• the main
  •  > 
  • For a beginner
  •  > 
  • A mild personality disorder is emotionally unstable. Emotionally labile personality disorder. Reasons for emotional instability

A mild personality disorder is emotionally unstable. Emotionally labile personality disorder. Reasons for emotional instability

Abulia is a condition characterized by a complete lack of will, spinelessness and inability to make decisions. As a pathological symptom, it is inherent in many mental disorders and severe mental illness. The difference from laziness and banal unwillingness is considered the absolute loss of motivation and goals. This is precisely the main difficulty in treating patients with abulic disorder.

  • Show all

      Etiology and pathogenesis

    Most often, people with a weak psyche are prone to abulia, prone to somatoform disorders - conditions in which various complaints are observed without an existing cause or disease.

    Abulic syndrome often develops against the background of circulatory disorders of the brain, especially its frontal part of the right hemisphere. For the most part, this occurs as a result of trauma to the area or the presence of a serious illness, which causes inactivity and inertia.

    Pathogenesis is to reduce dopaminergic neurotransmission of the frontal lobes of the brain, responsible for the directed actions of the body, initiative, the implementation of various functions and overcoming difficulties.

    The main danger of abulia is the destruction of man as a person.   This is determined by the disappearance of motivation and desire to achieve goals.

    Abulia, which develops in childhood, and its hereditary form, arising from birth, pose a particular threat. It is manifested by calmness, weakness, laziness, apathy and is regarded by parents as a feature of the character of the child. In this case, the timely detection of the disease and its treatment does not occur.

      Provocative factors

    There are many causes of abulia. They can be hereditary or develop against the backdrop of an improper lifestyle. All of them are divided into psychological and physiological:

    Psychological Physiological
    • Stress;
    • circular psychosis (manic-depressive psychosis) - a disease characterized by the alternation of mood disorders with periods of mental health;
    • hereditary predisposition;
    • oligophrenia - congenital mental retardation;
    • borderline states of the psyche (hysteria, psychoneurosis);
    • depression;
    • dementia;
    • hyperprotection of the child by parents;
    • schizophrenia;
    • alzheimer's disease;
    • huntington's disease
    • Traumatic brain injury;
    • brain infection - encephalitis, meningitis;
    • stroke;
    • neoplasms in the brain;
    • addiction;
    • alcoholism;
    • hypoxia;
    • parkinson's disease;
    • pick disease

    Abulia often acts as one of the signs of apathy, while it can be confused with weakness.

      Classification

    Depending on the duration of the condition, there are three types of abulia:

    1. 1. Permanent.
    2. 2. Temporary. Inherent in depression and borderline conditions. A person experiencing depression has a lack of will and lack of motivation to act. In this case, there is an understanding of the need for action, but there is no power to carry it out. Short-term disorder of will accompanies neurosis and psychopathy, characterized by a decrease in stimulus and the inability to make decisions.
    3. 3. Periodic. It occurs with the regular use of narcotic substances and psychological disorders. It proceeds with periods of exacerbations and weakenings.

    By severity, abulia is:

    1. 1. Lightweight. It is characterized by minor deviations.
    2. 2. Severe. With her, absolute suppression of the will is noted, up to the impracticability of elementary actions - to wash, change clothes, get out of bed and others.

    Abulia is accompanied by certain syndromes:

    1. 1. Depressive and asthenic type. People with it are characterized by psychopathic disorders, neurosis and adynamia. Features are a short lack of will and a decrease in activity.
    2. 2. Periodic type. This form is subject to people who abuse alcohol and drugs, patients with severe forms of somatoform disorder, schizophrenia. In this case, there is a periodic occurrence of lack of will and circular psychosis.
    3. 3. Stupor and catatonic syndrome. This form is typical of severe organic brain damage and schizophrenia. A characteristic feature is a constant lack of motivation and will.
    4. 4. Mutism. A person with this syndrome is characterized by an unwillingness to conduct a dialogue, it is impossible to establish verbal contact with him and get answers to questions asked to him.
    5. 5. Apato-abulic syndrome. The features of this condition are complete emotional coldness, unconsciousness in movements, isolation, indifference to family people and interlocutors, an absolute loss of interest in favorite activities.
    6. 6. Abuli-akinetic syndrome. It combines the signs of apathy, lack of will, partial or complete immobility, loss of speech control. Often there is intellectual inhibition.

      Symptomatology

    The main signs of the disease are:

    1. 1. Inhibition in all areas of activity - conversation, thinking, movements.
    2. 2. Social exclusion and difficulties in establishing contacts with people.
    3. 3. Neglect of hygiene rules, sloppiness.
    4. 4. Difficulty in decision making.
    5. 5. Motor and speech passivity.
    6. 6. Loss of interest in communicating with other people and favorite activities.
    7. 7. Spontaneity of action.
    8. 8. Violation of coordination of movements and their stiffness.
    9. 9. Indifference to everything around.
    10. 10. Lack of feelings and emotions.
    11. 11. Pessimism.
    12. 12. Unreasonable fatigue.
    13. 13. Decreased appetite.
    14. 14. Sleep disturbance, insomnia.
    15. 15. Memory impairment.
    16. 16. Lack of facial expressions.
    17. 17. The impossibility of independent decision making.

