Emotional-volitional disorders can manifest themselves in different ways:
1. Increased excitability. Children of this type are restless, fussy, irritable, and prone to unmotivated aggression. They are characterized by sudden mood swings: they are either overly cheerful, or suddenly begin to be capricious, seem tired and irritable.
Affective arousal can occur even under the influence of ordinary tactile, visual and auditory stimuli, especially intensifying in an environment that is unusual for the child.
2. Passivity, lack of initiative, excessive shyness. Any situation of choice puts them at a dead end. Their actions are characterized by lethargy and slowness. Such children have great difficulty adapting to new conditions and have difficulty making contact with strangers. This syndrome, as well as a joyful, elated mood with a decrease in criticism (euphoria), is observed with lesions of the frontal lobes of the brain.
Phobic syndrome, or fear syndrome, is typical for many children with cerebral palsy. Increased impressionability, combined with emotional excitability and affective inertia, creates a favorable background for the emergence of fear neurosis. Fear can arise even under the influence of minor psychogenic factors - an unfamiliar situation, short-term separation from loved ones, the appearance of new faces and even new toys, loud sounds etc. In some children it manifests itself as motor agitation, screaming, in others – physical inactivity, general lethargy and in both cases is accompanied by pronounced vegetative-vascular reactions – paleness or redness of the skin, hyperhidrosis, increased heart rate and breathing, sometimes chills, increased temperature . When fear arises in a child, salivation and movement disorders(spasticity, hyperkinesis, ataxia). Psychogenically caused obsessive phobias in the form of fear of loneliness, heights, and movement are possible; in adolescence - fear of illness and death.
Fears that arise spontaneously, without connection with any psychogenic factors, are called neurosis-like; they are caused by organic brain damage. These include undifferentiated night terrors that appear sporadically during sleep and are accompanied by screaming, crying, general agitation, autonomic disorders. They are typical for children with hypertensive-hydrocephalic syndrome and often occur against the background of hyperthermia. If fears appear suddenly, against the background of somatic well-being, at a certain time of night sleep, at regular intervals, and are accompanied by motor automatisms, they should be distinguished from paroxysms of epileptic origin, which can also be observed in cerebral palsy.
3. But there are a number of qualities characteristic of both types of development. In particular, sleep disorders can often be observed in children suffering from musculoskeletal disorders. They are tormented by nightmares, they sleep anxiously, and have difficulty falling asleep.
4. Increased impressionability. In part, this can be explained by the compensation effect: the child’s motor activity is limited, and against the background of this, the senses, on the contrary, receive high development. Thanks to this, they are sensitive to the behavior of others and are able to detect even minor changes in their mood. However, this impressionability is often painful; Completely neutral situations and innocent statements can cause a negative reaction in them.
5. Increased fatigue– another distinctive feature characteristic of almost all children with cerebral palsy. In the process of correction and academic work, even with high interest in the task, the child quickly gets tired, becomes whiny, irritable, and refuses to work. Some children become restless as a result of fatigue: the rate of speech accelerates, and it becomes less intelligible; there is an increase in hyperkinesis; manifests itself aggressive behavior– the child may throw nearby objects and toys.
6. Another area in which parents may encounter serious problems is the child’s volitional activity. Any activity that requires composure, organization and purposefulness causes him difficulties. Mental infantilism, characteristic of most children with cerebral palsy, leaves a significant imprint on the child’s behavior. For example, if the proposed task has lost its attractiveness for him, it is very difficult for him to make an effort and finish the work he has begun.
Children suffering from cerebral palsy more often experience negative emotions, such as fear, anger, shame, suffering, etc., than children without of this disease. The dominance of negative emotions over positive ones leads to frequent experiences of states of sadness, sadness with frequent overstrain of all body systems.
For normal life and development in society great importance It has emotional-volitional sphere personality. Emotions and feelings play an important role in human life.
Will of a person is responsible for the ability that manifests itself during the regulation of its activities. From birth, a person does not possess it, since, basically, all his actions are based on intuition. As life experience accumulates, volitional actions begin to appear, which become more and more complex. The important thing is that a person not only gets to know the world, but also tries to somehow adapt it to himself. This is precisely what volitional actions are, which are very important indicators in life.
