Affect in psychology. What is this condition, types, signs

The state of affect is one of the most controversial phenomena in psychology. Some people are afraid of him. Others believe that only a mentally ill person is capable of this, and therefore they are not in danger. Still others are sure that this can happen to anyone; no one is immune from an affective outburst. Who is right, what is an affective state, when does it arise, and how does psychology, psychiatry, and criminal law view it? Let’s find out.

What is affect

Affect is a person’s mental state. In strength and duration it is more than an emotion, but less than a mood. In a state of passion, a person is not aware of his actions, words, and deeds. Affective state is a reaction to despair, the inability of the individual to find a way out of the current situation.

What is the meaning of the word affect? The name is derived from the Greek affectus, which means “passion, emotional excitement.” The term was introduced into psychology by the German psychiatrist R. Krafft-Ebing, then Freud actively studied it. One of the first Russian psychologists to study this phenomenon was A.N. Leontyev. But the concept of affect was first mentioned long before this, in the works of Aristotle, Descartes, and Spinoza.

The concept of affect, definition in psychology

What is a state of affect in psychology? Affect is a very intense but short-lived state during which an individual feels several strong emotions at once. They arise against a person’s will in response to external stimuli. A person feels ordinary emotions as part of his Self, but in a state of passion, he does not feel this.

At the moment of an affective outburst, severe mental arousal occurs. All systems are working to the limit. In this state, a person can go beyond his usual capabilities, he becomes stronger, more agile, faster. There are cases when, in a state of passion, people ran up a vertical wall or moved cars. But even more often in this state people commit crimes (murder, rape).

What is affect in psychology from the point of view of the distinctive features of the phenomenon? Distinctive features of the state of affect:

• occurs very quickly;
• does not last long;
• characterized by strong intensity and expressiveness;
• is not realized by the person (characterized by impulsiveness, lack of control, lack of will);
• accompanied by absent-mindedness, narrowing of perception to the point of the stimulus.

State of affect - what is it in psychological meaning? According to the concept of affect in psychology, it is a kind of defense mechanism, an emergency exit. It turns on when a person cannot normally protect himself. This also happens in animals, but it relates to biological needs, for example, finding food, protecting offspring. In the case of humans, affect can arise as a reaction to the inability to satisfy biological and social needs.

Concept and definition in criminal law

The difference in definitions in psychology and law is that the first science classifies affect as a subjective manifestation. This means that it is impossible to say in advance what will become a trigger, an irritant, because the perception of situations and resistance to stress is different for all people. The law strictly names the conditions (stimulants, stressful situations, negative factors) under which a person can be consumed by an affective state:

• bullying and insults;
• violence;
• systematic influence of traumatic circumstances, for example, regular beatings from the husband;
• immoral and illegal actions of the victim.

The law recognizes that a person was in a state of passion when it is possible to determine the suddenness of the onset of the state and the connection between the actions of the victim and the reactions of the attacker. This must be a very strong traumatic effect or the “last straw” in case of systematic traumatic effects.

Examples of affect

At the moment of passion, a person does not realize the cause of his condition, his consciousness narrows, his will weakens. People don’t remember the moment when they “switched off”, they don’t remember what exactly they did. They begin to analyze what happened after they “turn on” again. This is a very important feature: a person does not remember what he did in a state of passion. In particularly severe cases, people forget even part of the events that occurred before the “outbreak.”

If the killer says that he stabbed 20 times, went there, did this, took the body there, then it means he was not in a state of passion. Or if a person tells how he beat someone in a state of passion, but at the same time remembers why he did it, how and with what help he did it, then probably we are not talking about passion.

Examples of affect:

• the wife, during her husband’s next drunken brawl, kills him with her bare hands or simply throws him aside, despite the fact that the husband is much stronger and larger;
• a girl fights off a maniac who attacked on the street, exceeds self-defense and kills him in a state of passion;
• the little boy was so frightened by the dog that was chasing him that he quickly ran away and jumped over a two-meter fence;
• The mother, during the teenager’s next prank that degrades her dignity, breaks into screams and beats her son.

Threat to life and humiliation are the main reasons for the emergence of a state of passion.

What is affect, affectivity and affectivity in psychology?

States of affect are considered in psychology as acute emotional reactions that persist for a short time. They arise due to the inability of the human nervous system to cope with sharply increased emotional stress. This causes short-term disturbances in consciousness and inadequate reactions.

Affective outbursts are accompanied by uncontrollable negative emotions, so often after the end of the attack the patient experiences short-term memory loss and other signs of emotional overload. Often people cannot believe that they performed this or that action.

Affect is believed to be an ancient defense mechanism. It arises in conditions where there is a need to respond instantly to an emergency situation that has arisen, and there is no time for careful assessment and deliberation. Because of this, affective reactions are accompanied by impaired control and thinking.

At the same time, there is an activation of the body’s internal reserves. A person for a short period can become stronger, more dexterous, tougher, but is not aware of his actions. Affection and affectivity are a general sensory characteristic of a person, that is, his character. People with affect are characterized by excessive cheerfulness and aggressiveness. These features remain with a person throughout his life. Their absence does not mean that a person cannot control his emotions and actions.

Types of affect

Psychologists in the process of studying the phenomenon of affect named 6 types:

1. Physiological. This is a strong and short-term manifestation of any emotions that cause mental discharge. They are not outside the norm. A person, although he does not control this surge, does not pose a danger to himself or others. In this state, a person remains sane. In general, a person can control his actions.
2. Pathological. Very strong excitement, which occurs in three phases: preparation, explosion, conclusion. This is a very acute and vivid condition, which is accompanied by clouding of consciousness. It can happen in a mentally healthy person as a reaction to severe stress or psychological trauma. In this state, a person becomes aggressive, dangerous to himself and others. People with an imbalance of inhibition and excitation processes are prone to pathological affect; for example, all choleric people are at risk, as well as people with affectivity. Affectivity is a personality trait that can be characterized as emotional impulsivity, the ability to quickly switch from one state to another.
3. Cumulative. It occurs through a cumulative system due to the fact that a person is systematically affected by some negative factor or a stressful situation lasts too long. Simply put, a person endures for a long time and one day explodes.
4. Interrupted. A person enters a state of passion, but it is interrupted by some external circumstances.
5. Negative. The person experiences a decrease in mental and behavioral activity and falls into a stupor.
6. Positive. The person stops critically assessing the situation, his actions are subordinate to instinctive impulses and superficial judgments, and he acts stereotypically.

