Flight Of Ideas: Associated Symptoms, Causes And Treatment
In psychopathology we find a wide variety of thought and speech disorders, which mainly affect patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In this article We will know one of them, the flight of ideas a disorder that affects the speed of thought and speech.
We can differentiate two levels: thought (ideas) and speech (language). In this disorder, ideas slip away from each other without meaning, first in the person’s mind and later in his speech, when he verbalizes them.
The flight of ideas is a disorder of thought, which affects the speed of thought and It is characterized by an increase in the flow of ideas that appear in the mind , which causes the person expressing it to speak faster than usual, jumping from one idea to another constantly. This jump from one idea to another generally occurs before the first thought or idea has finished.
Besides, It is considered the maximum degree of tachypsychia Tachypsychia is the pathological acceleration of psychic activity. Unlike this, the flight of ideas is more intense and aggressive.
In the flight of ideas, the patient lacks a fixed direction when speaking; That is, thought shoots and jumps from one idea to another without direction or goal. Abrupt and illogical thematic changes occur.
Thus, as we have seen, the flight of ideas is made up of two main elements:
The particularities common to any flight of ideas are those that we will see below.
1. Disorder and lack of purpose of intellectual processes
It happens that, even when the different ideas that the person has have some type of relationship, the whole of cognition lacks meaning and meaning
2. Nonsensical associations that have no relationship between them
Associations that have no relation to each other predominate. Besides, the thoughts generated can be very different from each other although they appear continuously in the person’s mind or speech.
3. Easily distracted and diverted from topics
The subject with a flight of ideas is easily distracted and deviates from the topics he thinks about, influenced by environmental (external) stimuli.
So, Many of his ideas appear immediately after viewing an image from outside that the subject observes.
4. Highly visible
The flight of ideas is easily observed through the patient’s verbal expression. That massive brainstorm that we have discussed previously is expressed immediately and unleashes the elaboration of incongruous discourses
Causes
The flight of ideas usually appears due to an alteration in mood. Specifically, a pathologically euphoric state such as mania (in bipolar disorder type I) or hypomania (in bipolar disorder type II), is the main cause of the flight of ideas.
So, This alteration is typical in bipolar disorders discussed, but they can also appear in isolation (although it is not so common). It occurs especially in bipolar disorder type I, where at least one episode of mania appears or has appeared.
In a manic episode, mood is disturbed and there is an increase in goal-oriented activity and energy for 1 week (or less if hospitalization has been required).
The flight of ideas can also appear in patients with schizophrenia. Andreasen included it in his classification of thought disorders in schizophrenia in 1979, when he developed the Thought Disorders Scale. However, when making the differential diagnosis, we must adequately differentiate the flight of ideas from the psychotic disorders themselves.
Sometimes the flight of ideas appears together with delusional ideas , but then it is a different alteration, since the content of the thought in the flight of ideas is preserved (delirium does not appear); only its presentation is altered (more accelerated than usual).
Consequences
The flight of ideas is considered a serious disorder that has a very negative impact on the subject; Thought is so accelerated that it completely loses its functionality.
Thus, the person experiences a massive brainstorm inside their mind, but these ideas appear overlapped by the generation of the subsequent idea; the person finally cannot attend to any specific idea This is where his name comes from, from the “ideas that escape” from each other. The person creates a large number of thoughts and ideas, but none of them are productive.
On the other hand, thoughts disappear at the same speed with which they appeared. The subject jumps from one topic to another without any logical order or congruence. The result, finally, is that the speech becomes totally incongruous and the subject is unable to focus his or her thoughts on any specific idea or aspect, even if it is simple.
In this way, tasks that require a minimum degree of concentration (for example, talking to someone, or even cooking) become really difficult, since the acceleration of their thinking prevents that person from being able to concentrate.
Treatment
The treatment for this type of alterations depends on the general clinical picture in which it is framed, that is, the disorder that generates this and other alterations.
