Flat affect is a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia, although it may also affect those with other conditions. It is a lack of showing emotion characterized by an apathetic and unchanging facial expression and little or no change in the strength, tone, or pitch of the voice.
A flat affect can be a negative symptom of schizophrenia, meaning that your emotional expressions don't show outwardly. You may speak in a dull, flat voice and your face may not change. You also may have trouble understanding emotions in other people.
Researchers aren't sure what causes flat affect in people with schizophrenia. Though some believe that flat affect may be an expression of problems with specific brain receptors, Dr.
Flat affect is a severely restricted or nonexistent expression of emotion. A person with flat affect does not express emotion the way other people do. It is not a condition by itself; it's a symptom of various other conditions, including schizophrenia, autism, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Blunted affect, also referred to as emotional blunting, is a prominent symptom of schizophrenia. Patients with blunted affect have difficulty in expressing their emotions [1], characterized by diminished facial expression, expressive gestures and vocal expressions in reaction to emotion provoking stimuli [1–3].
Flat affect is a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia, although it may also affect those with other conditions. It is a lack of showing emotion characterized by an apathetic and unchanging facial expression and little or no change in the strength, tone, or pitch of the voice.
Someone with a blunted affect displays little feeling in emotional contexts. For example, a person recalling their father's death might simply recount the factual details of the death. The person might not share much information about how they felt. They may show little facial expression or speak in a monotone voice.
Speech therapy can help people reduce or eliminate the monotone voice often associated with flat affect. Speech therapy focuses specifically on using voice to express more emotion. This work will strengthen speech pitch and tone to provide more variance in sound.
Flat Affect: The absence or near absence of emotional response to a situation that normally elicits emotion. Emotional flatness and lack of expressiveness, which is medically known as flat affect, is a typical negative symptom that people with schizophrenia suffer from.
Unfortunately, most people with schizophrenia are unaware that their symptoms are warning signs of a mental disorder. Their lives may be unraveling, yet they may believe that their experiences are normal. Or they may feel that they're blessed or cursed with special insights that others can't see.
Abstract. Empathy is a basic human ability, and patients with schizophrenia show dysfunctional empathic abilities on the behavioural and neural level.
People with schizophrenia experience difficulties in remembering their past and envisioning their future. However, while alterations of event representation are well documented, little is known about how personal events are located and ordered in time.
Those with flat affect do not lack emotion, but rather their emotions are thought to be unexpressed. This visual or verbal absent can be caused by conditions that include schizophrenia, autism, depression, and traumatic brain injury.
Impaired emotional functioning is fundamental to schizophrenia,1,2 and negative symptoms, including flat affect, are debilitating and resistant to intervention.
Word salad is a type of dysfunctional language, sometimes seen in those with schizophrenia, consisting of an odd mix of seemingly random words and phrases. Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder that affects how a person interprets reality.
One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to.
Schizophrenia is associated with changes in the structure and functioning of a number of key brain systems, including prefrontal and medial temporal lobe regions involved in working memory and declarative memory, respectively.
Alogia, also referred to as poverty of speech, is a speech disturbance common to several mental and neurological conditions including dementia, schizophrenia, and some mood disorders. 1. It is the reduction in the quantity and quality of speech, and is usually caused by brain abnormalities.
Alexithymia is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions.
Schizoid personality disorder is one of many personality disorders. It can cause individuals to seem distant and emotionless, rarely engaging in social situations or pursuing relationships with other people.
Schizophrenia tends to run in families, but no single gene is thought to be responsible. It's more likely that different combinations of genes make people more vulnerable to the condition. However, having these genes does not necessarily mean you'll develop schizophrenia.
The negative symptom domain consists of five key constructs: blunted affect, alogia (reduction in quantity of words spoken), avolition (reduced goal-directed activity due to decreased motivation), asociality, and anhedonia (reduced experience of pleasure).
Schizoaffective disorder is a mental illness that can affect your thoughts, mood and behaviour. You may have symptoms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. These symptoms may be mania, depression and psychosis. About 1 in 200 people develop schizoaffective disorder at some time during their life.