Psychologists have named another type that is more characteristic of children - the affect of inadequacy. This is a reaction to failure, the inability to get what you want, or the fact that a person does not succeed. Due to undeveloped voluntary control of behavior, children are easily excited, “freaking out,” as parents say. With proper upbringing and parental support, the child’s condition returns to normal. With destructive upbringing, the tendency to have affective outbursts in response to difficulties or failures in some business takes root, becomes a stable personality trait, and turns into an affective syndrome.

Some modern researchers identify another type - affect due to the use of surfactants, for example, drugs, alcohol. This is how some people react to being drunk.

Types and signs

The characteristic signs of affect include the following indicators:

• suddenness (the quality of the emotional-volitional state changes abruptly and is poorly controlled);
• features of occurrence (either suddenly, as a reaction to a significant traumatic experience, or as a consequence of a long stay in a traumatic situation);
• lack of volitional regulation (the individual does not control his own actions even during criminal acts).

Depending on whether a person has a healthy psyche or has a mental health disorder, it is customary to divide affect into 2 large groups.

1. Physiological. It is a psychological understanding of affect in its “pure form,” when the psyche of a normal person reacts to an affectogenic situation physiologically (unrestrained motor behavioral manifestations) and psychologically (temporary narrowing and fixation of consciousness). A short-term emotional-volitional disturbance is observed.
2. Pathological. This type of affect is characteristic of people with deviations in the individual mental sphere. An affective reaction is observed against the background of a pathological basis of the psyche (mental disorders and diseases of various kinds), we are even talking about the complete insanity of the person experiencing the affect.

Phases of affect

We have already mentioned that pathological affect occurs in three phases, let us consider them in more detail:

1. Preparation. Perception is gradually deformed, consciousness remains clear, the ability to observe and adequately assess one’s mental processes and experiences weakens.
2. Reaction. The process of excitation prevails over the process of inhibition, the will weakens, actions become disordered, consciousness becomes cloudy. The subconscious chooses: to run and hide or to attack and defend.
3. Exodus. Psychophysical exhaustion and complete loss of strength sets in. Awareness gradually returns, and partial or complete amnesia is observed.

Actions committed during the second phase are discharge. After this, exhaustion sets in, then recovery begins. Later, the affective outburst may recur.

Signs of affect

In a state of passion, a person looks like a mentally ill, antisocial type. His facial expressions, speech, and behavior are sharp and highly active. The people themselves who find themselves in this state describe it as a flash, a torn switch, a dream, a veil before the eyes. They either don’t remember what happened at all or see everything that happened in a fog.

Manifestations of affect are noticeable at two levels:

• external (active facial expressions and speech, changes in voice, unusual postures, active gestures);
• internal (fear, anxiety, feeling of being cut off from reality and being out of time).

From the outside it looks like this:

• the person makes fussy, chaotic movements;
• he ceases to understand the speech of other people, does not respond to calls, looks distant;
• the individual explodes and commits uncontrollable affective actions.

How long does the state of passion last: from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

Signs of affect in psychology are divided into two categories: obligatory and optional. In addition, psychologists separately identify signs of pathological affect and signs of affect in criminal law. Let's consider in the form of a table “State of affect, signs”:

Due to extreme excitement and shock, fixation on the source of irritation, a person cannot organize his actions. They become inconsistent, vague, incoherent. The person is not aware of the nature and consequences of what he does.

State of affect - what is it in terms of the manifestation of emotions? The peculiarity of affect is that emotions manifest themselves much stronger than in ordinary life. At this moment, a person is not guided by the norms of the society in which he lives, its culture, or laws. Emotional arousal inhibits all other mental processes and forces a person to act according to a pattern (affective memory is activated). If an individual does not take charge of his mental health, then in every similar situation he will “explode” and react according to this pattern, for example, destroying everything, hitting, running away.

Reasons for appearance

Affect in psychology is an internal psychophysiological process that reflects an unconscious subjective assessment of a current problem, arising under the influence of:

• a controversial situation that is of great importance for a particular person;
• real or imaginary danger to human life and health;
• unjustified hopes or awareness of exaggeration of one's expectations;
• inability to achieve what you want;
• criticism of a person’s moral values ​​or personal qualities.

The appearance of affect is always associated with:

• with increased intensity of experiences;
• with short duration;
• with emotional expression;
• with lack of accountability, or rather with a decrease in consciousness over the actions being carried out.

The threat that arises at the moment of clouding of the mind can be real or far-fetched, but it becomes dangerous only if a person is convinced. Such “cloudness of mind” in a healthy person lasts no more than 3-5 minutes, but with the addition of mental disorders it can remain unchanged for more than 3 hours. All this time, a person under the influence of affect is completely unaware of his actions, and after the state normalizes, he does not remember what happened.

Causes

Affect occurs in stressful, critical conditions, when a person cannot solve the situation with the help of rational and socially approved actions. The cause of passion is a direct or indirect threat to a person’s life and safety, both real and imaginary. That is, it may seem to a person that they want to attack him.

What else relates to the reasons for the occurrence of a state of passion:

• a strong conflict between a person’s desires and objective possibilities (he really wants something, but in an ordinary, normal state he can’t do it, he can’t get it);
• excessive demands on a person, pressure, humiliation of personal dignity, destruction of self-esteem.