The volitional sphere of personality most often manifests itself when life path There are various difficulties and trials. The last stage in the formation of will is the actions that must be taken to overcome external and internal obstacles. If we talk about history, then volitional decisions in different time were formed thanks to a certain labor activity.
What diseases does it occur in? disturbance of emotional volitional sphere :
Schizophrenia
Manic syndrome
Depressive syndrome
Obsessive-phobic syndrome
Psychopathy
Alcoholism
Addiction
External stimuli include certain social conditions, and to internal ones, heredity. Development occurs starting from early age and until adolescence.
Characteristics of the volitional sphere of personality
Volitional actions can be divided into two groups:
Simple actions (do not require the expenditure of certain forces and additional organization).
Complex actions(imply a certain concentration, persistence and skill).
In order to understand the essence of such actions, it is necessary to understand the structure. An act of will consists of the following elements:
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method and means of activity;
decision-making;
execution of the decision.
Violations of the emotional-volitional sphere
Hyperbulia, general increase will and drives, affecting all the basic drives of a person. For example, an increase in appetite leads to the fact that patients, while in the department, immediately eat the food brought to them. Hyperbulia is characteristic manifestation manic syndrome.
Hypobulia characterized by a general decrease in will and drives. Patients do not feel the need to communicate, are burdened by the presence of strangers and the need to maintain a conversation, and ask to be left alone. Patients are immersed in a world of their own suffering and cannot take care of loved ones.
Abulia This is a disorder limited to a sharp decrease in will. Abulia is a persistent negative disorder; together with apathy, it forms a single apathetic-abulia syndrome, characteristic of the final conditions of schizophrenia.
Obsessive (obsessive) attraction involves the emergence of desires that the patient can control in accordance with the situation. Refusal to satisfy an instinct gives rise to strong feelings in the patient, and thoughts of an unsatisfied need constantly persist. So, a person with obsessive fear contamination will restrain the urge to wash his hands for a short time, but he will definitely wash them thoroughly when no one is looking at him, because all the time he endures, he constantly thinks painfully about his need. Obsessive drives are included in the structure of obsessive-phobic syndrome.
Compulsive drive a very powerful feeling, since its strength is comparable to instincts. The pathological need occupies such a dominant position that a person quickly stops the internal struggle and satisfies his desire, even if this is associated with rough antisocial behavior and the possibility of subsequent punishment.
Will is a conscious, purposeful mental activity. THEM. Sechenov, in his work “Reflexes of the Brain” (1866), pointed out that the mechanism of voluntary movements is of a reflex nature, which is based on nervous excitation. In the process of socio-historical development, humans have developed more complex and precise forms of adaptive reactions, expressed by highly differentiated conditioned reflex reactions. The volitional sphere is closely related to instincts (innate reflexes) and drives.
Instincts are innate reflexes inherited by a person from his ancestors. Instincts include: food, defensive, sexual, parental. A person can regulate his instincts and suppress them. If several conflicting desires arise simultaneously, then a struggle of motives occurs. Motive is an act of reflection, that is, a critical attitude towards desire in accordance with real possibilities. As a result of the struggle of motives, a person makes a certain decision. Will, volitional action - this is one of the aspects of the psyche, which, like any mental activity, is causally determined, subject to laws existing world. Volitional activity is an action aimed at realizing a consciously set goal, purposeful mental activity.
Volitional actions can be manifested in accordance with the laws of a given environment and then they talk about proper education and human behavior. In disorders of the volitional sphere, one can distinguish between an increase or decrease in mental activity, and a perversion of volitional actions.
Volitional processes may be disrupted in various types and be characterized by a variety of manifestations.
In patients with manic-depressive syndrome, there is an increase in volitional activity, manifested in increased activity, tirelessness, verbosity, increased good mood. A decrease in volitional activity is accompanied by inactivity, apathy, a sharp decrease in motor activity and is observed in some mental disorders (reactive and endogenous psychoses).
Emotional-volitional and motor-volitional actions are formed in the process of life, their deviations can manifest themselves at a certain age and in some neuropsychiatric disorders.
Weakening of volitional activity, and with them the manifestation of drives, is often found in a psychiatric clinic.