    In psychology, abulia is clearly differentiated from weakness. The difference is that abulia is a pathological personality defect, and not a character trait, which is weak will.

      Diagnostics

    There is still debate over whether abulia is a separate disease. Currently, it is listed as a consequence of psychological or neurological pathology.

    Methods for defect determination:

    1. 1. History taking and questioning by psychologist or psychiatrist.
    2. 2. Testing.
    3. 3. Monitoring the patient for several days to identify the main symptoms.
    4. 4. Differential diagnosis, which helps to distinguish abulia from weakness, laziness and apathy.
    5. 5. Laboratory blood test.
    6. 6. Instrumental diagnosis of the brain, determining the presence of organ damage:
    • MRI (magnetic resonance imaging).
    • Ultrasound (ultrasound).
    • EEG (electroencephalography).
    • CT scan (computed tomography).

Abulia is a condition characterized by a pathological lack of will, manifestation of character, any desires and motivation for action. Abulia as a mental disorder differs from ordinary weak-willedness, which can be corrected through training, self-discipline, education.

Abulia is characterized by a lack of volitional motivation and this pathology can develop at any age. She also acts as one of the brightest signs of chronic apathy. When combined, they speak of apathetic-abulic syndrome, and in the case of immobility of a person, the question arises of abulic-aenitic disorder.

Causes of Abulia

This pathology very often develops due to diffuse damage to the right hemisphere of the brain, which is the result of injuries to the central nervous system or even.
  However, the reasons for the development of abulia are quite numerous.

They also include: infectious diseases with subsequent damage to the central nervous system, circular psychosis, psychoneurosis,. Most doctors pay attention to the fact that abulia is also characterized by a hereditary factor, which in itself can provoke this.

Signs of Abulia

Inattention to one's own personality, in particular to appearance, is one of the first symptoms of abulia. The subject for a long time forgets about hygiene procedures, changing clothes. Psychologists identify other signs of abulia. It is characterized by inexplicable sudden movements, long thoughts before giving an answer to the question posed, difficulty with purposeful meaningful movements.

The appetite and social interactions will disappear sharply. In the case of children, there is a complete lack of interest in even the simplest games that previously attracted the child.
  General lethargy and lack of volitional impulse is a characteristic feature of abulia. In simple words, this is also the inability to make any simple decisions on their own. Sometimes patients claim that they have certain desires, but they are not able to move from desire to action, they feel a lack of internal energy necessary for realization.

Some psychologists claim that abulia is one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, while others define it as an inability to make a strong-willed choice between the various impulses in the mind. Nevertheless, psychology quite clearly limits this mental deviation from simple weakness, which is nothing more than a negative character trait.

It can be the result of omissions in education and is eliminated by self-discipline, interference from the family and relatives.

Diagnosis of abulia

Abulia can be in various stages of severity from mild to overwhelming. As a rule, this condition is correlated with violations of volitional regulation of the subject's behavior. Diagnosis of abulia is complicated by the fact that this pathology occupies an intermediate location between various other mental disorders. The best method is clinical observation of the patient and the use of MRI diagnostics to identify possible organic damage to the central nervous system that caused the development of abulia.

In addition, abulia as a mental disorder is difficult to distinguish from banal laziness. This problem is especially pronounced in the case of children. If the child does not want, say, to remove the toys exactly when adults have asked for it, then the question of abulia should not be raised. Creating his “toy world”, the baby does not want to destroy it at the first request of the parents, and this behavior is understandable.

The real alarm should be the simulation on the part of the child, for example, reading the same page of a book for too long. In such cases, it is best to immediately consult a doctor, since solving this problem yourself is too problematic.

How to deal with abulia?

The question of how to deal with abulia can arise at any age. If an elderly person has suffered from this disease, the support and attention of loved ones is important. In adolescence and middle age, to prevent abulia, the presence of hobbies and hobbies is of great importance.

Specialists should be involved in the treatment of abulia in children, since care must be taken so as not to harm the baby. In any case, the most common mistake of relatives is a compassionate attitude towards the patient. This state of affairs allows him to cherish his abulia, to draw him into this state, to take it for granted. In such conditions, getting rid of a mental disorder is very problematic.

The happiness of others should be in the desire to stir the patient. Various trips to new places, noisy banquets and festivities, trips to nature, communication with animals help in this. Try to attract a patient with abulia to work, focusing on the fact that you can not do without his help. If this condition does not drag on, then you can successfully bring a person out of it. Otherwise, severe depression is diagnosed.

The protracted course of abulia may require the mandatory intervention of a specialist (psychologist, psychiatrist) and medical treatment methods. In addition, various psychoanalytic courses and psychotherapeutic techniques have a good effect.

Doctors place particular emphasis on the fact that abulia can be the result of addiction, and is one of the indicators of secretive, “latent” alcoholism or drug addiction. To cope with this condition often helps the attention of others.

If the patient realizes some responsibility and the fact that someone needs him, he has a new incentive to volitional actions, a desire to be realized and to justify the expectations assigned to him. This is especially effective in the case of the occurrence of abulia in older people, since at this age most often there are thoughts of loneliness, indifference on the part of relatives and friends, awareness of their own futility.