In the case of internal conflict, the person himself is not aware of this contradiction. It remains at the subconscious level. However, conflict is not a necessary condition for the development of affect. It also depends on the individual psychological characteristics of the person and the general condition at the time of the difficult situation. Different people react differently to the same events; not everyone falls into an affective state.

There are hundreds of subjective reasons that can cause a state of passion. Psychologists named the most popular:

• an emotional quarrel or prolonged conflict with someone;
• lack of time, the need to make quick and difficult decisions;
• extreme conditions;
• unexpectedly stressful conditions and a person’s lack of understanding of how to act (for example, someone attacked on the street and put a knife to his throat);
• regular exposure to a moderately strong stimulus (for example, parents regularly beat the child for the purpose of punishment);
• words, actions of people that hurt pride, hit self-esteem, feelings;
• mental instability and mobility as features of temperament;
• impulsiveness and emotionality as personality traits.

Diseases and pathological conditions that can cause a state of passion:

• emotional lability;
• amygdala defects;
• hippocampal defects;
• mental retardation of any severity;
• any mental disorders;
• psychoactive addictions;
• infectious diseases and inflammations that inhibit the activity of the nervous system.

Causes

An individual’s predisposition to affective reactions is determined by several factors:

1. Features of the nervous system. The course of nervous processes, from a physiological point of view, is different for each person. People with a weak nervous system (nervous processes are easily excitable) are susceptible to affective reactions much more often than those with a strong nervous system.
2. Age characteristics. The periods of formation of character and personality in general - adolescence and youth - are more unstable. Affect, as a reaction to traumatic events and experiences, is easily born here. Old age, due to the weakening of neuropsychic processes, is also more susceptible to the occurrence of a state of passion.
3. Short-term weakening of the body. Caused by fatigue, overexertion (physical, mental), pregnancy, long-term or serious illnesses, etc. A person experiences an asthenic state, characterized by fatigue (occurs faster than usual), unstable mood, decreased quality of attention, memory and other mental properties.

Most studies see the cause of affect as a consequence of being in certain conditions and situations, called affectogenic:

• a situation of subjective complexity and impossibility of any task or action, here the stimulus for a person is too significant to cause an adequate response;
• a contradictory situation caused by the incompatibility between external prohibitions (social norms), personal attitudes (skills) and the need to break them;
• situation of mutual exclusion: a collision in the consciousness (behavior) of an individual of 2 oppositely directed tendencies that exclude each other while existing simultaneously.

An extreme option and example of the described emotional situations is a murder committed in a state of passion (in order to protect oneself) - a criminal act committed at the peak of emotional and psychophysiological stress, as a reaction to violent or extremely offensive actions, bullying (humiliation).

How dangerous is the condition?

In an affective state, a person becomes disoriented and disorganized. He commits irrational acts, becomes insane or partially sane. Therefore, in judicial practice this condition serves as a reason for mitigating punishment. Of course, if the client can prove that he was in such a state. Criminal cases involving the presence of affect are always investigated by a group of specialists, including the involvement of psychologists.

In an affective state, a person becomes disoriented, commits irrational acts, becomes insane or partially sane.

Is it possible to notice how to prevent

Affect develops in three stages, but they change very quickly. At the initial stage of affect, a person can control his excitement, but at the second stage he cannot. If you notice that you are falling into a state of passion, do the following:

1. With all your might, switch your attention to something else, do not concentrate on the irritating factor.
2. Change the activity or environment. For example, if you feel that a quarrel with your husband is about to end in an explosion, go out the door or onto the street and run around the house.
3. Try to slow down your reactions and reduce your excitement. Use breathing exercises. Take deep, long breaths and exhales for a few seconds, and concentrate on counting.

If these measures do not help, then you need the help of a psychologist. Your condition cannot be called a mild stage, so psychotherapy is indicated. In some cases, mentally healthy people prone to affective outbursts are prescribed medications.

If you feel vulnerable, you are afraid that you will suddenly break down, then take preventative measures, monitor the general condition of the nervous system, and strengthen it. The following practices will help with this:

• herbal and aromatherapy therapy;
• regular exercise;
• yoga, meditation and stretching;
• massage and warm baths;
• reflexology;
• auto-training;
• color therapy;
• complete rest.

These methods not only strengthen the nervous system, but also help in the development of self-control and self-regulation. They teach you to understand the body, its connection with the psyche, to feel the manifestations of emotions, their dynamics.

Disturbances in the sphere of emotional reactions

They manifest themselves as disproportionate in intensity or inadequate in quality emotional reactions in response to changes in situations that are essential for patients.

Emotional explosiveness or explosiveness . It manifests itself as an increased readiness for emotional reactions in the form of affects or disorders close to such, in response to various emotiogenic stimuli. From the outside, one may get the impression that violent emotional reactions arise over completely trivial matters (a rude word, an ironic remark, etc.). But these are usually “trifles” that greatly hurt the individual’s wounded pride. Reactions of expressed dissatisfaction, anger with verbal, and often physical aggression predominate. It happens that in such an impulse the victim is seriously injured, sometimes incompatible with life. Sometimes such patients exhibit “free-floating aggressiveness,” so that external aggression can immediately transform into auto-aggression. Such aggressors do not value their own lives or those of others. Most often they are psychopaths. During the reaction, self-control is significantly reduced, patients mostly act impulsively.

Explosiveness is often found in patients with psychopathic-like disorders of various origins (TBI, schizophrenia, etc.). E. Bleuler about and attacks of despair with attempted suicide, as well as “fear or even stuporous states.” Let us remember that we are not talking here about acute reactions to stress or reactions to repeated stress, when the first, as it were, prepared the ground for a reaction to the latter (“mental anaphylaxis”, “mental allergy”). Sometimes hysterical patients can “work themselves up” to the point of passion, especially if they have developed such a defensive reaction somewhere in the zone.