Drives are phylogenetically old, inherited, complex unconditional reflex (instinctive) vital reactions aimed at preserving the race and prolonging the species. They are characteristic of humans and animals. Human drives, unlike animals, are subordinated to social and labor activities. Training and education contribute to the inhibition of drives. With some lesions of the cerebral cortex, impairment, drives may be disinhibited.
Disorders of instincts and drives may manifest themselves in their intensification, decrease, disappearance or qualitative distortion.
Violation food instinct. Cravings for food are observed in the form of increased food instinct (gluttony, greed). Such conditions are observed in patients who have had encephalitis and are called bulimia. Most often you have to deal with the suppression of food cravings. Persistent refusal to eat food ( anorexia) leads to exhaustion of the patient. Persistent refusal to eat may be associated with a delusional mood (delusional ideas of poisoning, etc.) or the belief that food is made from low-quality products. Peak symptom- eating inedible objects. Coprophagia- eating feces. Refusal to eat may occur when various forms stupor, in states of depression, in hysteria. In some cases, anorexia is a protective physiological mechanism by which the body adapts to new conditions of the external and internal environment.
In the first hours after birth, the food reflex, which is innate, manifests itself. A normally born baby with a good weight smacks his lips and looks for the nipple, sucking out a sufficient amount of milk. Children born weak, with low weight, or who have suffered a birth traumatic brain injury are distinguished by a weak food reflex, eat little and poorly, regurgitate, and often experience dyspeptic symptoms (dysfunction of the gastrointestinal tract). Subsequently, they eat little, selectively. They often show polydipsia(increased fluid intake). By physical development These children are malnourished, often get sick, and they easily manifest various neurotic reactions.
When the food reflex is strengthened, children from an early age draw attention to themselves increased appetite, good fat nutrition. As they age, they eat a lot, especially flour and carbohydrate foods. Mothers often complain that children take out forbidden food from under lock and key and eat it all. They quickly gain height and weight and attract attention due to their increased fat content ( endocrinopathy). Children say they have incredible food cravings ( bulimia), they are hungry all the time, they eat a lot ( polyphagia)and can't get enough ( akoria), although they are fed quite well.
Along with a weakening or strengthening of the food reflex, a perversion of drives may be observed in certain conditions: pregnancy, in patients who have suffered concussions, and certain psychoses. A perversion of the food reflex is manifested in the desire to eat one food or refuse another. Sometimes patients eat inedible food due to a lack of certain substances in the body, for example, chalk during pregnancy or excrement during idiocy.
WITH defensive reflex related methods of education. Parents and educators teach children to treat well and help a friend, and forbid fighting. Some children learn this principle and behave correctly in a group, while others exhibit various deviations.
Children who are easily excitable, who have suffered a birth craniocerebral or lifetime trauma to the skull, often experience affective outbursts and easily come into conflict. In adolescents, these conditions are aggravated under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and antisocial conditions.
In physically weakened children defensive reflex not formed. They are touchy, whiny, everyone offends them, they cannot defend themselves. Teachers of preschool and school institutions should be especially attentive to physically weakened children and avoid conflict situations.
This group of pathologies includes self-preservation disorder, which may appear in the form exacerbation drive for self-preservation (distrust of everything new, changes, unfamiliar objects, adherence to a stereotypical order), weakening drive for self-preservation (lack of defensive reactions, indifferent attitude towards others), perversions drive for self-preservation (auto-aggression).
Fear accepts pathological form drive for self-preservation. This is a deep life experience, completely meaningless, usually unmotivated and extremely intense. Its manifestation varies: with stupor (numbness) or violent motor restlessness (hysterical reactions).
Attraction to suicide ( suicide about mania) is usually associated with mental disorders and is observed in adolescents and young adults with reactive psychoses, drug addiction, and alcoholism. Mentally ill people often show great ingenuity and persistence in carrying out their suicidal intentions. Close to the desire to take one's own life is the desire to self-mutilate, often carried out impulsively. This often occurs against the background of delusional and hallucinatory experiences.
In a psychiatric clinic, disorders occupy a prominent place sexual desire: increased or decreased sexual excitability, sexual perversions, which can be observed in various mental illnesses and conditions.
