The mental activity that enables humans to reason, form judgments, and solve problems. The essential features of thought include the substitution of symbols (in the form of words, numbers, or images) for objects, the formation of symbols into ideas, and the arrangement of ideas into a certain order in the mind.
(See also thought disorders.)
Thought is a mental activity by which people reason, solve problems, form judgements and communicate with each other by speech, writing and behaviour. Disturbances of thought are re?ected in how a person communicates: the normal logic of thought is broken up and a person may randomly move from one subject to another. SCHIZOPHRENIA is a mental illness characterised by thought disorder. Confusion, DEMENTIA, DEPRESSION and MANIA are other conditions in which thought disorders may be a marked feature. (See also MENTAL ILLNESS.)... thought disorders
thought disturbance characterized by disconnected thinking, manifested by disturbed speech in which the patient’s train of thought cannot be followed. Formal thought disorder was first described by the German psychiatrist Kurt Schneider and later elaborated on by various authors. Looking for evidence of formal thought disorder is part of every *mental state examination. It includes *loosening of associations, omissions, and *knight’s-move thinking.... formal thought disorder
a symptom of psychosis in which patients feel that their own thoughts are in some way no longer within their control. It includes *thought insertion, *thought withdrawal, and *thought broadcast. Any form of thought alienation is a *Schneiderian first-rank symptom, highly indicative of schizophrenia.... thought alienation
a sudden halting of the flow of thought, usually manifested as an interruption to speech lasting for a few seconds or more; when speech resumes, it is often on an unrelated subject. Thought block is a common symptom in severe mental illness but may also arise in the context of *psychosis, severe anxiety, or depression.... thought block
a symptom of psychosis in which the patient feels that his or her thoughts are being distributed into other people’s thoughts. It must be differentiated from a mere idea that others can read one’s mind, which is common. Thought broadcast requires the conviction of an active transmission of thoughts. This is a *Schneiderian first-rank symptom, highly indicative of schizophrenia.... thought broadcast
(echo de la pensée) a symptom of psychosis in which the patient has a hallucination of hearing aloud his or her own thoughts a short time after thinking them. Similar to the experience of thought echo is that of Gedankenlautwerden, in which the patients hear their own thoughts aloud at the time they think them. The latter was an original *Schneiderian first-rank symptom, but has been left out of most translations of Schneider’s work into English.... thought echo
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