Defensiveness is emotional viscosity. It manifests itself as a persistent fixation of predominantly negative emotional reactions that arose in a situation of frustration. Typical in this case are rancor, vindictiveness, and aggressive fantasies. The patient, for example, talks about a long-standing conflict with his colleague and at the same time plays with his nodules, clenching his fists as if we were talking about a very recent skirmish. He does not forget to add that if he came across this man now, “I would settle accounts with him in full.” Another patient, 15 years later, brutally beat a classmate because he “made fun of me at school in front of everyone.” Such patients overcome mental trauma for a long time and with difficulty, unable to switch to something else. They seem to be invariant and strictly adhere to previous habits and patterns of behavior. Defensiveness can also manifest itself in relation to positive emotions and attachments. Patients say that they are “monogamous” and cannot start a second family if their husband or wife dies, they prefer to live in one place, it is very difficult for them to change their occupation, hobbies, entertainment, they keep old things for a long time, but they cannot get used to new ones. quite difficult, they listen to the same music and watch old films they once loved many times, do not include new people in their circle of friends, etc. Emotional viscosity is characteristic of epileptoid psychopaths, epilepsy, individuals with age-related personality changes, and has been described in parkinsonism and postencephalitic mental disorders.

Emotive lability is a slight, capricious changeability of mood under the influence of the most insignificant reasons, sometimes not noticed by the patient himself, much less by those around him - tachythymia. The wind rose, the sun set, rain splashed, a heel broke, the pen stopped writing, a stain appeared on the blouse - all this can significantly ruin the mood. But it easily rises if pleasant little things happen right away: the seller didn’t shortchange, someone said a compliment, smiled, gave up his seat on the bus - and the mood is good again, life makes you happy again, you like all the people, and rainbow mirages appear ahead again. In some cases, emotional lability reaches the level of emotional hyperesthesia, when the mood becomes dependent on an infinite number of random details of what is happening.

These are mimosa-type people, impressionists who cringe at a random glance, the intonation of a voice, the smell of sweat, the sight of a wilting flower. Such painful fragility makes it difficult to live, maintain smooth relationships with people, think about something serious, and generally creates a feeling of ephemeral, airy existence, in which everything is so conditional and changeable. Emotive lability is a sign of corresponding psychopathy, foreshadowing the possibility of more serious affective pathology.

Emotional incontinence is the inability to control not only your emotions, but also their external manifestations. The disorder was described by E. Bleuler in mental retardation, as well as in mentally ill people. Characterizes a significant decrease in the ability of self-control and dysfunction of higher integrative authorities.

Weakness - compassionate tearfulness, excessive sentimentality, manifested when perceiving or remembering touching events. One of the early signs of cerebral atherosclerosis. Weakness is often associated with traumatic events of the past and in such cases reminds us of the approaching symptom of “living in the past.” Weakness also occurs in states of neuropsychic asthenia, when a rational attitude to what is happening is replaced by a sterile emotional one. Excessive tearfulness often occurs with mild depression and hysteria. Sometimes tears characterize impotent anger, self-pity and resentment towards someone, a state of tenderness, a release of emotional stress, and the ability to share the suffering of someone. There are also tears of joy. The latter things do not relate to weak-willedness itself.

Weakness should not be confused with forced crying, which, like forced laughter, occurs with pseudobulbar disorders. “Hysterics” with sometimes uncontrollable sobs are associated with the fact that patients fall into the corresponding role, needing consolation, but cannot immediately get out of it on their own. Tearfulness in patients with painful insensibility does not relate to weakness: here the tears flow as if on their own, mechanically, not accompanied by the experience of corresponding emotions. There are also “made tears” - someone “forces the patient to cry or he feels that it is not he who is crying, but someone else instead of him.” Tears, like laughter, have many meanings.

Emotional dullness is the underdevelopment or loss of higher feelings while maintaining or even reviving simpler emotions. Patients lack such feelings as compassion, tenderness, a sense of justice, remorse, a sense of beauty, a religious feeling, intellectual feelings, etc. Emotionally stupid individuals are callous, cruel, not prone to repentance, many of them do not even know the feeling of shame. They do not care at all what feelings they form as parents and teachers. Many parents today teach their children to be selfish, to love only themselves, not to stand on ceremony with those who are weaker, to refuse help and to learn to say a firm “no” when asked for something, and if they hit, even when they are down. The leitmotif of such teachings is the conviction that “now you can’t live as a good person and you must win your place in the sun by force.”

Here is an example of the emotional dullness of a school teacher who, due to illness, was transferred to disability. The patient is a teacher-mathematician by profession; she taught physics and mathematics in high school. She said that she had developed a new system for teaching her disciplines and that after six months her class was unrecognizable: the eternal C students began to show miracles in solving problems. That is why - out of envy - she was suspended from lessons. Her method was to create problems of the type that would be interesting to schoolchildren. Over the course of a year, she came up with four hundred such problems and was extremely proud of it. Here are some of them. “A brick is sliding on the roof of a five-story building. The length of the sliding path is 5 m. The height of the house is H, the sliding speed is X. An old man is approaching the house at speed Y. From the place where the brick is supposed to fall, it is located at a distance B. The question is: will the brick fall on the head of this bald old man?” Or: “A climber fell from a cliff 250 m high. The question is: how long will it take him to reach the gorge and at what speed will he crash on its bottom?” The saddest thing about this story about emotional stupidity was that all the children liked the problems, and none of their parents protested.

A somewhat lesser degree of emotional dullness is designated as emotional impoverishment or impoverishment. The attachments, altruistic feelings, and empathy of such patients are significantly weakened, fragile and quickly dry up. Thus, a 30-year-old patient reports that he is still not married and does not intend to get married, that he has never been interested in anyone before, has never been in love and has never liked anyone.