Increased sexual excitability – hypersexuality, expressed in adolescents in the form of frequent and prolonged erections, erotic fantasies, masturbation. Such conditions are observed with a sharp increase in the secretion of androgens due to accelerated pubertal development, under the influence of endocrine disorders or organic lesions hypothalamolimbic region.
Hyposexuality- decreased sexual desire, manifested in adolescents by a lack of interest in opposite sex. These disorders occur when psychosexual development is delayed.
The most common form of sexual desire disorder is homosexuality(attraction to people of the same sex). The history of homosexuals often reveals features of desire disturbances from childhood, most clearly manifested in adolescence and at a young age(interest in certain games, jewelry, girls’ clothes and vice versa). In the mental state of homosexuals, there are features associated with the pathology of their desires, often a feeling of social rejection, isolation, and often difficult experiences associated with the consciousness of their inferiority.
Other forms of violation include transvetism, pathological attraction to dressing in clothes of the opposite sex, as well as interest in things of the opposite sex.
Small children can also be objects of sexual desire ( pedophilia), sexual intercourse with animals ( bestiality), attraction to statues ( Pygmalion)and others. Such deviations as sadism and masochism have long been known. Sadism – characterized by the desire to cause pain to another person in order to achieve sexual satisfaction. Masochism– obtaining sexual satisfaction or pleasure from pain or humiliation delivered by a partner.
The opposite condition is a decrease in sexual activity, caused by temperament, the ability to volitionally control one’s instincts, the moral level of the individual, and stress experienced. Often falls potency in chronic alcoholics.
Considering that the sexual instinct is formed in childhood, the task of parents and educators is to instill in children correct understanding relationships between boys and girls, respect for them.
A grandmother asked for advice about her 6-year-old grandson. Coming home from kindergarten the boy spends a lot of time near the mirror, puts on his mother’s shoes and dress, her jewelry, paints his lips and transforms into a woman. This interest in women's clothing worries my grandmother. Question to the grandmother: what do the boy’s parents do at home? Grandmother's answer: Dad reads the newspaper and watches TV, Mom looks at her new fashionable things or talks with friends about updates. Nobody takes care of the child, he is left to his own devices and lives in a circle of constant conversations about things, toilets, women's jewelry, fashion. Naturally, he develops feminine interests. In this regard, advice to parents: the child’s father should do men’s housework and physical education together with his son and accustom the child to work. Otherwise, the child will develop various pathological personality traits.
Parental instinct is formed from childhood. The girl often picks up the doll, rocks it, bathes it and dresses it, imitating her mother. Throughout her life, the girl finds herself closer to the dolls, and then to the child. The boy prefers outdoor games: war, football, or playing with cars, construction toys, and soldiers. Nowadays both boys and girls are interested in computer games. Parental instinct is formed in the process life together relationship between a child and his parents, caring for them and is expressed in the healthy, proper upbringing of his child. But various deviations in the form of over-care or hypo-care can be observed, which manifests itself in strengthening or weakening of the parental instinct.
At overprotection loving parents try to do everything for their child: he grows up unadapted to housework and the need to help his parents. Most often, overprotection comes from the mother, she dresses and shoes the child, advises him with whom to sit at the table, with whom to be friends and what to say. In these cases, the child does nothing on his own and does not solve his problems. This situation (suppression of initiative) persists throughout school and adolescence. The child develops a certain personality type, which is defined as psychasthenia. In difficult everyday conditions, these people find themselves unprepared for independent decision any tasks and in difficult cases exhibit a severe stress reaction.
In cases hypoprotection, when parents pay little attention to their children for various reasons: they work a lot, abuse alcohol and spend their free time in entertainment. Children grow up under the influence of the upbringing of strangers, who are not always prosperous. In these cases, children leave home, engage in vagrancy and theft. Depending on their age, many of them end up in boarding schools, orphanages, or when committing a crime they end up in prison.
In a number of cases, mothers immediately after childbirth experience indifference, even disgust towards their children. It could be early sign mental illness ( symptomatic postpartum psychoses, exacerbation of the schizophrenic process).
Attractions are formed on the basis of instincts. However, attraction is a broader concept that not only implies certain forms of behavior, but also denotes the experience of a certain biological need. Thus, drive is a state that encourages us to seek or avoid those vital situations in which it could be resolved by an instinctive movement. Attractions are formed during life, but can change under the influence of the environment. Attractions periodically arise and disappear, their intensity changes. The forms of manifestation of drives are different and often depend on their satisfaction or volitional action.
