Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Problems in Thinking that May Indicate a Mental Disorder




Loose association: this is when the persons expressed ideas do not appear to be connected or related or have a peculiar relationship.  The person jumps from subject to subject.

Flight of ideas is when the person jumps rapidly from one idea to another not coming to a point.  The ideas do not seem to be related but there is a connection sometimes only by certain words.

Circumstantial thought is a type of thinking that has connection but the person is sidetracked by irrelevant details.  There are little goals to their sentences but they do eventually get to the point in a roundabout way.

Tangential thought is circumstantial thoughts where the person never reaches the point of their thoughts. They are sidetracked by details or thoughts that have no relationship and never get back on track.

Thought blocking. The flow of thought and speech stops suddenly many times often in midsentence.  The person may pause or lose the thought completely.  Usually the person has no explanation as to why they lose track of their train of thought.

Perseveration the person gets stuck on a word a phrase or an idea.  They may give the same response to different questions.

Word salad in this type of thinking there is a complete series of unconnected mixture of words and sentences that have no meaning or logic.

Clanging is where the connecting thoughts are rhyme.

Neologisms are the creating of new words.

Retardation is a slow speech and thoughts.

Concrete thinking is when the person can not understand abstract, symbolic meanings.

Vague thoughts are overly abstract thoughts and speech conveying little information.

Where these types of thinking is symptomatic of a mental disorder there can be medical reasons for someone to exhibit the various forms of thinking.  Professionals use these guidelines in diagnosing the different mental disorders.  Different disorders can be characterized by the different thought patterns.

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