By Thomas A. Ban

SYMBOLIZATION AND THE USE OF SYMBOLS

CONTAMINATION: fusion of two or more ideas in a manner that parts of one concept are incorporated into another.

CONDENSATION:  combination of two or more loosely related ideas into one.

DISPLACEMENT: using an associated idea instead of the correct one.

IDIOSYNCRATIC SPEECH: use of an asocial dialect which is full of personal idioms. 

LITERAL PARAPHASIA:  disorder in the production of a sound or sequence of sounds in a given word.

NEOLOGISMS:  the building of new words.

ONEMATOPOESIS: a language built from neologisms.

PARALOGISM: semantically unusual use of words.

SYMBOLISM: using the concrete meaning of symbols instead of their symbolic meaning. SUBSTITUTION: replacement of a familiar concept with an unusual but similar one.

VERBAL PARAPHASIA: incorrect use of words.

STREAM OF THOUGHT: DISORDERS OF TEMPO

ACCELERATED THINKING: an abnormally rapid flow of ideas that usually results in voluble speech, i.e., logorrhea.

FLIGHT OF IDEAS:  a loosening of internal direction or goal in the processing of thoughts.

INHIBITED THINKING: a slowed down processing of ideas. The inhibition in tempo cannot be removed, however hard the patient tries. It is subjectively experienced as if induced by an external force. 

PRESSURED THINKING: driven or kaleidoscopic thinking, in which the patient feels under great stress from disruptive and constantly recurring thoughts which seem to tangle over one another  

PROLIXITY: a milder form of flight of ideas.

RETARDED THINKING: slow, laborious flow of thoughts with continuous delays in expressing thoughts and almost no progress. The viscosity and torpidity in speech and verbal reactions are observable.

STREAM OF THOUGHT: DISORDERS OF PROCESSING

AGRAMMATIC SPEECH: a simplification and coarsening of word sequences in a manner that all unnecessary words are omitted.

ALOGIA: patient is unable to relate one idea to another and uses acts of thoughts he/she had used previously, so that no new thoughts emerge.    

ASYNDETIC THINKING: lack of genuine causal links in which clusters of more or less related sequences of thoughts, instead of well-knit sequences of thoughts are used, creating a feeling of vagueness. Patients are unable to restrict their thinking, to eliminate all unnecessary material, and to focus their thoughts on a specific topic.  

CIRCUMSTANTIAL THINKING: an inability to differentiate the essential from the unessential. The patient gets lost in insignificant details without losing track of the question.

DERAILMENT: speech proceeds along a given path and then suddenly slips into a new direction.  

DESULTORY THINKING: thoughts make jumps and proceed in an irregular way.

DRIVELLING: sequences of thoughts are fairly well formed and organized, but mixed up  

OMISSION: part of a thought from the main stream of thoughts, drops out, so that the stream of thoughts is interrupted.   

OVERINCLUSIVE THINKING: patient cannot maintain the boundaries of a topic and restrict his/her thoughts to the limits of a topic.   

RESTRICTED THINKING: poverty of ideas with shrinking of thought content and fixation on one or a few theme. Patient has difficulty switching from on topic to another and returns to a given topic again and again. A constant repetition of a specific content (theme) is present in the most severe form of restricted thinking.    

RUMINATION: Endless preoccupation or incessant concern with sometime unpleasant thoughts which are not experienced as alien and are usually related to a real situation in the patient’s life.

TANGENTIAL THINKING: talking past or around the point; thoughts diverge from the topic.. The patient seems to understand most questions, but does not answer directly, bringing up another topic or something context-wise entirely different.

STREAM OF THOUGHT: DISORDERS OF CONTINUITY

ECHOLALIA: the repeating (echoing) of phrases spoken by the patient’s entourage, but some time the patient’s own thoughts.

INTERPENETRATION OF THEMES: goal directed stream of thoughts is interfered with by a stream of preoccupation that is based mainly on fantasy.

PALILALIA: repetition of words or short phrases with increasing speed but diminishing audibility.

PERSEVERATION: persistent repetition of words, phrases or sentences to the point they become meaningless.   

THOUGHT BLOCKING: sudden blocks or interruptions in the flow of thoughts without obvious reason. The patient stops in the middle of a sentence, becomes silent, and then resumes conversation on another topic.

VERBIGERATION: senseless reiteration of words; a severe form of perseveration.   

I am writing to introduce myself as the person who is responsible for coordinating activities of Project 3: Photo History of Neuropsychopharmacology. Our objective is to collect photos of people who contributed to the development of neuropsychopharmacology, post these photos on our website, and create a photo history of the field.

To be able to achieve our objectives, we are asking you to send us photos of individuals/group of individuals, and/or collection of photos of individuals/group of individuals, who might qualify for posting on the INHN website. The scanned photos and/or collection of photos should be sent directly to me by e-mail attachment: edithserfaty(at)yahoo.com.

For each photo you send, please indicate in an accompanying Word file, the  full name of each person on the photo from left to right, row by row, starting in the first row, or clockwise starting with the person an the extreme left of the photo. For each photo, please also indicate the place and time the photo was taken if available; for collection of photos indicate the occasion the photo was taken, e.g., name of conference and the time and place the conference took place.

On the website, individual photos will be posted in alphabetical order under the name of the person on the photo; if more than one person is on photo, under the name of the person at the left of the photo. Collection of photos will be posted in alphabetical order  under the occasion the photos were taken.

The person who submitted the photo or collection of photos to INHN will be identified by name.  

I am looking forward to working with you on this very exciting project.

Edith Serfaty

April 10, 2014