In psychiatry, a large number of impulsive drives: urge to wander ( dromomania), arson ( pyromania), theft ( kleptomania). Most impulsive drives are complex formations both genetically and structurally. Unlike obsessive states impulsive drives are acutely arising impulses and aspirations that subjugate the entire consciousness and behavior of the patient. Impulsive actions occur when more deep violation mental activity compared to impulsive drives. They are characterized by meaninglessness and arise without any reason. The patient may impulsively commit an aggressive act or cause harm to himself, even committing suicide (A.A. Portnov). Such conditions are observed in schizophrenia and psychopathy.
The pathophysiological mechanisms of emotional-volitional disorders are diverse and have genetic and social roots, and are observed in many mental and neurotic disease states. In these cases, children and adolescents need a kind, attentive and caring attitude, and involvement in educational and work activities.
Disorders of effector functions (motor-volitional)
Along with emotional-volitional disorders, motor-volitional disorders are also described in psychiatric clinics.
The mechanism of occurrence of motor-volitional disorders is based on the factor of predominance of excitatory or inhibitory processes in the cerebral cortex. In these cases, volitional activity is weakened or increased.
Motor-volitional disorders with a predominance of the excitatory process include hyperbulia– increased volitional activity associated with increased drives. May appear in the form:
Manic excitement in which the patient is constantly in activity: without finishing one job, he starts another, while talking a lot, the mood is cheerful, the appetite is increased. Such patients may experience hypersexuality, aggression, and behavioral disinhibition. A person in this state does not feel tired and can work up to 20 hours a day, leaving a few hours for sleep.
This state of manic excitement is observed for two to three weeks, then gradually calms down until the next attack or passes into its opposite state - inhibition. The disease of manic-depressive psychosis (MDP) occurs in separate cycles.
catatonic excitement, which, unlike manic excitement, is not purposeful and is expressed by stereotypical movements, randomness, and pretentiousness. Patients are in constant motion, impulsively jump out of bed and walk aimlessly from corner to corner, shouting individual words. This condition is characterized by echolalia (repetition of words), echopraxia (repetition of movements), echomia (repetition of facial expressions). These changes in the patient's behavior are characteristic of schizophrenia.
Hebephrenic excitement, which is characterized by mannerisms, foolish behavior, an abundance of ridiculous poses, leaps, leaps, and antics. In adolescence, symptoms are complemented by disinhibition of lower drives. Patients talk a lot, philosophize (sterile philosophical philosophizing, reasoning). These conditions are observed in schizophrenia.
Hysterical excitement occurring after a fright. A person runs without looking back and cannot stop for a long time to understand what happened. A form of hysterical excitement also includes a hysterical attack.
Motor-volitional disorders with a predominance of the inhibitory process include all forms characterized by a weakening of volitional activity ( hypobulia)or stopping the action - stupor:
Depressive stupor in which the patient remains in the same position for a long time, speaks quietly, finds words with difficulty, his movements are slow and performed with difficulty. A constant sign Depressive stupor is a depressed state, a predominance of feelings of melancholy, fear, and anxiety. This is characterized by a suffering, frozen facial expression. Such conditions can be observed in manic-depressive psychosis in the depression phase, and in senile depression.
Catatonic stupor characterized by immobility and mutism (refusal to talk, silence). A state of waxy flexibility is observed ( catalepsy) – the patient can be given any position and he does not change it for a long time, for example, he does not lower his raised hand until it lowers itself. Such conditions are observed in schizophrenia.
Hebephrenic stupor characterized by duality (splitting) of activity, negativism, expressed in the fact that patients perform actions opposite to those that they are asked to do. These conditions are observed in schizophrenia.
Hysterical or psychogenic stupor occurs after mental trauma: with fear, sudden grief, natural disaster. The external manifestation is general inhibition up to complete numbness. Sometimes a person freezes and cannot move from his place, cannot utter a word ( mutism). In these cases, widespread protective inhibition occurs in the cerebral cortex.
Such conditions can occur in children and adults. After a fright accompanied by symptoms of mutism, children may develop neurotic stuttering.
