Applied Psychology for Nurses by Mary F. Porter

Author:Mary F. Porter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: psychology, medicine, mental life, mental health, nursing, biology, human mind, holistic, healing, health
Publisher: The Big Nest
Published: 2015-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

VARIATIONS FROM NORMAL MENTAL PROCESSES

Disorders and Perversions

Life would be a very simple proposition if the mental machinery always worked right. But this is peculiarly subject to damage both from without and from within. From without it may be damaged by the toxins of food, as in the acute toxic psychoses; by the poison of drink, as in the alcohol-produced psychoses, such as acute alcoholic hallucinosis; by lack of muscular exercise, resulting in a deficient supply of oxygen to burn up the accumulated toxins from energy-producing foods; by the infections, which may result in the infection-exhaustion psychoses; by wrong methods of education, and by surroundings which demand too severe a mental strain in the struggle toward adjustment. These damages from without we class roughly as environmental.

From within the mental workings may be injured by emotional dominance; by bad habits of thinking and feeling and doing—often the result of wrong methods of education; by defective heredity; by undeveloped will; by the insanities. These danger sources from within we might classify as self-produced and hereditary.

There may be disorders of any or every function of the intellect, disorders of feeling, and perversions of will. Some of the most commonly met we list below.

Disorders of the Functions of Intellect.

Disorders of Sensation

Hyperesthesia (exaggeration of sensation)

as found in neurasthenia, or in mania.

Anesthesia (absence of sensation)

as in the numbness of hysteria; in sensory paralysis.

Retardation as in dementia and melancholia.

“Clouding” or dulness as

in simple depression.

Perversion

as in dementia and melancholia. Sweet may taste sour; fresh food may smell decayed.

Disorders of Perception (being dependent on sensation is always disturbed with it).

Hyperesthesia (exaggeration)

as in neurasthenia or mania.

Anesthesia

as in hysteria or paralysis.

Retardation

as in dementia and melancholia.

“Clouding” or dulness

as in simple depression.

Illusion

found in normal mind—easily corrected;

found in many insanities.

Hallucinations

frequently met in the infection-exhaustion psychoses, in dementia, in paranoia, in acute hallucinosis of alcoholism.

Disorders of Ideation

Hypochondriasis

found in many of the hypersuggestible, frequent in the mild depressions and in all victims of self-attention.

Retardation

found in most depressions.

Deficiency

as in idiocy—the inability to form new concepts.

Acceleration

as in hypo-mania. Poverty

as in the abnormally self-centered;

as in melancholia. Rambling ideas

as in chronic insanity. Flight of ideas

as in manias, hysterias, and acute deliriums.

Fixed ideas as in paranoia.

Perversions (concepts change their meaning altogether)

as in dementia.

Ideogenous pains as in hysteria.

Compulsive ideas common in borderland states;

in psychasthenia, or hysteria. Disorientation

thing,

(wrong idea of { place, or

person);

found in confused conditions;

in delirium from infections;

in insanities.

Confusion

as in the infection-exhaustion psychoses;

in insanities.

Disorders of Memory Absent-mindedness. Amnesia (morbid forgetfulness).

temporary,

Aphasia { prolonged,

permanent (see later explanation).

Perversion

as fabrications, due to memory-confusion or inaccuracy; also due to excessive ideation and defective judgment.

Disorders of Reason

Delusions

Systematized Transient Fixed

Somatic

as in hypochondriasis.

Persecutory

as in paranoia.

Unworthiness

as in simple depression or melancholia

Grandeur

as in mania or paranoia.

Nihilistic

often found in melancholia.

Reference

as in paranoia.

Altered personality

as in hysteria.

Perverted personality

(patient may believe he is a dog);

as in dementia.

Emotional thinking.

Shut-in personality

as seen in the deficient social capacity of potential dementia præcox.

Disorders of Judgement

Defective judgment

in all insanities;

in hysteria.

Ex.: Patient who accepts mental suggestion of disability as reality.

Perverted judgment

in severe dementias—as influenced by unreasonable fear, hatred, etc.;

in all acute insanities—as manifested in inability of patient to rid himself of his delusions.

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