Violation of thinking in a person is a disorder of information processing processes, revealing relationships that connect various phenomena or objects of the surrounding reality, deviations in reflecting the essential properties of objects and in determining the connections that unite them, which gives rise to false ideas and imaginary judgments about objectively existing reality. There are several types of violations of the thinking process, namely, a disorder in the dynamics of thought processes, a pathology of the operational functioning of thinking, and disorders of the motivational-personal component of mental activity. In most cases, it is practically impossible to qualify the features of the mental operation of each patient within the framework of one type of violation of the thinking process. Often, in the structure of pathologically altered mental activity of patients, there are combinations of various types of deviations that are in unequal degrees of severity. So, for example, the disorder of the process of generalization in a number of clinical cases is combined with pathologies of the purposefulness of mental operations.
Thinking disorders are one of the most common symptoms of mental illness.
Types of thinking disorders
Disorder of the operational function of mental activity. Among the main operations of thinking are: abstraction, analysis and synthesis, generalization.
Generalization is the result of an analysis that reveals the main relationships connecting phenomena and objects. There are several stages of generalization:
- categorical stage, consists in classifying as a species, based on essential features;
- functional - consists in classifying as a species, based on functional features;
- specific - consists in classifying a species based on specific features;
- zero, that is, there is no operation - consists in listing objects or their functions without intentions to generalize.
The pathologies of the operational side of mental functioning are quite diverse, but two extreme options can be distinguished, namely, lowering the level of generalization and deformation of the generalization process.
In the reasoning of patients with a decrease in the level of generalization, direct ideas about objects and events prevail. Instead of emphasizing generalized properties, patients use specific situational compounds; they have difficulty in abstracting from specific elements. Such disorders can occur in mild, moderately severe and severe degrees. Such violations are usually noted with mental retardation, severe encephalitis, with organic pathology of the brain with.
We can talk about lowering the level of generalization only in the case when such a level y was earlier, and then lowered.
When the operational processes of generalization are distorted, patients are guided by overly generalized properties that are inadequate to the actual connections between objects. There is a prevalence of formal, fleeting associations, as well as a departure from the meaningful aspect of the task. Such patients establish exclusively formal, verbal connections, while true difference and similarity are not for them a test of their judgments. Similar disorders of mental activity are found in individuals suffering.
Of much greater clinical significance is the inertia of mental processes with inhibition of comprehension, the comparative scarcity of associations, and unhurried and laconic impoverished speech.
The inertia of mental activity makes it difficult for sick children to learn the school curriculum, since they are not able to learn at the same pace as healthy kids.
The fragmentation of mental functioning is found in the absence of purposefulness of mental activity, the relationships that have been established between objects or representations are violated. The order of mental operation is distorted, while sometimes the grammatical structure of phrases can be preserved, which transforms speech, devoid of meaning, into an externally ordered sentence. In cases where grammatical connections are lost, mental activity and speech is transformed into a meaningless verbal set.
The illogicality (inconsistency) of reasoning is manifested in the alternation of correct and incorrect methods of performing exercises. This form of impaired mental activity is easily corrected through focused attention.
The responsiveness of mental functioning in children is manifested by the variability of the ways of performing exercises. 
Psychologists well define the forms of thought disorder, the degree of its deviation from the "norm".
It is possible to single out a group of short-term or minor disorders that occur in completely healthy people, and a group of thought disorders that are pronounced and painful.
Speaking of the second, they attract the classification created by B.V. Zeigarnik and used in domestic psychology:
- Violations of the operational side of thinking:
- reduction in the level of generalization;
- distortion of the level of generalization.
- Violation of the personal and motivational component of thinking:
- diversity of thinking;
- reasoning.
- Violations of the dynamics of mental activity:
- lability of thinking, or "leap of ideas"; inertia of thinking, or "viscosity" of thinking; inconsistency of judgments;
- responsiveness.
- Violations of the regulation of mental activity:
- violation of critical thinking;
- violation of the regulatory function of thinking;
- fragmentation of thought.
Let us briefly explain the features of these disorders.
Violations of the operational side of thinking appear as reduction in the level of generalization when it is difficult to isolate the common features of objects.