Reviewed by us various symptoms psychopathological disorders show a variety of variants of painful conditions that can be observed in childhood and adolescence. What is important is the need early detection volitional disorders in children and adolescents, study of the causes that cause them, proper organization pedagogical work, adherence to mental and physical activity, involving children in physical education, creativity, education of moral qualities and artistic and aesthetic taste. Deviations in the emotional-volitional sphere against the background mental illness necessitates medical, psychological and pedagogical consultation.
Questions for independent work:
1. What are emotions? How are they different from feelings?
2. What are the features of formation emotional sphere?
3. Describe the types of emotional disorders.
4. How is the emotional-volitional sphere formed in childhood?
5. What is attraction? What types of pathology of desire do you know?
6. What types of disorders of the motor-volitional sphere do you know?
7. What features of emotional disorders can be observed in childhood?
8. How do you imagine “negativism” and its significance in the educational process?
9. Name the differences between hypobulia and stupor.
10. What are sadism and masochism?
11. Features of the work of educators and teachers with children suffering from affective and effector disorders.
Emotions in a person act as a special class of mental states, which are reflected in the form of positive or negative attitude to the world around us, to other people and, above all, to ourselves. Emotional experiences are determined by the corresponding properties and qualities formed in objects and phenomena of reality, as well as by certain needs and needs of a person.
The term "emotion" comes from Latin name emovere, which means movement, excitement and excitement. The key functional component of emotions is the motivation for activity; as a result, the emotional sphere is also called the emotional-volitional sphere.
At the moment, emotions play a significant role in ensuring the interaction between the body and the environment.
Emotions are mainly the result of reflecting human needs and assessing the likelihood of their satisfaction, which are based on personal and genetic experience.
How pronounced is it emotional condition person, depends on the significance of the needs and the lack of necessary information.
Negative emotions are manifested as a result of a lack of necessary information that is required to satisfy a number of needs, and positive emotions are characterized by the complete presence of all necessary information.
Today, emotions are divided into 3 main parts:
- Affect, characterized by acute experience of a certain event, emotional tension and excitement;
- Cognition (awareness of one’s state, its verbal designation and assessment of further prospects for meeting needs);
- Expression that is characterized by external bodily motor activity or behavior.
A relatively stable emotional state of a person is called mood. The sphere of human needs includes social ones, which arise on the basis of cultural needs, which later became known as feelings.
There are 2 emotional groups:
- Primary (anger, sadness, anxiety, shame, surprise);
- Secondary, which includes processed primary emotions. For example, pride is joy.
Clinical picture of emotional-volitional disorders
To the main external manifestations Violations of the emotional-volitional sphere include:
- Emotional stress. With increased emotional tension, disorganization of mental activity and decreased activity occur.
- Rapid mental fatigue (in a child). It is expressed by the fact that the child is unable to concentrate, and is also characterized by a sharp negative reaction to certain situations where a demonstration of his mental qualities is necessary.
- A state of anxiety, which is expressed by the fact that a person avoids in every possible way any contact with other people and does not strive to communicate with them.
- Increased aggressiveness. Most often it occurs in childhood, when a child defiantly disobeys adults and experiences constant physical and verbal aggression. Such aggression can be expressed not only towards others, but also towards oneself, thereby causing harm to one’s own health.
- Lack of ability to feel and comprehend the emotions of other people, to empathize. This symptom is usually accompanied by increased anxiety and is the cause mental disorder and mental retardation.
- Lack of desire to overcome life's difficulties. In this case, the child is in a constantly lethargic state, he has no desire to communicate with adults. Extreme manifestations of this disorder are expressed in complete ignorance of parents and other adults.
- Lack of motivation to succeed. The main factor of low motivation is the desire to avoid possible failures, as a result of which a person refuses to take on new tasks and tries to avoid situations where even the slightest doubt arises about final success.
- Expressed distrust of other people. Often accompanied by such symptoms as hostility towards others.
- Increased impulsivity in childhood. It is expressed by such signs as a lack of self-control and awareness of one’s actions.
Classification of disorders in the emotional-volitional sphere
Disorders of the emotional sphere in adult patients are distinguished by such features as:
- Hypobulia or decreased willpower. Patients with this disorder lack any need to communicate with other people, experience irritability in the presence of strangers, and lack the ability or desire to carry on a conversation.
