Alogia is a term that refers to the lack of spontaneity in people’s speech and, as a consequence, the decreased ability to maintain fluency in conversations. Thus, it is an impoverishment of thought, language and ideas expressed verbally, with speech. If you want to know more about alogia, we recommend you continue reading this Psychology-Online article: alogia: meaning, causes, symptoms and treatment.
Alogia: meaning
Alogia: definition
The alogy is characterized by being a alteration in the form and content of both thought and language, which is perceived by a demonstrable and observable impoverishment and decrease in verbal productivity when people communicate orally. People who suffer from alogy express themselves with a poor content languageboth in its quality and its quantity, so that these are people who transmit little information, slowly and repetitively.
Thus, alogia is not related to motor alterations and difficulties in reproducing speech, but is directly related to alterations in thinking, a fact that gives rise to difficulties in the ability to think and reason adequately and, as Consequently, to express their thoughts through language, hindering communication.
Alogia and schizophrenia
Alogia is not considered a mental disorder in itself, but refers to one of the alterations or symptoms of some mental disorders, such as, for example, one of the negative symptoms of schizophreniagiving rise to a language that usually hinders the communication of people who suffer from it.
Causes of alogia
The causes that cause alogia are related to the brain and are explained below:
- Decreased dopamine secretion: Dopamine is a substance that develops different types of functions in people’s brains, among these functions we find language and thought. In this sense, the decrease in the amount of dopamine received in certain areas of the brain gives rise to the origin of alogia.
- Suffering from a disorder or pathology Specifically: the fact of suffering from a disorder that has alogia as a symptom can be one of the causes of suffering from it, since it increases the possibility of suffering from a decrease in the amount of dopamine in specific areas of the brain. A disorder that presents alogia is .
- Brain injuries: Another possible cause of alogia is the fact of having suffered brain injuries that have damaged specific areas of the brain, coinciding with the areas discussed in the cause related to the segregation of .
Symptoms of alogia
People who suffer from alogia, associated with some disorder or pathology, present the following symptoms:
- Poor language: Poverty of language is one of the symptoms of alogia that refers to little spontaneity of speech, poor fluency, short or monosyllabic responses, among others.
- Poor language content: the content of the speech is not very informative, imprecise, repetitive and/or very abstract or, on the contrary, very concrete.
- Thought blocking: It is the so-called “going blank”, that is, it is an interruption of thought that results in losing the thread of the main idea of the speech, a fact that causes a certain disorientation when the person recovers his or her ability to think.
- Slow response: Another of the symptoms of alogia is the time of distance between the response given by the subject with alogia to a question asked by external people. Thus, people who suffer from alogia allow a longer period of time to answer questions compared to people who do not suffer from it. This increase in response time is due to the difficulty in developing ideas and organizing them correctly.
- Literal meanings: People who suffer from alogia usually have difficulty understanding abstract things, so their thoughts are only based on the literal meaning of the words. For this reason, people who suffer from alogia often have difficulties understanding metaphorical and symbolic language.
- Social and emotional symptoms: Suffering from these difficulties in thinking and speaking can lead to a series of negative aspects, such as social isolation, lack of initiative, decreased vitality, among others. Usually this is due to the negative emotional consequences of language, which cause communication and socialization difficulties. Especially considering that the basis of socialization is communication.
Treatment of alogia
The treatment of alogia is very determined depending on the pathology to which it is associated. Therefore, it is very important to go to a specialist so that you can make a proper diagnosis. Usually a combination of treatments is carried out, taking into account pharmacological treatment and psychological treatment.
Pharmacological treatment of alogia
On the one hand, regarding pharmacological treatment, the drugs most used to treat alogia are antipsychoticssince they are responsible for increasing the levels of dopamine necessary to be able to perform certain functions related to thinking and speaking.
Psychological treatment of alogia
On the other hand, regarding psychological treatment, behavioral therapies or are usually carried out. This type of therapy encompasses different techniques, therapies and psychological intervention procedures that are aimed at treating psychological problems and disorders that can affect the patient in their interactions in different contexts and, in addition, are also used to treat the development and optimization of the potentialities and abilities of the patient. Thus, resorting to cognitive-behavioral therapy can encourage and favor the patient’s adaptation to her environment, as well as improve and increase her quality of life.
In addition, it can also be very beneficial to combine the treatments already mentioned with speech therapy. Go to the speech therapist It can help the patient improve their communication difficulties, including voice, speech, verbal and non-verbal language, written language, among others. In short, the role of the speech therapist in these cases encompasses the treatment of language use in general.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- American Psychiatric Association. (2014). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM 5. 5th Edition. USA: Panamericana.
- Hernandez, J. (2008). Thought disorder: a view from language. Journal of the Faculty of Medicine, 56(4), 353-362.
- Regader, B. (sf). Alogia: causes, symptoms, related diseases and treatment.
- Ruiz, MA, Díaz, MI, and Villalobos, A. (2012). Manual of cognitive behavioral intervention techniques. Desclée de Brouwer.