Judgments are dominated by direct ideas about objects, between which only specific connections are established. It becomes almost impossible to classify, find the leading property, single out the general, a person does not catch the figurative meaning of proverbs, cannot arrange the pictures in a logical sequence. Similar manifestations are characterized by mental retardation; in dementia (the advancing senile dementia) in a person who was previously mentally full, similar disorders also appear and the level of generalization decreases. But there is a difference: mentally retarded people, albeit very slowly, are able to form new concepts and skills, so they are trainable. Dement patients, although they have remnants of previous generalizations, are unable to learn new material, cannot use their previous experience, they cannot be taught.
Distortion of the generalization process It manifests itself in the fact that in his judgments a person reflects only the random side of phenomena, and the essential relationships between objects are not taken into account. At the same time, such people can be guided by excessively general signs, rely on inadequate relationships between objects. Thus, a patient who is characterized by such disturbances in thinking classifies a mushroom, a horse, a pencil in one group according to the "principle of the connection between the organic and the inorganic." Or he combines "beetle" and "shovel", explaining: "They dig the ground with a shovel, and the beetle also digs in the ground." He can combine "a watch and a bicycle" by thinking: "Both measure: a watch measures time, and a bicycle measures space when it is ridden." Similar thinking disorders are found in patients with schizophrenia, in psychopaths.
Violation of the dynamics of thinking manifests itself in different ways.
Lability of thinking, or “leap of ideas”, is characteristic of that person who, without having time to finish one thought, moves on to another. Each new impression changes the direction of his thoughts, he talks incessantly, laughs without any connection, he is distinguished by the chaotic nature of associations, a violation of the logical course of thinking.
inertia, or "viscosity of thinking", is such a disorder when people cannot change the way they work, their judgments, they are not able to switch from one type of activity to another. Such disorders are often found in patients with epilepsy and as a long-term consequence of severe brain injuries. In extreme cases, a person cannot cope even with an elementary task if it requires a switch. Therefore, a violation of the dynamics of mental activity leads to a decrease in the level of generalization: a person is not able to classify even at a specific level, since each picture is a single instance for him, and he is not able to switch to another picture, compare them with each other, etc.
Inconsistency of judgments it is noted when the adequate nature of judgments is unstable, that is, the correct ways of performing mental actions alternate with erroneous ones. With fatigue and mood swings, this also occurs in completely healthy people. Similar fluctuations in the correct and erroneous ways of performing the same mental action occur in 80% of people with vascular diseases of the brain, in 68% of patients who have suffered a brain injury, in 66% of patients with manic psychosis. The fluctuations were not caused by the complexity of the material - they also manifested themselves in the simplest tasks, that is, they testified to the instability of mental activity.
"Responsiveness"- this is the instability of the way of performing actions, which manifests itself in an excessive form, when correct actions alternate with ridiculous ones, but the person does not notice this. Responsiveness is manifested in an unexpected response to various random environmental stimuli that are not addressed to a person. As a result of this, a normal thought process becomes impossible: any stimulus changes the direction of thoughts and actions, a person either reacts correctly, or his behavior is frankly ridiculous, he does not understand where he is, how old he is, etc. The responsiveness of patients is a consequence of a decrease in cortical activity brain. It destroys the purposefulness of mental activity. Such disorders occur in patients with severe forms of cerebrovascular diseases, with hypertension.
"Slip" consists in the fact that a person, talking about some object, unexpectedly strays from the correct train of thought after a false, inadequate association, and then again is able to reason correctly, without repeating the mistake made, but without correcting it.
Thinking is connected with the needs, aspirations, goals, feelings of people, therefore, violations of its motivational and personal components are noted.
Diversity of thinking- this is a disorder when judgments about a phenomenon are on different planes. At the same time, they are inconsistent, occur at different levels of generalization, that is, from time to time a person cannot reason correctly, his actions cease to be purposeful, he loses his original goal and cannot complete even a simple task. Such disturbances occur in schizophrenia, when thinking “seems to flow along different channels at the same time”, bypassing the essence of the problem under consideration, having no purpose and switching to an emotional, subjective attitude. It is because of the diversity of thinking and emotional richness that everyday objects begin to act as symbols. For example, a patient suffering from delusions of self-accusation, having received a cookie, comes to the conclusion that today he will be burned in the oven (the cookie for him is a symbol of the oven where he should be burned). Such absurd reasoning is possible because, due to emotional capture and diversity of thinking, a person considers any objects in inadequate, distorted aspects.
reasoning- Long-winded, fruitless arguments that appear as a result of increased affectivity, inadequate attitude, the desire to bring any phenomenon under some kind of concept, and in this case the intellect and cognitive processes of a person are not violated. Reasoning is often characterized as a tendency "to great generalization in relation to a small object of judgments and to the formation of value judgments" (B. V. Zeigarnik).
