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 (wrong idea of { thing, 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). Aphasia { temporary, 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. Absence of judgment in all acute insanities; in later dementias. Limitations in many so-called normal and in all the abnormal.
Disorders of Emotion Suggestibility in hysteria. Excitement in mania. Depression in melancholia. Phobias as found in psychasthenia. Deficiency as in the apathy of depression. Perversion in mania, in depression, in catatonia. Deterioration in dementia. Sense of unreality found in all borderland cases.
Disorders of Will Wilfulness in many “normal.” Very common in hypomania. Willessness (aboulia or paralysis of will) often found in psychasthenia; and in depressive states. Morbid inhibition as in depressive states. Indecision as in psychasthenia; as in simple depression. Obsessions found pre-eminently in psychasthenia. Tics in many borderland cases; in the hypersensitive as often the only expression of any neuropathic tendency. Distractibility as in hypomania and frequently in hysteria. Negativism as in catatonia. Mutism as in catatonia. Compulsive acts as in psychasthenia, hysteria, etc. Psychomotor overactivity (volition unable to check) as in mania. Psychomotor retardation (volition unable to energize) as in depression.
From this limited survey of the mind’s disorders we realize that every departure from the normal mental attitude tends to associate itself with one of the following five states of mental disability.
Depression,
Exaltation,
Perversion,
Enfeeblement,
Deficiency.