Descriptive phenomenology Flashcards
2 divisions of psychopathology
- Explanatory-> causative
- Descriptive-> description ad categorising abnormal experiences. observation of behaviour and assessment of subjective experience= phenomenololgy (jaspers)
Jaspers contrasting understanding and explaining
Understanding-> requires empathic understanding of subjective experience
Explaining-> causative
Distinction of form and content in psychopathology
Form of psychological experience is description in phenomenological terms ie delusion. Needed for diagnosis
Content is the psychosocial environmental context within which the person describes the abnormal form. Needed for treatment plan
Psycholopathology development vs process
Development- change of thinking or behaviour emerging from previous patterns of subjective experience
Process- event imposed form outside cannot be understood in terms of natural progression from previous state
Differentiating pseudohallucinations
“Unreal” perception
lack quality of corporeal and tangible, appear spontaneously, discernible from real perception, difficult but not impossible to overcome voluntarily
Percept lacks a real external equivalent and arises from the subject
Aetiological theories of hallucinations
- Overstimulation affecting different levels of information processing
- failure of inhibition of mental functions
- Distortion of information processing at interpretive level
Three types of thinking represnting a continuum from low to high regard for external reality
- Fantasy thinking (dereistic or autistic)- becomes abnormal when accepted as fact. Goal is to avoid reality via neglect, denial or distortion of reality
- Imaginative- betwee. Forming a representation of an object/situation using fantasy without going beyond realms of rational and possibility
- Rational- attempt to resolve problem with logic, excluding fantasy
Relate fantasy and imaginative thinking to overvalued ideas and delusions
In OI, imagined representation surpasses others in strength
In delusions, all possibilities are excluded
Delusional definition
Overriding, rigid, convictions which create self-evident, private and isolating reality requiring no proof
Differentiate primary and secondary delusions
(jaspers)
Primary: True delusional ideas= psychological irreducibility
Secondary= delusion-like idease, emerge understandable from disturbing life experiences/other pathological mood state or misperception
Four types of primary delusions
- Delusional intuition (autochtonous)- occurring ‘out of the blue’
- Delusional percept- normal perception acquires delusional significance
- Delusional memory- distorted/false memory, coming spontaneously. Normal memories can be interpreted with delusional meaning
- Delusional atmosphere- world seems subtly altered, something uncanny, person feels involved. From this- self reference and formation of structured and specific delusional meaning. Can be associated with ‘delusional mood’
Six delusional themes
Delusion of persecution Delusion of love Delusion of guilt Grandiose delusion Hypochondriacal delusion Delusional jealousy
Systematised delusions
Highly organised, logical
Polarised delusion
Delusional reality inextricable intermingled with actual fact
Delusional juxtaposition
when delusion and reality exist side by side without influencing each other
Autistic delusion
Patient takes no account of reality and lives in a delusinal world
Overvalued idea
acceptable, comprehensible idea pursued beyond bounds of reason
Overvalued ideas of prejudice
underlying self referent interpretation of behaviour/sayings of others- assume to be overlooked, slighted, unfairly treated, provoked ;or loved
Overvalued apprehension
Morbid jealousy
hypochondriacial phobia
dysmorphophobia (attract attention due to defect)
Cognitive schema in depressed state
negative thinking starts from negative life events and spresds to more general events
delusions in depressed state
guilt, religious failure, condemnation, personal insufficiency, impoverishment, hypochondriasis, nihilistic dideas
contrasting delusions in affective states to schizophrenia
affective states arise from excessive mood, and tend not to be something new or alien to the personality
What differentiates phobic and anakastic phenomena
pt experiences them as unwanted but cannot suppress them
Phobia definition
inappropriate, exagerrated fears, not under voluntary control/cannot be reasoned away, entail avoidance behaviour
two types of symptoms in anakastic phenomenon
Obsessions- repeated thoughts, memoried, images, ruminations unable to prevent. Known to be theirs.
Compulsions- actions, rituals, behaviours part of own behaviour, cannot resist
Describe anankastic personality
perfectionism, rigidity, sensitivity, indecisiveness
Disorder of thinking process: Disorders of the flow of thinking
in rational thought a determining tendency guides flow.
- disorders of the speed- acceleration (flight of idease: goal of thought not maintained, intervention of new thought) or retardation (hampers formation of association, not reaching original goal)
- circumstantiality: exploring unnecessary associations arising in the mind. Inability to exclude unimportant associations
- Perseveration- inability to shift from one theme to another. thought retained long after it has become inappropriate
- Interruptions in the flow
- thought blocking: sudden unintended cessation in train of thought
- loosening of associations: flow deiates toward distant or unrelated thought (type of FTD)
- tangential: ideas deviate toward obliquely related theme
- fusionL difference associations evoked by original thought blend to produce word/sentence
- derailment: interpolation of ideas which pt or observer cannot link with previous stream
- muddling: extreme derailment/fusion
Disorder of thinking process: Overinclusive thinking
inability to preserve conceptual boundaries, ideas only distantly related to concept become incorporated
Disorder of thinking process: Concrete and abstract thinking
in organic/mental retardation, inability to think abstractly = diminished capacity to structure a concept.
SCZ manifests as excessive abstract thinking ?disturbance in working memory, concrete meaning of initial thought not retained.
Disorder of thinking process: disorders of control of thinking
Obsessions and compulsions
Passivity: thoughts manipulated by outside influences- withdrawal, insertion, broadcasting
Crowding of thoughts0 excess of thoughts from outside influence
Language and speech disorder:
- generation and articulation: aphonia, dysphonia, dysarthria, stutter, logoclonia (repetittion of syllables)\
- disturbance in talking: volume, sund, intonation, bradyphasia/tachyphasia, logorrhea (verbosity +manic states), alogia (poverty of speech), poverty of content (conveys little), vebigeration (monotonous repetition of syllables), echolalia, approximate answers, paragrammatism/parasyntax (loss of coherence), private symbolism (neologism, using existing words, private incomprehensible language), mutism, pseudologia fanastica (fluent lying)