Violation of the regulatory function of thinking manifests itself quite often even in quite healthy people. With strong emotions, affects, feelings, a person’s judgments become erroneous and inadequately reflect reality, or his thoughts may remain correct, but cease to regulate behavior, inadequate actions, absurd actions occur, sometimes he becomes “insane”. “In order for feelings to prevail over reason, it is necessary that the mind be weak” (P. B. Gannushkin). Under the influence of strong affect, passion, despair, or in a particularly acute situation in healthy people, a state close to "confused" may occur.
Violation of critical thinking. This is the inability to deliberately act, to check and correct one's actions in accordance with objective conditions, ignoring not only partial mistakes, but even the absurdity of one's actions and judgments. Errors can disappear if someone forces this person to check his actions, although he often reacts differently: "And so it will do." The lack of self-control leads to the indicated violations, from which the person himself suffers, i.e., his actions are not regulated by thinking, are not subject to personal goals. Purposefulness is deprived of both action and thinking. Violation of criticality is usually associated with damage to the frontal lobes of the brain. I. P. Pavlov wrote:
“The strength of the mind is much more measured by a correct assessment of reality than by the mass of school knowledge, which you can collect as much as you like, but this is the mind of a lower order. A much more accurate measure of the mind is the correct attitude to reality, the correct orientation, when a person understands his goals, foresees the result of his activity, controlling himself.
"Disrupted thinking" it happens when a person can say monologues for hours, although other people are nearby. At the same time, there is no connection between the individual elements of statements, there is no meaningful thought, only an unintelligible stream of words. Speech in this case is not an instrument of thought or a means of communication, it does not regulate the behavior of the person himself, but acts as an automatic manifestation of the mechanisms of speech.
At euphoria, enthusiasm(for some people in the initial phase of intoxication) there is an extraordinary acceleration of the thought process, one thought, as it were, “jumps” onto another. Judgments that constantly arise, becoming more and more superficial, fill our consciousness and pour out in whole streams on those around us.
The involuntary, continuous and uncontrolled flow of thoughts is called mentism. Opposite thought disorder - sperrung, i.e. interruption of the thought process. Both of these species occur almost exclusively in schizophrenia.
Unjustified "detailed thinking"- this is the case when it becomes, as it were, viscous, inactive, and the ability to single out the main, essential is usually lost. When talking about something, people suffering from this disorder diligently, endlessly describe all sorts of little things, details that do not have any meaning details.
Emotional, excitable people sometimes try to combine the incomparable: completely different circumstances and phenomena, ideas and positions that contradict each other. They allow the substitution of some concepts for others. This "subjective" thinking is called paralogical.
The habit of formulaic decisions and conclusions can lead to the inability to independently find a way out of unexpected situations and make original decisions, that is, to what is called in psychology functional rigidity of thinking. This feature is associated with its excessive dependence on accumulated experience, whose limitations and repetition then lead to stereotypes.
A child or an adult dreams, imagining himself a hero, an inventor, a great person, etc. A fictional fantasy world that reflects the deep processes of our psyche becomes the determining factor in thinking for some people. In this case, one can speak of autistic thinking. Autism means such a deep immersion in the world of one's personal experiences that interest in reality disappears, contacts with it are lost and weakened, the desire to communicate with others becomes irrelevant.
The extreme degree of thought disorder - rave, or "intellectual monomania". Thoughts, ideas, reasonings that do not correspond to reality, that clearly contradict it, are considered crazy. So, normally reasoning and thinking people suddenly begin to express ideas that are very strange from the point of view of others, and it is impossible to convince them. Some, having no medical education, invent a “new” method of treating, for example, cancer, and give all their strength to the struggle for the “implementation” of their brilliant discovery (“nonsense of invention”). Others are developing projects to improve the social structure and are ready to do anything for the sake of fighting for the happiness of mankind (“nonsense of reformism”). Still others are absorbed in everyday problems: they either “establish” the fact of their spouse’s infidelity around the clock, which, however, they are already obviously convinced of (“nonsense of jealousy”), or, confident that everyone is in love with them, importunately pester others with loving explanations ( "erotic nonsense"). The most common is the “nonsense of persecution”: a person is allegedly mistreated in the service, slipped him the most difficult job, mocked, threatened, and started to persecute.