“Love,” he explains, “is animal magnetism, the relationship between a male and a female. Why marry - to mate? And then, even if you get married, you have to adapt to society, and tedious legal procedures will follow.” He doesn’t think about becoming a father at all. “What is this, what is the point of having children, I don’t love them, and caring for them disgusts me.” I got a job several times, even for good pay. After 1–2 months, he quit his job, but did not formalize his dismissal, without notifying him in advance of his intention. Questions about duties, responsibilities, and the fact that he had let someone down were ignored. His motivation to leave work was: “The work is boring, monotonous, I would like bright impressions, but everything gets boring quickly.” He does not visit his parents, does not write letters to them. I had only one friend at school. He is not interested in anything at the moment, does not communicate with anyone, and practically does not leave the house. Lives on the help of his parents. At home he sometimes plays computer games, sometimes watches TV, and occasionally reads anything he can get his hands on.

“Of course, I would have to work, but there is nothing that I would like.”

The degree of emotional impoverishment varies, of course, but usually it concerns higher feelings: affection, love, friendship, gratitude, cordiality, respect, compassion. Even minor emotional changes play, according to E. Bleuler, “an outstanding role” and “especially because in any disorder it is the affective mechanisms that first reveal symptoms.”

Emotional paradox is a disproportion between the intensity of affective reactions and the objective significance of emerging situations and developing circumstances. Thus, a 31-year-old patient, a prosector at a children's hospital, is satisfied with his work, it does not depress him, does not darken his mood. Explains: “At the cellular level, the corpse is not visible.” A good photographer, he especially likes to photograph children. Loves nature, serious music, “pop music disgusts me.” Very vulnerable - “one word is enough to ruin your mood for the whole day.” Not married, never been in a close relationship: “This is pure physiology; love was invented so as not to feel like beasts.”

He tolerates the environment of the psychiatric ward (located in the general ward) calmly, is not burdened by being here, communicates with patients on equal terms, goes with them to lunch and to work. He accepted the offer to undergo treatment without resistance. Informed by the doctor that he is ill, and quite seriously. He listened to this calmly and did not ask why he was sick. He didn’t ask about the threat of this disease or how it would affect his life. I calmly accepted the offer to register for disability. For some reason I remembered that I once spent the night in the morgue for a whole month. “The only bad thing there is that it’s hot.” Another patient reports: “I’m not afraid of fights, men fight bloody, with knives, and I try to separate them. Lately, one has broken up seven fights. “More than anything else, I’m afraid of mysticism and watching thrillers.”

Another patient stoically endures the atmosphere of the department, the noise, quarrels, fights between patients, he is not traumatized by the fact of the disease (he knows what he is sick with), and the not very bright prospects of remaining virtually thrown out of life. And yet one day he suddenly became very indignant, shouted, and was agitated - the reason was that he was moved to another bed in the ward.

Irritability is a tendency to frequent and relatively shallow reactions of dissatisfaction for various, usually minor reasons, which often have no direct relationship to the true causes of the disorder. One of the most common causes of irritability is the egocentrism of patients - many of them are dissatisfied only because “everything is not done as it should be,” that is, “not my way.” An egocentric person gets irritated when people don’t listen to him: how can you not listen to me, others are capable of talking nonsense, but not me. It infuriates him when he is interrupted, although he himself does not allow anyone to open their mouth: “he also interrupts, boorish, it would be better for him to keep quiet, listen to what smart people say.” An egocentric person constantly reproaches someone, lectures, instructs, gives very impartial assessments, he is generally irritated by everything that, in his opinion, is unfair, that is, it hurts his exorbitant pride. They are irritable to the point of scandals and hysterics: they are offended that they are not appreciated, not understood, not thanked at every step, they need their path to be strewn with roses of admiration.

Often, irritability is a way of releasing accumulated resentment on someone. Resentment and tension spill out onto household members, children, animals; goes to objects too. Dishes are shattered, clothes are torn to shreds, pens and pencils are broken. One patient smashed his car with a hammer because it would not start. The transfer of emotions from one object to another is sometimes called the transportation of emotions. Patients, irritated, often want at all costs to maintain the illusion of their control over what is happening by demonstrating aggression, the strength of their ego. Irritability can be a consequence of dissatisfaction with themselves: few are able to understand themselves in order to understand what is wrong with them . The easiest way is to find the culprit in order to distract your attention from yourself with a flash of irritation, as if to crowd out dissatisfaction with yourself, and at the same time restore self-esteem. Sometimes irritation is a mild form of expressing indignation, that is, dissatisfaction with the essence of the matter, which does not affect the dignity of another; such people are often dissatisfied with themselves, or rather, with the fact that they did something wrong, at the wrong time, let someone down, and generally did something unworthy of themselves.

Usually they are immediately ready to apologize and correct the situation as soon as possible. Finally, irritability is a constant companion to asthenia - irritable weakness or “failure of the brakes” - hypersthenia. Such patients are at first indignant, then they think, and then they realize that they “got excited” and were wrong. Emotions are generally difficult to bring under control, but losing control over them is much easier. And when this happens, they always have the first word. If irritability is combined with other manifestations of increased emotional sensitivity, it may be a sign of excessive impressionability in depressed patients. So, irritability can be characteristic of patients with various disorders; we think we have identified some of its main causes.

Emotional coarsening is the loss of subtle, differentiated emotional reactions associated with a mild decrease in intelligence with organic brain damage in persons who are disharmonious in terms of premorbid personality. Due to an overly simplified, incomplete, fragmentary or one-sided understanding of what is happening, patients become quite inadequate: tactless, naked, familiar, boastful or even dishonest, since deception and cunning are in the order of things for them. Their sense of proportion, delicacy, courtesy, tolerance often betrays them; in polite society they resemble a bull in a china shop. They cannot understand that their inappropriate behavior will shock someone, may injure someone with an obscene phrase, offend or cause self-loathing. They also love to joke. But their jokes are vulgar, obscene and often repeated to the accompaniment of their own laughter.

