The psychopathology of affectivity is a specific field of psychology that encompasses the different disorders or alterations of affectivity, that is, those related to feelings, emotions and affects.

Today we will talk about a specific alteration: parathymia . How do you explain that a person behaves in a way that is incongruous to the situation he is experiencing? Have you seen someone laugh at a funeral? What happens when these experiences turn out to be pathological? This is what parathyathy is all about, and in this article we will look at it in detail.

Human emotions

Emotions allow us to adapt to the world in which we live , as well as to our internal world. Together with them, feelings and affects constitute phenomena and tools of emotional management. These, in turn, influence our perception and our life experience.

Emotions are a channel of expression: their proper management contributes to the personal well-being of each person and predisposes to good mental health. Inadequate management or repression of them, on the other hand, may cause the person to feel psychological discomfort and suffering .

Affective psychology encompasses these concepts. Psychopathology of affectivity, on the other hand, would include the alterations that are produced in the emotional, affective and sentimental sphere of the person.

Psychology of Affectivity

Affectivity or emotional life encompasses all those experiences that define and limit a person’s emotional life. It is a set of tendencies and states that the person experiences in his own immediate way.

Affectivity influences our personality and our behaviour, especially its expression. It is generally distributed in dichotomous poles such as pleasure/pain or joy/sorrow. Therefore, as we shall see, the effects of parathymetry extend to many areas of life.

Having said that, let’s get to know the different concepts that the psychology of affectivity encompasses:

Emotions

Emotions are internal affective responses that may be accompanied by somatic symptoms and that appear in response to an experience. This experience can be internal (a thought, a sensation…) or external (an event).

The emotions either sustain or end the triggering event. Some of them are fear, joy, anger…

Feelings

Feelings are the subjective experience of emotion . They are longer lasting and less intense than emotions and, unlike emotions, are not accompanied by somatic or vegetative symptoms. For example, love, jealousy or pride are feelings.

Mood or mood

It is the basal state of the person, of prolonged duration, stable and persistent , that accompanies the vital experience. Unlike the previous ones, it is established more slowly and progressively.

This is a willingness to react with a certain kind of emotion to different events. It can be reactive to a situation (external or internal) or appear spontaneously. For example, a sad or happy mood…

Parathyma: affective disorders

There is a wide variety of alterations that affect the above-mentioned areas. These can appear in an isolated way in the individual, or within a more global psychopathological picture (for example schizophrenia, mania, depression…). Within the affective and emotional sphere, we find parathymias.

Parathyme , also called ideoaffective discordance or incongruence , is the lack of relationship between what is expressed verbally and the emotional experience. That is, the subject experiences feelings that are inadequate or incongruent to the situation he is living in or the thoughts he is having.

Thus, it is a discordant reaction of affectivity: for example, showing irritation in happy situations, laughing in sad situations (for example at a funeral) or crying at a funny thought. This inadequacy may include quantitative aspects (intensity) or qualitative aspects (tone, nuance or quality).

Parathymias often appears in schizophrenia (especially when there are negative and faecal symptoms), in organic brain disorders and in primary affective disorders (although exceptionally in the latter).

Types of paratypes

There are, in addition to the parathymie mentioned above, two other types, although with quite different meanings from the original parathymie. These are positive parathy and negative parathy .

Positive parathy or cheerfulness appears when the subject remains in a characteristic euphoric and hyperactive state . It manifests itself in the manic episodes of bipolar disorder or in organic pictures (moria).

In negative parathymetry or pathological sadness, the opposite happens; the subject feels particularly sad or sorry . It appears especially in depressive episodes.

Their differences with emotional indifference

We must not confuse parathy with another alteration of affectivity: coldness or emotional indifference. This consists of the lack or loss of the capacity to present affective responses , or the inability to modulate and be flexible with the emotions.

People with emotional indifference are cold, insensitive and unable to engage emotionally with others or in their actions.

Like parathyma, this disorder appears in residual schizophrenia and organic brain disorders. On the other hand, it can also manifest itself in some personality disorders.

Bibliographic references:

  • Buela-Casal, G., Caballo, V., and Carrobles, J. A. (2002): Manual de psicopatología y trastornos psiquiátricos. Siglo XXI. Madrid.
  • Belloch, A.; Sandín, B. and Ramos, F. (2008). Psychopathology Manual. Volume I. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.