Verbiage: Characteristics And Examples Of This Speech Symptom
Talking is a necessity. Communicating our beliefs, opinions, experiences, fears and perceptions is something fundamental in the human species, a positive symptom of our intellectual and social evolution.
However, sometimes, there are people who don’t seem to have a STOP button when they speak. They talk and talk and do not let others speak, meaning that more than communicating what they seek is to have an audience that listens to them and nothing more.
In essence, that is verbosity, a symptom of various mental disorders, brain injuries and, also, of people with a somewhat egocentric personality. Let’s see in more depth what its characteristics are, some examples, its causes and how it is treated.
Verbiage, also called logorrhea or lalorrea, is a quantitative alteration of the flow of language This symptom is characterized because the person says more words than necessary, his communicative speech is accelerated and he has difficulty being interrupted. The speech becomes too long, in addition to the communication becoming a monologue, since the verbose or verbose person does not allow his interlocutor to interrupt him or take part in the “conversation.”
Another notable aspect of verbiage is that the thread of conversation is spontaneous and sudden, constantly changing and full of terms that are not relevant. The person talks non-stop, even if they have to change the subject without meaning to be able to continue saying something. It is a very fluid monologue although lacking, on many occasions, any sense.
We must understand that it is not a bad thing that we like to talk and it is possible that, on more than one occasion, we have gone a little off the beaten path. But there is a world between talking a little more than necessary and talking non-stop, without letting our interlocutor tell us what they think or share with us what has happened to them or what they think.
The verbiage It’s something that borders on pathological, it can even be considered, in some cases, as such. This is a symptom of inability to establish adequate communication with others.
The main characteristic of verbosity is the constant need to talk People who manifest it may have a normal prosody, although the pace ranges from slightly accelerated to almost without having time to moisturize the mouth.
His way of speaking is impulsive, often disorganized and with a very unstructured argumentative thread. They move from one topic to another without any connection.
One of the aspects most related to verbiage is the use of neologisms, new words without a clear derivation, used as synonyms, or substituting words for another s that are completely unrelated in meaning but simply sound better to you (e.g., “hypotenuse” for “hypocrisy” or “hyposery,” a made-up word, for “hypocrisy”). Added to this, in the most extreme cases, verbose people invent new morphosyntactic constructions, without being aware of the grammatical errors they make.
Example of verbiage
To graphically understand what verbiage is Let’s see a few examples of the same
Case 1. Two friends meet in a bar
Two friends meet in a bar, and one of them, who suffers from verbosity, begins to tell the other that he has found a job:
“I have found work. Do you know where it is? It is near the Plaza de la Constitución, in front of a kiosk and behind a hospital, right next to a large tree. I have had to work well next to the window. I like the windows. Every time I go on the bus I try to take the window, but I don’t like sitting in the window on the plane. It just scares me a little. I have always been afraid of heights. As a child I couldn’t even take a swing or go on the slide…”
Case 2. The girl with the tiles
As we have said before, their way of speaking is compulsive and often disorderly, moving from one topic to another spontaneously. Here we have an example of sudden topic jumps
A girl is in a restaurant explaining to her friend that the other day she saw a tile:
“The other day I saw a blue bird, I think they are called bluebirds. Did you know that the tiles in the bathroom in my house are not blue, but pistachio green? or was it operating room green? Wow, I don’t like operating rooms. They are so cold… and there is so much blood, sometimes. Oh, the other day I got a wound and a lot of blood came out, but it’s healed now. Well, I’m not sure. I think my neighbor had an accident a couple of weeks ago and he’s still healing… By the way, my favorite dessert is strawberry ice cream, do you think I should order it?”
Although not always, verbosity may appear related to a brain injury, especially in the frontal lobe, along with injuries to the thalamus and the ascending reticular activating system.
These lesions are usually related to aphasias, Wernicke’s aphasia being of special mention, since verbiage can occur in it. Among the symptoms of this aphasia we have the use of meaningless words or neologisms (in their clinical sense), incomprehensible and incoherent speech and writing, as if they were a word salad, although there is a fluidity of speech and writing, both maintained I eat excessively. There is a lack of awareness of linguistic errors, that is, anosognosia.
As for mental disorders, verbosity can appear in a wide variety of them, having a close relationship with tachypsychia. Tachypsychia is a symptom that is characterized by accelerated thinking, almost as if there were a flight of ideas in the patient. Verbiage would be the oral manifestation of that tachypsychia or accelerated thinking.
For all this It is not surprising that accelerated speech occurs in disorders where there is tachypsychia, such as manic episodes of bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, and schizophrenia. It can also be present in states of anxiety and agitation, as well as in organic psychoses and alcohol and amphetamine poisoning.
However, sometimes what causes a person to be verbose is not a brain injury or a mental disorder, but rather having an egocentric personality. The person focuses the conversation on their need to talk about themselves and without letting the other interlocutor speak. Despite this, It should be noted that verbosity is not a diagnostic label nor a personality style although it can be related to both.
Treatment
Verbiage is a style of communication that can indicate that either the person has a mental disorder or their personality type tends towards unlimited egocentrism.
Although having an egocentric personality is not a disorder, it may be something that requires some psychological intervention, to make the person gain a little control over their life and well-being, in addition to stopping being a nuisance to those who have to put up with them. The treatment of verbosity depends on the type of disorder with which it is associated.
If it is due to an underlying mental disorder, intervention must be done through psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. Not only to make the rhythm and coherence of the verbose person’s speech normal, but also to treat the mental disorder and ensure that their well-being is increased.
The pharmacological route for verbosity may be antipsychotics, not only for this symptom itself but also for the underlying psychotic disorder, such as schizophrenia. Lithium is used as a supplement to treat patients who have had a manic episode.
If it is due to a brain injury, neuroimaging tests will need to be performed relevant in order to detect the location of the injury and propose a therapeutic intervention. In these cases, psychotherapy can also be used, especially focused on aphasia, psychopharmacology and, if possible and necessary, surgical intervention.
Finally, if the person is verbose due to having an egocentric personality, psychological treatment will be aimed at making them more efficient when establishing two-way communication. That is, he or she learns that a conversation involves at least two people and that he or she is not the center of the conversation. Learning to listen, letting others speak and understanding that everyone has the right and need to speak are fundamental aspects to work on.
In any case, it must be said that Verbosity due to egocentric personality are cases that are a bit difficult to work on in consultation The best thing the close environment can do is not lend itself to being part of his narcissistic game.