Because of their importunity, they shamelessly barge into someone else’s conversation and try to lead him in their direction, where they wash someone’s bones. They speak loudly, a lot, as if they are trying to shout someone down. Their phraseology is very far from subtlety, the statements of prostitutes, the beginning and end of the latter are rarely on the same line of reasoning. Patients easily cross the boundaries of subordination, interfere with personal relationships with employees, and do not take into account the self-respect and ethical position of the interlocutor. And if the interlocutor is also a subordinate, he finds himself in the position of a “fool” who should not be taken into account at all. Patients are often very cheeky, they can be rude and even mock people who are dependent on them. They are incapable of dialogue: they interrupt the interlocutor, do not allow him to complete his thought, do not try to understand him, impose their opinion, and then draw dubious conclusions from the conversation, relating not so much to the problem being discussed, but to interpersonal relationships.

Subordinates rarely leave the office of such a boss with a light heart, unless they use flattery or something else to appease the “deity.” Such dialogue is somewhat reminiscent of the communication disorder in the form of double dialogue described in families of patients with schizophrenia (J. Batesson, 1956). For example, a son, rejoicing at his mother’s visit, puts his hand on her shoulder. The mother responds with a grimace of disapproval. The patient withdraws his hand, to which the mother reproaches him for not loving her. The patient blushes, but the mother reprimands him, saying that he shouldn’t be so embarrassed. In other circumstances, emotionally hardened patients may behave completely differently: they ingratiate themselves, please, humiliate themselves, agree with everything and eat with the eyes of their boss, trying to speak less so as not to inadvertently anger him. Someone rightly said: silence is a shield for a fool, a fool is smart as long as he remains silent. The essence of the matter does not change from this change of dishes. The coarsening of emotions and feelings occurs quite often and usually comes to the fore, while intellectual decline remains, as it were, in the shadows, and gross violations are often not detected.

Anniversary reactions are the appearance or intensification of feelings of grief on the date of the tragic event. This happens, for example, on Parents' Day, on days of remembrance of victims of war or terrorist attacks, disasters, etc. For example, participants in battles in hot spots get together from time to time to remember their fallen combat friends. Usually reserved in talking about mourning events with outsiders, here they indulge in detailed memories, reviving in their memory the smallest details of what happened. At the same time, it cannot be done without a feast. They drink to remember the dead, to soften the severity of the loss and to suppress the guilt of the survivors. In hindsight, it often seems that the disaster could have been prevented.

Parathymia is an inversion of emotional reactions, the replacement of adequate emotions with the exact opposite. So, a mother congratulates her daughter on her birthday as follows: “Galina! I don't wish you a happy birthday. I don't wish you happiness. I curse you, your mother’s curse is the worst!” The girl was raped in a group; her friends held her legs. In shock, she returned home, did not say anything to her loved ones, went into the bathroom, lay down in the water with her clothes on and burst out laughing. Another patient recalled that at the age of seven she fell into the water, got scared, and began to drown. She was saved by a woman passing by. Instead of the joy of salvation and gratitude to the woman, “I scolded the savior in all sorts of ways, told her that she was a fool and ugly.”

Idiosyncrasy to emotions - intolerance of various emotions: “I perceive my emotions too acutely. And good ones too. After them there is palpitation, discomfort, I feel very bad. I try not to worry or be happy at all.” This symptom seems to be the opposite of painful insensibility. In the latter case, patients suffer from the fact that they have ceased to be aware of their emotions. In the second case, on the contrary, the patient is too acutely aware of her emotions and suffers for this reason.

Emotional ambivalence is the coexistence of polar feelings in relation to the same object or phenomenon: “I seem to have two selves: one loves my mother, the other hates her... I am attached to my husband, I am tender with him and at the same time he infuriates me, I’m ready to kill him”... The patient wants his wife to die, but when he sees her dead in hallucinations, he falls into despair. The disorder indicates a splitting of the ego.

Escalation of affectivity - excessive expressiveness (in gestures, facial expressions, postures, voice intonations) in hysterics as a means of suppressing others, self-affirmation and as a mechanism for discharging excess motivation (teaching a lesson, punishing someone, moderating libido, etc.). Patients start small: they raise their voices, cry, nervously walk around the room. Then, gradually and as if involuntarily, they inflate themselves to such an extent that they can no longer get out of the role on their own unless they are saved by fainting.

Emotional burnout is a symptom complex that includes emotional and (or) physical exhaustion, depersonalization and decreased performance (Pelmann, Hartman, 1982). Emotional exhaustion is experienced as internal emptiness, depletion of affective resources, and emotional overstrain. Interest in work is lost, the patient goes there as if “to hard labor”, without inspiration and enthusiasm, but rather with disgust. Depersonalization is expressed by a feeling of depersonalization of people; they all seem equally unpleasant.

Relations with them become purely formal; employees often cause irritation, hostility, dissatisfaction and indignation. Conflicts with them are quite likely if colleagues do not realize that they are dealing with a person whose mental strength has left them. The decline in performance is associated with such reasons as the emergence of a negative assessment of oneself as a professional, self-doubt, feelings of uselessness, doubts about one’s competence, dissatisfaction with oneself, and decreased motivation to work.

Emotional burnout occurs in individuals who are in intensive and close communication with clients, patients, students, students and colleagues when providing professional assistance. Characteristic of emotional people who do not know how to protect themselves from excessive affective reactions to work situations. The surgeon should not die with every patient, the psychiatrist should not go crazy with the patient, accepting his grief as his own; The teacher should not worry about the failures of his students as if he himself received ones and twos. Work should not exceed the optimal level of tension, otherwise it will lead to fatigue and many mistakes in simple situations. The amount of workload should be rational and in no case go beyond the scope of mental hygiene. Managers do not know anything like this or do not want to know, overloading their subordinates; Usually, unfortunately, they care more about themselves and their prestige in the eyes of their superiors.