The intellectual quality and degree of "persuasiveness" of crazy ideas depend on the thinking capabilities of the one who is "captured" by them. Finding them is far from easy, and not always possible. Therefore, delusional interpretations and positions can easily "infect" others, and in the hands of fanatical or paranoid individuals turn out to be a formidable social weapon.
Thinking- this is an activity based on a system of concepts, aimed at solving problems, subordinate to the goal, taking into account the conditions in which this task is carried out.
On the basis of this scheme, it is possible to consider violations of the operational side of thinking, which manifest themselves in the actualization of random, weak, or specific situational connections. At the same time, the subjects' failure to take into account the conditions and content of test instructions may indicate violations of the motivational sphere (non-targetedness of associations, diversity of judgments, reduced criticality, reasoning).
There are three types of thinking pathology:
Violation of the operational side of thinking.
Violation of the dynamics of thinking.
Violation of the personal component of thinking.
Violation of the operational side of thinking
The main mental operations include generalization, abstraction (abstraction), analysis, synthesis.
Generalization is a consequence of analysis, which reveals essential connections between phenomena and objects. There are several levels of the generalization process:
functional - relation to the class based on functional features;
specific - relation to the class on the basis of specific features;
zero (no operation) - enumeration of objects or their functions without an attempt to generalize.
With all the variety of violations of the operational side of thinking can be reduced to two extreme options:
1) lowering the level of generalization;
2) distortion of the generalization process.
When lowering the level of generalization in judgments of patients direct representations about objects and the phenomena dominate. Instead of highlighting generalized features, patients use specific situational combinations, they have difficulty abstracting from specific details (for example, the common thing between a sofa and a book is that "you can read on the sofa"). Such violations can be in mild, moderately severe and severe degrees. These disorders occur in oligophrenia, severe forms of encephalitis, as well as in organic brain lesions of another origin with dementia.
However, it is possible to talk about a decrease in the level of generalization if this level was previously present in a person, and then decreased, which happens with patients with epilepsy, organic lesions of the central nervous system, and the consequences of brain injuries. In patients with oligophrenia, there is an underdevelopment of conceptual, abstract thinking, namely, the processes of generalization and distraction.
When distorting the process of generalization patients are guided by overly generalized signs that are inadequate to the real relationships between objects. There is a predominance of formal, random associations, a departure from the content side of the problem. These patients establish purely formal, verbal connections, but the real difference and similarity do not serve as a control for them and a test of their judgments. For example, the similarity between a shoe and a pencil for them is that "they leave marks." Similar thinking disorders are found in patients with schizophrenia.
Violation of the dynamics of mental activity
In psychiatric practice, one can distinguish two common disturbances in thought dynamics: lability of thinking and inertia of thinking.
Lability of thinking lies in the instability of the way the task is performed. The level of generalization in patients corresponds to education and life experience. The subjects have access to generalization, comparison, understanding of the conditional meaning, transfer. However, along with correctly generalized solutions, solutions based on the actualization of weak, random connections or a specific situational association of objects, phenomena into a group are noted. In patients with manifestations of lability of thinking, the so-called "responsiveness" is increased, they begin to react, weave any random irritant from the external environment into their reasoning, violating instructions, losing the purposefulness of actions, associations.
Inertia of thinking- pronounced stiffness of switching from one type of activity to another, difficulty in changing the chosen way of one's work. The inertia of the connections of past experience, the difficulty of switching can lead to a decrease in the level of generalization and distraction. The subjects do not cope with mediation tasks ("pictogram", Leontiev's method, classification of objects according to significant features, etc.). Similar violations occur in patients with epilepsy, as well as in patients with the consequences of severe brain injuries.