- Hyperbulia. It is characterized by increased desire in all areas of life, often expressed in increased appetite and the need for constant communication and attention.
- Abulia. It is distinguished by the fact that a person’s volitional drives sharply decrease.
- Compulsive attraction is an irresistible need for something or someone. This disorder is often compared to animal instinct, when a person’s ability to be aware of their actions is significantly suppressed.
- Obsessive desire is a manifestation of obsessive desires that the patient is not able to independently control. Failure to satisfy such desires leads to depression and deep suffering for the patient, and his thoughts are filled with the idea of their realization.
Syndromes of emotional-volitional disorders
The most common forms of emotional disorders are depressive and manic syndromes.
- Depressive syndrome
Clinical picture depressive syndrome is described by its 3 main features, such as:
- Hypotomia, characterized by decreased mood;
- Associative inhibition (mental inhibition);
- Motor retardation.
It is worth noting that the first point listed above is a key sign of a depressive state. Hypotomia can be expressed in the fact that a person is constantly sad, feels depressed and sad. Unlike the established reaction, when sadness arises as a result of experiencing a sad event, with depression a person loses connection with the environment. That is, in this case the patient does not show a reaction to joyful and other events.
Depending on the severity of the condition, hypotomy can occur with varying intensity.
Mental retardation in its mild manifestations is expressed in the form of slowing down monosyllabic speech and taking a long time to think about the answer. A severe course is characterized by an inability to comprehend questions asked and solving a number of simple logical problems.
Motor retardation manifests itself in the form of stiffness and slowness of movements. In severe cases of depression, there is a risk of depressive stupor (a state of complete depression).
- Manic syndrome
Often, manic syndrome manifests itself within the framework of affective bipolar disorder. In this case, the course of this syndrome is characterized by paroxysmal episodes, in the form of individual episodes with certain stages of development. Symptomatic picture, which stands out in the structure of a manic episode, is characterized by variability within one patient depending on the stage of development of the pathology.
This pathological condition Manic syndrome, as well as depressive syndrome, is distinguished by 3 main features:
- Elevated mood due to hyperthymia;
- Mental excitability in the form of accelerated thought processes and speech (tachypsia);
- Motor excitement;
An abnormal increase in mood is characterized by the fact that the patient does not feel such manifestations as melancholy, anxiety and a number of other signs characteristic of depressive syndrome.
Mental excitability with accelerated process thinking arises up to the jump of ideas, that is, in this case, the patient’s speech becomes incoherent due to excessive distractibility, although the patient himself is aware of the logic of his words. It also stands out because the patient has ideas of his own greatness and denial of the guilt and responsibility of other people.
Increased motor activity in this syndrome is characterized by disinhibition of this activity in order to obtain pleasure. Consequently, with manic syndrome, patients tend to consume large amounts of alcohol and drugs.
Manic syndrome is also characterized by such emotional disturbances as:
- Strengthening instincts (increased appetite, sexuality);
- Increased distractibility;
- Reassessment of personal qualities.
Methods for correcting emotional disorders
Features of the correction of emotional disorders in children and adults are based on the use of a number of effective techniques, capable of almost completely normalizing their emotional state. Usually, emotional correction for children is the use of play therapy.
Often in childhood, emotional disorders are caused by a lack of gameplay, which significantly inhibits mental and mental development.
The systematic motor and speech factor of the game allows you to reveal the child’s capabilities and feel positive emotions from the game process. Elaboration various situations from life in play therapy allows the child to adapt to real life conditions much faster.
There is another therapeutic approach, namely psychodynamic, which is based on the method of psychoanalysis aimed at resolving the patient’s internal conflict, awareness of his needs and life experiences.
The psychodynamic method also includes:
- Art therapy;
- Indirect play therapy;
- Fairytale therapy.
These specific effects have proven themselves not only for children, but also for adults. They allow patients to relax, show creative imagination and present emotional disorders as a certain image. The psychodynamic approach is also distinguished by its ease and ease of implementation.
