psych: common manifestations

 Assessment of Motor Ability
 Automatism: repeated, purposeless behaviors often indicative of anxiety such as drumming
 fingers, twisting locks of hair, or tapping the foot
 Psychomotor retardation: overall slowed movements
 Waxy flexibility: maintenance of posture or position over time even when it is awkward or uncomfortable



 Assessment of Mood and Affect
 Blunted affect: showing little or a slow-to respond facial expression
 Broad affect: displaying a full range of emotional expressions
 Flat affect: showing no facial expression
 Inappropriate affect: displaying a facial expression that is incongruent with mood or situation; often silly or giddy regardless of circumstances
 Restricted affect: displaying one type of expression, usually serious or somber
 Labile mood – mood that is unpredictable and rapidly changing


 Assessment of thought process and content
 Circumstantial thinking: term used when a client eventually answers a question but only after giving excessive unnecessary detail
 Flight of ideas: excessive amount and rate of speech composed of fragmented or unrelated ideas
 Loose associations: disorganized thinking that jumps from one idea to another with little or no evident relation between the thoughts
 Tangential thinking: wandering off the topic and never providing the information requested
 Thought blocking: stopping abruptly in the middle of a sentence or train of thought; sometimes unable to continue the idea
 Thought broadcasting: a delusional belief that others can hear or know what the client is thinking
 Thought insertion: a delusional belief that others are putting ideas or thoughts into the client’s head—that is, the ideas are not those of the client
 Thought withdrawal: a delusional belief that others are taking the client’s thoughts away and the client is powerless to stop it
 Word salad: flow of unconnected words that convey no meaning to the listener
 Hallucination-
 Illusions-
 Delusion: a fixed, false belief not based in reality
o Somatic delusion- false belief involving functioning of the body
o Delusion of grandeur- a person’s exaggerated conception of his importance, power or identity (ex: I am Napoleon)