Violation of the personal component of thinking
These disorders include diversity of judgments, reasoning, violation of criticality and self-regulation.
criticality thinking involves comparing the results obtained with the conditions of the problem and the expected results. Patients can actualize inadequate connections and relationships that acquired meaning due to altered attitudes of patients with schizophrenia or as a result of difficulties in comprehending the content of the proposed tasks for oligophrenics. In this case, we can talk about non-critical thinking.
Diversity- a violation of thinking, which consists in the fact that the judgments of patients about some phenomenon proceed in different planes (for example, an elephant and a skier - "spectacle items", horse and bear are animals).
reasoning- a tendency to "futile philosophizing", a tendency to long-winded reasoning (for example, the subject compares the concepts of "bird" and "airplane": "Resemblance - wings. Because one born to crawl cannot fly. A person also flies, he has wings. A rooster also has wings, but he does not fly. He breathes ...").
Violation of self-regulation- this is the impossibility of purposeful organization of one's mental actions. At the same time, complex generalizations, logical operations can be available to the subjects, but as a result of vague thinking, its lack of purposefulness, an inability to solve the tasks set (patients with schizophrenia) is revealed. There may be a violation of self-regulation in patients with epilepsy as a result of rigidity of thinking and a tendency to excessive thoroughness and detail. At the same time, the "regulatory aspect of goal formation" is violated, and in patients with schizophrenia, "the motivation of goals is reduced."
The literature on psychopathology addresses thinking disorders: in the form of disorders of the associative process, pathology of judgments, as well as pathology of thinking in terms of pace.
Association Process Disorders are manifested in a painful change in pace, a violation of harmony and purposefulness of thinking.
Violations of harmony include:
Fragmentation of thinking- violation of semantic connections between the members of the sentence while maintaining the grammatical structure of the phrase.
Incoherence- a violation of both semantic speech and the syntactic structure of speech.
Verbigerations- peculiar stereotypes in speech to the meaningless stringing of words similar in consonance.
Paragnomen- action under the influence of a sudden absurd conclusion.
paralogical thinking– lack of adequate logic.
Purpose violations include the following:
Pathological thoroughness(see above).
reasoning(see above).
Dement detail(see above).
Perseveration(see above).
Symbolism.In contrast to the generally accepted system of symbols, patients see ordinary symbols where they do not play a symbolic role.
autistic thinking. Separation from reality, immersion in the world of imagination, fantastic experiences.
The pathology of judgments includes:
delusional disorders- False assumptions. There are paroyal delirium - systematized delirium without systematization; paranoid delirium - characterized by the presence of delusional ideas, which often do not have a sufficiently coherent system; paraphrenic delirium - combined with violations of the associative process (discontinuity, reasoning and symbolism).
Delusional disorders- false conclusions associated with a disorder of the will, drives, emotional disorders, differ from delusional ones by the lack of a tendency to systematization, short duration, and the possibility of partial correction by the method of dissuasion (they happen with MDP).
Overvalued ideas- Affectively saturated persistent beliefs and ideas.
Obsessions- Wrong thoughts with a critical attitude towards them, but the inability to get rid of them.
Tempo thinking disorders:
Accelerated Thinking:
jump of ideas (observed in the manic phase with MDP);
mentism, or mantism - an influx of thoughts that arises against the will of the patient (with schizophrenia).
slow thinking(during the depressive phase in MDP), as well as stiffness, rigidity (with epilepsy).
Thinking is a process of mediated and generalized cognition of objective reality.
Tempo thinking disorders
Acceleration- increase in the number of associations per unit of time.
The maximum acceleration of thinking is the “leap of ideas”.
slowdown- decrease in the number of associations per unit of time.
mentism- "whirlwind of ideas", acceleration of thinking arising paroxysmal.
Sperrung- "blockage of thoughts", a sudden stop of the associative process.
Disorders of thinking by harmony
fragmentation- violation of the logical connection in the sentence while maintaining the grammatical one (in speech it is manifested by schizophasia).
Light degree of tearing - slipping.
Incoherence- violation of the logical and grammatical connection in the sentence (in speech - paralogy and paraphasia).
incoherence- violation of the connection between syllables in words.
Verbigeration- stereotyped repetition of individual words or syllables.
Purposeful Thinking Disorders
Diversity- the formation of judgments based on different principles.
thoroughness- difficulty in the formation of new associations due to the predominance of the previous ones.