The disorder develops at the age of 30–40 years, more often in women with these professions, as well as in scientists and managers. It is sometimes called compassion fatigue. It is necessary to timely identify patients and provide rehabilitation assistance using psychotherapy and psychopharmacotherapy (small doses of antidepressants, nootropics, sleep normalization, physiotherapy, etc.).

Learned helplessness is a condition caused by “being caught in harmful, unpleasant situations” that “can neither be avoided nor prevented” (Seligman). In experiments on animals, the helplessness of the latter becomes such that even the emerging opportunity to get out of the situation is not used. Some authors see in this disorder a factor contributing to the emergence or intensification of depression. V. Frankl observed the complete loss of the ability to resist in the Nazi death camps; For some reason such prisoners were called Muslims, perhaps because they pinned their hopes only on the Almighty.

Dyshomophilia - tension, anxiety during homoerotic fantasies. It is observed in homo-, heterosexuals and even asexual people. It is recommended not to confuse the disorder with “egodystonic homosexuality.”

Emotional paralysis of Beltz (1901), or affective anesthesia. Described as a variant of psychogenic stupor without impairment of consciousness with complete shutdown of emotions without subsequent amnesia. Derealization is also observed, the patient perceives what is happening detachedly, from the outside, as something apparent to him. At the same time, he can move and behave outwardly quite adequately.

The loss of syntony manifests itself in the fact that the patient does not feel the emotional context in someone’s conversation with him, and thus cannot discover the meaning of the speech addressed to him. Thus, the patient perceives the doctor’s usual sympathetic questions about his well-being as an “interrogation” and says that “they are getting into his soul.” When asked to clarify what he means, he states that they are pestering him and showing inappropriate curiosity. He considers the advice to get medical treatment as pressure on him, and is indignant at being “dictated” or “imposed” on him. He is offended by a joke, believing that he is being “mocked”; he regards a friendly attitude towards himself as an attempt to “manipulate” him, etc. It is more often observed in patients with schizophrenia.

Vicarious pleasure is the replacement of one’s own dissatisfaction with joy or pleasure for other people. A father is happy, for example, that his son gets an A in math at school, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do this at one time. The voyeur gets vicarious pleasure by spying on the intimate relationships of other people.

Phobic reactions are excessive fears of something, observed in timid, timid natures. It is important that such patients do not know how to assess the true extent of the danger and do not have sufficient personal experience in dealing with dangerous situations. They are not able to adequately control their fears. The best form of fear control is coping skills in threatening situations. For example, a person sees someone drowning. He runs along the shore in fear and calls for help. Another person silently rushes into the water and saves the drowning man, without feeling any fear. Phobic reactions are not obsessive, although the patient fruitlessly struggles with them, is burdened by them, would like to get rid of them, while understanding that they are something not entirely normal. In addition, he is also ashamed of his fears and tries not to tell anyone about them. V.V. Kovalev defines such fears as overvalued and exaggerated.

Hypophobia is a lack of feeling of fear, leading to an underestimation of the degree of danger or threat of any situations. Described in patients with schizophrenia, in alcoholic intoxication, and with neuroses - “thenic sting of a psychasthenic.” There are cases of complete absence of fear - anaphobia. A 30-year-old patient claims that she does not know what fear is and has never experienced it under any circumstances. She says that during her school years she went to the cemetery alone at midnight, even before school she visited the anatomy class, visited the morgue, and even took her friends there out of curiosity. She never had fears in her dreams, no matter what she dreamed. From the very beginning, she watched horror films completely calmly and said: “I don’t understand what people find scary in them.” She jumped from a parachute and “wasn’t afraid at all, even the instructor was surprised,” she drowned and “wasn’t scared at all: if I drown, I’ll drown, so that’s how it’s supposed to be.” “I wasn’t afraid of the psychiatric hospital, I came myself, what’s there to be scared of.”

Without fear, she walked at night along the unlit streets of the city, where “I know they killed, robbed, and raped.” “I’m not brave, no, I just don’t have developed fear. Well, there are people without legs, I have something similar to this.” There is also a known phenomenon called contophobia - the desire to get into dangerous situations for the sake of acute impressions that are not accompanied by fear.

Satomura syndrome (1979) is a peculiar fear of superiors or other high-ranking officials. This is the fear of appearing funny or unpleasant in their eyes. It is considered as a neurosis characteristic of the Japanese. Apparently, it occurs not only among them.

Disorders of the sense of humor are the inability to see something worthy of compassion behind the comical, playful form. First of all, the sense of humor changes when perceiving real life situations of a humorous nature. At the same time, the sense of humor in relation to oneself suffers. The perception of humor in corresponding images (cartoons, etc.) seems to be preserved to a greater extent (Bleicher, Kruk, 1986).

According to our preliminary impressions, the loss of a sense of humor first manifests itself, apparently, in the fact that when an individual meets an object of humor, he becomes very happy, his mood rises, so that he himself is not averse to making someone laugh, and then having a pleasant time the rest of time. The second, hidden level of humor is not distinguished, light sadness and in-depth reflections about human nature, and about oneself usually do not exist. The next stage of a sense of humor deficit occurs when an individual becomes funny, very funny, when he encounters manifestations of humor. He is sometimes filled with Homeric laughter, and he does not think about anything serious.

Once he starts laughing, he will do it all evening (for example, at a laughter concert) and at very dubious jokes. As soon as you provoke some “decoy duck” to laugh, the rest of the humor lovers begin to laugh together, as if on command. A funny person resembles a stoned drug addict who laughs at everything you show him. A. Maslow, meanwhile, noticed that people with a genuine sense of humor usually do not have fun and laugh, only a sad smile runs across their face. Statistics say there are only 1–3 such people per hundred. The continuing degradation of the sense of humor is expressed in the fact that the individual will laugh with pleasure when someone is laughed at. But he does not accept jokes directed at himself; moreover, he may be offended by this or, worse, get angry. Finally, humor dies when it is taken “seriously,” that is, not taken at all.

