of new meanings upon words that are commonly.
• Word salad

  a disconnected flow of communication made up of a mixture of words, phrases, and sentences which sound meaningless and as if the product of dissociations and the pressure of invading thoughts.
• Intellectualization

  a state of anxious pondering about abstract, theoretical or philosophical issues. It is a flight into intellectual concepts and words that are emotionally neutral in order to avoid objectionable feelings or impulses.
• Circumstantiality

  is a disorder of association in which too many associated ideas come into consciousness because of too little selective suppression. The inclusion in conversation by a highly anxious individual of many unnecessary details, scattered thoughts and explanations. The pressure of invading thought and feelings tends to organize the communications and delays the reaching of the goal point of the conversation.
• Stereotype

  is the constant repetition of any speech or action.
• Verbigeration

  the continuous reiteration of a specific phrase. It may also occur in the form of writing a given word or phrase over and over again, and it is most often seen in schizophrenia.
• Perseveration

  psychopathological repetition of the same word or idea in response to different questions. When a patient gives an answer that is in harmony with and appropriate to the questions, his answer is said to be relevant. If it is out of harmony, it is said to be irrelevant.
• Incoherence

  is the result of disorderly thinking; thoughts do not follow in logical sequence. Under such circumstances the patient’s verbalizations cannot be understood by the listener. A milder manifestation of incoherence is known as scattering.
• Volubility or logorrhea

  is copious speech that may occur more or less within limits of normal and that coherent and logical.
• Pressure of speech

  is voluble speech that is difficult for the listener to interrupt.
• Flight of ideas

  a continuous stream of conversation with rapid shifts in topics owing to pressure of thoughts, sometimes characterized as topic jumping. An alert listener can detect connections to the fundamental topic of conversation. Often the shifts can be traced to stimulation of preceding statements as in the following:

  “Three ships sailed out of the harbor of Beirut. We are three brothers. I liked my older brother best. The best man in the service. Not a wedding service in the ship’s sail. Three ships. He was stationed in Beirut.”
• Clang association

  a linkage of similar word sounds, such as seven, heaven, eleven, to compensate for defects in memory and communication which may be psychic or organic origin.
• Aphasia

  is a general term for all disturbances of language and communication due to brain lesions but not as the result of faulty innervations of the speech muscles, involvement of the organs of articulation, or general mental or intellectual deficiency. Results in an inability to pronounce words and names and to indicate the use of common objects.
• Motor Aphasia

  disturbance of speech due to organic brain disorder in which understanding remains but ability to speak is lost.
• Sensory Aphasia

  loss of ability to comprehend the meaning of words or use of objects.
• Nominal Aphasia

  difficulty in finding right name for an object.
• Syntactical Aphasia

  inability to arrange words in proper sequence.
• Semantic Aphasia

  is the inability to recognize the full significance of words. It is related to a loss in the capacity for abstract thinking.
• Jargon Aphasia

  speech is reduced to a limited group of unintelligible neologisms, which the subject uses in a stereotyped fashion.
• Fantasy

  is a mental representation of a scene or occurrence that is recognized as unreal but is either expected or hoped for.
• Creative Fantasy

  which prepares for some later action.
• Day-dreaming Fantasy

  which is the refuge for wishes that cannot be fulfilled.
• Pseudologica Fantastica

  false logic of a fantastic nature that is motivated by a low self-esteem and weak superego. Impersonation of celebrities, pathological lying and the writing of false signatures are abnormal uses of the mechanism of identification. It differs from normal day-dreaming in that the subject believes in the reality of his fantasies intermittently and for long enough intervals of time to act on them.
• Imposter

  is a type of pathological liar who seeks to gain some advantage by imposing on others various lies about his attainments, social position or worldly possessions.
• Phobia

  an exaggerated and invariably pathological dread of some type of stimulus or situation.
• Acrophobia

  dread of high places
• Agoraphobia

  dread of open places
• Algophobia

  dread of pain
• Astrapophobia

  dread of thunder and lightning
• Claustrophobia

  dread of closed or confined places
• Coprophobia

  dread of excreta
• Hematophobia

  dread of sight of blood
• Hydrophobia

  dread of water
• Lalophobia or Glossophobia

  dread of speaking
• Mysophobia

  dread of dirt or contamination
• Necrophobia

  dread of dead bodies