Perseveration- difficulty in the formation of new associations due to the dominance of one thought.
reasoning- "futile philosophizing."
Thinking Disorders by Productivity
obsessive thoughts(obsessions) - forcibly arising thoughts, realized as painful (obsessive doubts, counting, memories, fears, desires). They come on paroxysmal.
obsessive actions(compulsions) - involuntarily made automatic stereotypical movements, by an effort of will a person delays them.
Overvalued ideas- judgments arising on the basis of real facts, the significance of which is sharply exaggerated, in the absence of criticism.
Occurs in paranoid psychopathy.
delusional ideas (delusions)- erroneous judgments that arise on a painful basis, completely seizing the patient's consciousness, not amenable to correction and with a lack of criticism.
Classification of delusions
A. By content:
1. Delusional ideas of persecution (delusions of attitude, special significance, bewitchment, influence, poisoning, material damage, accusations, jealousy).
2. Delusional ideas of grandeur (nonsense of invention, high birth, wealth, erotic delusions, actually delusions of grandeur).
3. Depressive delusions (delusions of self-abasement, self-accusation, hypochondriacal delusions, delusions of denial, destruction of the world, induced delusions, conformal delusions).
B. By structure:
| paranoid | paranoid | Paraphrenic |
| 1) Delusion primary, interpretive, due to a logical fallacy. 2) Everyday content is nonsense, there is no obvious absurdity. 3) Monothematic delirium. |
1) Nonsense secondary, sensory-figurative, based on hallucinations, depression or mania. 2) Polythematic delirium. 3) The obvious absurdity of delirium. 4) Quantitative disorders of consciousness. |
1) Delirium of imagination. 2) Nonsense systematized. 3) The fantastic nature of the delirium (more often the delirium of grandeur). 4) Confabulations. |
| Example: Othello's syndrome - delirium of adultery. |
Example: Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome (mental automatism syndrome): 1. Pseudo-hallucinations. 2. Delusional impact. 3. Phenomena of mental automatism (ideational, sensory, motor) “Voices lead to the head directly with transistors” Occurs in schizophrenia. |
Example: Cotard's syndrome is a deep depression combined with hypochondriacal delusions or delusions of evil power (a kind of paraphrenic syndrome). |
Dysmorphophobia- experiences, the content of which is a cosmetic defect, physical deformity, a bad smell, supposedly emanating from the patient, in a word - a repulsive appearance. In essence, this is one of the variants of hypochondria.
In the structure of psychopathology, this syndrome is characterized by the Korkin triad:
1. The idea of a physical handicap.
2. Delirious relationship.
3. Low mood, sometimes up to depression.
Unlike metamorphopsia, there is no perceptual disturbance.
The very idea of a physical defect is most often a delusion of the paranoid type, less often - overvalued ideas or an obsessive state.
Each person lives according to an individual scenario of reflection of reality. One can see the desert, the other an island of flowers in the sand, for some the sun shines, while for others it seems not bright enough. The fact that each person sees the same situation differently depends on an important mental process - thinking. We analyze, evaluate, compare, perform mathematical operations thanks to it.
Many specialists are engaged in the study of the features of thinking, most often they are psychologists and psychiatrists. In the field of psychology, there are many different tests that have validity and reliability. Diagnostics of thinking is carried out to determine violations, as well as to search for methods for the development of thinking. On the basis of psychiatric knowledge, pathological processes of thinking can be determined. After that, medical assistance is organized for people who have a pathological work of this. What disorders of thinking can be observed?
What is the norm of the mental process reflecting the reality?
To this day, many experts argue how to correctly define a complex mental process - thinking. But so far there has not been a complete and meaningful thesis that would illuminate all the work that it does in our minds. This mental process is part of the intellect along with others (memory, imagination, attention and perception). Thinking transforms all the information received from the outside, transferring it into the plane of subjective perception of the human environment. A person can express a subjective model of reality with the help of language, speech, and this distinguishes him from other living beings. It is thanks to speech that a person is called the highest rational individual.
Perceiving various situations, with the help of speech, a person expresses his conclusions, shows the logic of his judgments. Normal thought processes must meet several criteria.
- A person must adequately perceive and process all the information that comes to him from the outside.
- Evaluation of a person should be within the accepted empirical grounds in society.