Also common methods include ethnofunctional psychotherapy, which allows you to artificially create a duality of the subject, in order to understand your personal and emotional problems, as if focusing your view from the outside. IN in this case the help of a psychotherapist allows patients to transfer their emotional problems to an ethnic projection, work through them, realize them and let them pass through themselves in order to finally get rid of them.
Prevention of emotional disorders
The main goal of preventing disorders of the emotional-volitional sphere is the formation of dynamic balance and a certain margin of safety of the central nervous system. This condition is determined by the absence of internal conflicts and a stable optimistic attitude.
Sustained optimistic motivation makes it possible to move towards the intended goal, overcoming various difficulties. As a result, a person learns to make informed decisions based on large quantities information, which reduces the likelihood of error. That is, the key to emotionally stable nervous system is the movement of a person along the path of development.
The birth of a child in a family with certain disabilities normal development- always stressful for both parents. It is very good when relatives, friends or psychological rehabilitation specialists help them cope with the problem.
The first signs of a violation of the emotional-volitional sphere begin to appear during a period of active communication in a group of peers, which is why you should not ignore any deviations in the child’s behavior. These disorders are quite rarely noted as an independent disease; they are often harbingers or components of quite serious mental disorders:
Schizophrenia;
Depression;
Manic syndrome;
Psychopathy;
Autism.
A decrease in intellectual activity in children manifests itself in the form of insufficiently complete regulation of emotions, inappropriate behavior, decreased morality, low level emotional coloring of speech. Mental retardation in such patients it can be veiled by inappropriate behavior in its extreme expression - apathy, irritability, euphoria, etc.
Classification of disorders in the emotional-volitional sphere
Among the disorders in the sphere of emotional-volitional expression of personality in adults are:
1. Hypobulia - decreased will. Patients with this disorder have absolutely no need to communicate with people around them, they are irritated by the presence of strangers nearby, are unable and unwilling to carry on a conversation, and can spend hours in an empty dark room.
2. Hyperbulia is an increased desire in all areas of human life; more often this disorder is expressed in increased appetite, the need for constant communication and attention.
3. Abulyu - a sharp decline volitional drives. In schizophrenia, this disorder is included in a single symptom complex “apathetic-abulic”.
4. Compulsive attraction is an irresistible need for something or someone. This feeling is comparable to animal instinct and forces a person to commit acts that, in most cases, are criminally punishable.
5. Obsessive desire is the occurrence of obsessive desires that the patient cannot independently control. An unsatisfied desire leads to deep suffering for the patient; all his thoughts are filled only with ideas about its embodiment.
The main deviations in the emotional and volitional sphere in children are:
1. Emotional hyperexcitability.
2. Increased impressionability, fears.
3. Motor retardation or hyperactivity.
4. Apathy and indifference, indifferent attitude towards others, lack of compassion.
5. Aggressiveness.
6. Increased suggestibility, lack of independence.
Gentle correction of emotional-volitional disorders
Hippotherapy has received a lot of attention around the world positive feedback both in the rehabilitation of adults and in the rehabilitation of children. Communication with a horse brings great pleasure to children and their parents. This method rehabilitation helps to unite the family, strengthen the emotional connection between generations, and build trusting relationships.
Thanks to adults, children and adolescents, the processes of excitation and inhibition in the cerebral cortex are normalized, motivation to achieve goals is enhanced, self-esteem and vitality increase.
With the help of horse riding, every rider can learn to control their emotions smoothly and without mental breakdown. During the training, the severity of fears gradually decreases, confidence appears that communication with the animal is necessary for both participants in the process, and the self-worth of introverted individuals increases.
A trained and understanding horse helps children and adults achieve their goals, acquire new skills and knowledge, and become more open to society. In addition, hippotherapy develops higher nervous activity: thinking, memory, concentration.
Constant tension of the muscles of the whole body and maximum composure during horse riding lessons improves balance, coordination of movements, and self-confidence even in those students who cannot make a single decision without the help of others.
Various types of hippotherapy help reduce anxiety and depressive mood, forget about negative experiences and increase morale. When achieving your goals, classes allow you to develop will and endurance and break down the internal barriers of your inadequacy.
Some students enjoy interacting with animals so much that they are happy to start equestrian sports at a school for the disabled. During training and competitions, the volitional sphere develops well. They become more assertive, purposeful, self-control and endurance improve.
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