Parathymia: symptoms and causes of the alteration of affectivity.

Parathymia has to do with an abnormal way of expressing emotions. Let us see how it is.

The psychopathology of affectivity is a specific field of psychology that encompasses the different disorders or alterations of affectivity, i.e., those that are related to feelings, emotions and affections.

Today we will talk about a specific disorder: Parathymia.How can it be explained that a person behaves in a way that is incongruent with the situation he or she is experiencing? Have you ever seen someone laugh at a funeral? What happens when these experiences turn out to be pathological? That is what parathymia is all about, and in this article we will analyze it in detail.

Human emotions

Emotions allow us to adapt to the world in which we live, as well as to our inner world.as well as to our internal world. Together with them, feelings and affections constitute phenomena and tools for emotional management. These, in turn, influence our perception and our life experience.

Emotions are a channel of expression: their proper management contributes to one's personal well-being and predisposes to good mental health. Inadequate management or repression of emotions, on the other hand, can lead to discomfort and disintegration, can provoke psychological discomfort and suffering in the individual..

Affective psychology encompasses these concepts. The psychopathology of affectivity, on the other hand, would include the alterations that occur in the emotional, affective and sentimental sphere of the person.

Psychology of affectivity

Affectivity or affective life encompasses all those experiences that define and limit the emotional life of a person. It is a set of tendencies and states that the person experiences in an immediate way.

Affectivity influences our personality and our behavior and our behavior, especially in its expression. It is generally distributed in dichotomous poles such as pleasure/pain or joy/sadness. Therefore, as we will see, the effects of parathymia extend to many areas of life.

That said, let's get to know the different concepts encompassed by the psychology of affectivity:

Emotions

Emotions are internal affective responses that can be may be accompanied by somatic symptoms and which appear in response to an experience. This experience can be internal (a thought, a sensation...) or external (an event).

Emotions maintain or end with the triggering event. Some of them are fear, joy, anger...

Feelings

Feelings are the subjective experience of emotion. They are more lasting and less intense than emotions and, unlike these, are not accompanied by somatic or vegetative symptoms. For example, love, jealousy or pride are feelings.

Mood or humor

It is the basal state of the person, of prolonged, stable and persistent duration, which accompanies the vital experience.that accompanies the vital experience. Unlike the previous ones, it is established in a slower and more progressive way.

It is a disposition to react with a certain type of emotion to different events. It can be reactive to a situation (external or internal) or appear spontaneously. For example, it would be the sad, happy mood...

Parathymia: alterations of the affectivity

There is a great variety of alterations that affect the aforementioned spheres. These may appear in isolation in the individual, or within a more global psychopathological picture (e.g. schizophrenia, schizophrenia, etc.). (e.g. schizophrenia, mania, depression...). Within the affective and emotional sphere, we find parathymia.

Parathymia, also called ideo-affective discordance or incongruenceis the lack of relationship between what is expressed verbally and the affective experience. That is to say, the subject experiences inadequate or incongruent feelings for the situation he/she is living or for the thoughts he/she is having.

Thus, it is a discordant reaction of affectivity: for example, showing irritation in happy situations, laughing in sad situations (e.g. at a funeral) or crying at an amusing thought. This inadequacy may involve quantitative aspects (intensity) or qualitative aspects (tone, nuance or quality).

Parathymia appears frequently in schizophrenia (especially when there are negative and defective symptoms), in organic brain disorders and in primary affective disorders (although exceptionally in the latter).

Types of parathymias

In addition to the above-mentioned parathymia, there are two other types, although with quite different meanings from the original parathymia. These are positive parathymia and negative parathymia..

Positive parathymia or pathological joy appears when the subject remains in a state of euphoria and hyperarousal. in a characteristic euphoric and hyperactive state.. It manifests itself in manic episodes of bipolar disorder or in organic pictures (moria).

In the negative parathymia or pathological sadness, just the opposite happens; the subject feels especially sad or sorry. It appears mainly in depressive episodes.

Differences with affective indifference

Parathymia should not be confused with another disorder of affectivity: affective coldness or indifference. This consists of the lack or loss of the capacity to present affective responses, or the incapacity to modulate and be flexible with affective responses.or the inability to modulate and be flexible with emotions.

People with affective indifference are cold, insensitive and incapable of becoming emotionally involved with other people or their actions.

Like parathymia, this alteration appears in residual schizophrenia and in organic brain disorders. On the other hand, it can also manifest itself in some personality disorders.