- There is which to a greater extent reflects the norms and laws of the whole society. Conclusions about any situation should be based on this logic.
- Thinking processes must proceed in accordance with the laws of system regulation.
- Thinking should not be primitive, it is complexly organized, therefore it normally reflects most of the concepts of the generally accepted structure of the world.
These criteria do not fit all people under the general rules of existence. Nobody canceled the individuality of a person. It is about the majority as about the norm. An elementary example: many people think that eating after 21.00 is harmful, so everyone who has dinner later is not included in the normal framework. But in general, this is not considered a deviation. So it is with thinking. There may be some incompatibilities with the generally accepted structure of the world by formal logic, unless these are gross violations of thinking.
Diagnostic methods
In order to determine the consistency, flexibility, depth, criticality of thinking, how developed its types, there are many ways to study this mental process. Physicians practice more examination at the organic level, the diagnosis of thought disorders is carried out using conventional medical equipment. They look through the machines, look for pathological foci, conduct an MRI, an encephalogram, and so on. Psychologists use test materials in their work. Diagnostics of thinking in psychology can also be carried out with the help of planned observation and natural or laboratory experiment. The most common tests for determining the features of mental activity: the "Concept Exclusion" method, the Bennett test, the study of rigidity of thinking, and so on. To determine the violation of thinking in children, you can use "Divide into groups", "Circle the contour", "Find differences", "Labyrinth" and others.
Causes of violations
There can be many reasons for violations of a complex mental process that reflects reality in our minds. Even now, experts have not come to a consensus about some pathological disorders in human thinking. They arise due to organic damage, psychoses, neuroses, depressions. Consider the reasons for the main deviations.
- cognitive disorders. They make low quality These disorders can occur at different levels of organization of the human body. At the cellular level, they prevent the patient from adequately perceiving the surrounding reality, followed by incorrect decisions about what is happening. These are pathologies such as Alzheimer's disease (dementia due to organic lesions of the cerebral vessels), schizophrenia. When the brain is damaged, there is a violation of memory and thinking, which does not allow a person to perform their usual activities, organize and classify objects. With poor eyesight, a person receives distorted information, so his judgments and conclusions may not correspond to life realities.
- Pathologies of forms of thinking originate from psychoses. At the same time, a person is not able to organize information on the basis of the generally accepted logic of things, therefore, he makes unrealistic conclusions. Here there is a fragmentation of thoughts, the absence of any connections between them, as well as the perception of information according to external criteria, there is no between situations or objects.
- Disorders of the content of thoughts. Due to the weakness of the perceptual system (in particular, the transformation of external stimuli), there is a "bias" of emphasis from real events to events that the subject has identified as having great value for him.
- Lack of systemic regulation. A person's thinking is arranged in such a way that in a problem situation he looks for ways out based on previous experience and information processing in a given period of time. Normally, systemic regulation helps a person to abstract from the surrounding discomfort, look at the problem from the outside, ask himself questions and look for constructive answers at the same time, and create a common plan of action. With a lack of this regulation, a person cannot quickly and effectively find a way out of this situation. Such thinking disorders can be due to emotional overload, trauma, brain tumors, toxic lesions, inflammation in the forehead.
Types of pathological thinking
There are quite a lot of pathologies of mental activity, since this process is multifaceted. There is a classification of disorders that combines all the properties and varieties of the mental process that reflects reality. Types of thought disorders are as follows:
- Pathology of the dynamics of thinking.
- Violations of the motivational part of the thought process.
- operational violations.
Pathologies of the operational side of the mental process
These violations affect the process of generalization of concepts. Because of this, the logical connections between them in human judgments suffer, direct judgments, ideas about objects and various situations come to the fore. Patients cannot choose from the many features and properties of the object the most suitable for its most accurate characterization. Most often, such pathological processes are people with oligophrenia, epilepsy, encephalitis.
Violations of this type can also be characterized by a distortion of the generalization process. In this case, the sick person does not take into account the properties of the object, which are essentially interconnected. Only random characteristics are chosen, there is no connection between objects and phenomena based on a generally accepted cultural level. There is such a violation of thinking in schizophrenia and psychopathy.
Disorders affecting the dynamics of thinking
The diversity of the pace of mental activity, consistency and spontaneity characterize the dynamics of the process, subjectively reflecting reality. There are several signs that indicate a violation of the dynamic side of thinking.