The lack of a sense of humor is especially acute in patients with schizophrenia, who are educated, intelligent, knowledgeable, but who take jokes and allegories very literally. The best sense of humor, as is well known, is developed among pessimists, who see the weaknesses and shortcomings of people better than others and, nevertheless, treat them with particular delicacy and care. However, in depressed patients, their sense of humor, like other high feelings, is blocked, which makes it extremely difficult for them to survive depression - they are deprived of the internal support that only helps people in misfortune. Patients with epilepsy are deprived of a sense of humor once and for all.

With their rigidity, getting bogged down in trifles, they do not have time to notice how this spark of God flashes over them - a moment of humor. With alcoholism, the sense of humor degrades to banality, vulgarity, cynicism with an indispensable element of greasiness - mentions of betrayal, meetings with passionate beauties and something else like that. One would like to call such humor genital. “Black humor” has only one similarity with genuine humor - the use of a comic configuration. In its depths lies not compassion, not high sadness, but merciless cynicism, ready to strike all the saints and everything that is called the existential, enduring and eternal values ​​of human existence.

Back to contents

Treating affect in people with mental disorders

All people who find themselves in a state of pathological affect and have committed an illegal act are referred to a psychiatrist. They are being supervised. If mental disorders are diagnosed, a more complex treatment regimen is required:

1. Agitated depression and depression with suicidal tendencies. Enhanced supervision and correction in hospital settings. Aminazine is prescribed intravenously.
2. Psychosis. Observation is supplemented with the use of antidepressants of different groups during the period of depression and antipsychotics during the period of mania. If medication is not possible, electroconvulsive therapy is prescribed.
3. Mania or euphoria. Hospitalization and treatment with neuroleptics are indicated.
4. For psychogenic minor depression, treatment within the walls of the home, taking sedatives and antidepressants is indicated.

The treatment regimen is selected individually, depending on the characteristics of the pathology and the general condition of the client.

Consequences for the psyche

A one-time development of an affective reaction, as a rule, is not destructive for a person’s psychological state, but is always associated with:

• with the development of a post-affective state, manifested by chills, angina pectoris, severe sweating and loss of physical and mental strength;
• with overload of the nervous system, up to its complete exhaustion;
• with the emergence of neuroses and depression;
• with disruption of the functioning of human internal organs.

A particular danger of affective reaction is, according to A.R. Luria, the body’s ability to remember a situation that provokes emotional stress and repeat a negative reaction when similar signs or things resembling a critical situation appear.

This problem is most acute for people suffering from a weak or not fully formed psyche. In this case, a complete depletion of the human nervous system occurs, accompanied by the development of a severe depressive state requiring drug treatment.

A person cannot independently cope with problems caused by affect, as well as control its occurrence. Frequently recurring emotional outbursts require qualified assistance from a psychiatrist, which includes individual psychiatric therapy, training, and antidepressants.

Particular attention should be paid to the treatment of people who previously suffered from bipolar disorder, which requires the use of drugs that block the manic stage and antidepressants.

If a person who has experienced an emotional explosion is prone to depression and suicide attempts, if an affective reaction develops, mandatory hospitalization with intravenous injections of Aminazine is indicated, which helps to quickly stop the development of depression.

For mild depression, outpatient treatment is acceptable, accompanied by taking antidepressants and working with a psychotherapist.

Affect is an unusual, uncontrollable behavior caused by a sudden stressful situation, leading to inhibition of consciousness and the appearance of a strong emotional explosion.

An unpreventable, unpredictable state in psychology is assessed as one of the mental abilities to cope with a severe stressful state, which is often accompanied by a threat to human health and life and requires the body to instantly mobilize all physical and emotional resources.

Key points about affect

The state of affect in psychology is an emotional process characterized by a rapid and intense course. It affects the behavioral, emotional, mental, somatic level.

Nine Key Points About Affect:

• occurs in healthy and mentally ill people;
• You can bring anyone, even the strongest and healthiest person, to an affective state;
• the affective state cannot be simulated;
• can be normative and pathological, that is, it can be within the norm and beyond the norm;
• manifests itself externally and internally;
• requires monitoring and correction, and in the presence of mental illness, drug treatment;
• deprives a person of will, turns off consciousness, leads to illegal actions;
• affects are the result of evolution, they manifest themselves in stressful conditions, from the point of view of biological needs, but affects tend to change under the influence of upbringing and self-education;
• Affective outbursts can be managed, prevented and controlled.

In conclusion, let us once again give a brief definition of affect in psychology. Affect is a short-term but very intense mental state of a person, accompanied by inappropriate behavioral and emotional reactions. At this time, the individual experiences a complex of vivid emotions, his behavior becomes stereotypical, and all other mental processes stop.

Causes of affect

Strong emotional excitement and the development of affect can appear only in certain conditions. However, it is extremely rare in emotionally stable people. In addition, this condition occurs extremely rarely, so most people never experience it throughout their lives. The mechanism of development of this condition is not yet fully understood.

However, it has been established that in some circumstances, instead of despair or fear, a person experiences such a pronounced shock that it leads to a loss of the ability to control his behavior. For primary affect to occur, a combination of a number of factors is required, which is extremely rare. These factors include:

• situation threatening life or health;
• factor of surprise;
• the need to act quickly due to time constraints;
• acute contradiction between the need and the possibilities of satisfying it;
• staying in unbearable conditions.

However, these factors in most cases are not enough for the onset of affect. A large role is played by such human characteristics as instability of the nervous system, the desire to suppress negative emotions, etc. More often, the appearance of affect is observed in people who have problems building interpersonal relationships.