- slippage. With normal and consistent reasoning about something, without losing the generalization, patients begin to talk about completely different things. They may slip to another topic without completing the previous one, thinking in inadequate associations or rhymes. At the same time, perceiving such reservations as the norm. Because of this process, the normal and logical train of thought is disturbed.
- Responsiveness. The process by which the patient responds to all external stimuli. At first, he can reason critically and adequately, but then perceive all absolutely stimuli as addressed to him, consider improvised objects to be animated, which definitely need help or his participation. Such people may lose their orientation in space and time.
- Inconsistency. A sick person is distinguished by inconsistent judgments. At the same time, all the basic properties of thinking are preserved. A person can inconsistently express logical judgments, analyze and generalize. Such a pathology is very common in people with vascular diseases, brain injuries, TIR, and there is also a violation of thinking in schizophrenia, but they account for about 14% of the total number of diseases.
- Inertia. With the preserved functions and properties of the thought process, the pace of actions and judgments is noticeably slowed down. It is extremely difficult for a person to switch to another action, goal, to act out of habit. Often inertia occurs in people with epilepsy, MDS, epileptoid psychopathy, and can also accompany depressive, apathetic, asthenic conditions.
- Acceleration. Ideas that arise too quickly, judgments that even affect the voice (it can become hoarse due to the constant flow of speech). With such a pathology, increased emotionality occurs: when a person says something, he gesticulates too much, gets distracted, picks up and expresses low-quality ideas and associative connections.
What does personality disorder mean?
For people with deviations in the personal component of thinking, the following violations of thinking are typical.
- Diversity. Any value, judgment, conclusion can be "located" in different planes of thinking. With a safe analysis, generalization and comparison in a person, any task can proceed in directions that are in no way connected with each other. For example, knowing that she needs to take care of nutrition, a woman can buy the most delicious dishes for a cat, and not for her children. That is, the task and knowledge are adequate, the attitude towards the set goal and the fulfillment of the task are pathological.
- Reasoning. The thinking of a person with such a pathology is aimed at "solving global problems." In another way, this violation is called fruitless reasoning. That is, a person can spend his eloquence, instruct, express himself intricately without much reason.
- Ornateness. When a person explains something, he spends a lot of words and emotions for this. Thus, in his speech there are unnecessary arguments that complicate the process of communication.
- Amorphous. In other words, it is a violation of logical thinking. At the same time, a person is confused in concepts and logical connections between them. Outsiders cannot understand what he is talking about. This also includes fragmentation, in which there is no connection between individual phrases.
The content of thinking is its essence, that is, the work of the main properties: comparison, synthesis, analysis, generalization, concretization, concepts, judgments, conclusions. In addition, the concept of content includes ways of knowing the world - induction and deduction. To the internal structure of this mental process, experts also add types: abstract, visual-effective and figurative thinking.
A separate class of disorders in which a person's thinking goes through the path of degradation are the pathologies of its content. At the same time, its properties are preserved in some way, but inadequate judgments, logical connections and aspirations come to the fore in the mind. The pathologies of this class include disorders of thinking and imagination.
Obsessions in humans
These disturbances are otherwise known as obsessions. Such thoughts arise involuntarily, constantly occupy the attention of a person. They may contradict his system of values, not correspond to his life. Because of them, a person is exhausted emotionally, but cannot do anything with them. ideas are perceived by a person as his own, but due to the fact that they are mostly aggressive, obscene, meaningless, a person suffers from their attack. They can arise due to traumatic situations or organic damage to the basal ganglion, cingulate gyrus.
Overvalued emotional ideas
These are seemingly harmless judgments, but they were singled out as a separate pathological process - a violation of thinking. Psychology and psychiatry deal with this problem side by side, since overvalued ideas can be corrected by psychological methods in the early stages. A person with such a pathology has preserved properties of thinking, but at the same time one or a set of ideas that encourage action does not give him rest. It occupies a dominant place among all thoughts in his mind, exhausting a person emotionally and getting stuck in the brain for a long time.
Delusion as a disorder of the thought process
It is a gross violation of the thought process, since a person has conclusions and ideas that do not correspond to his values, reality, generally accepted. The patient considers them correct, and it is impossible to convince him of the opposite.
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