The human body is an amazing combination of many organs, tissues, functions, chemical reactions, electrical impulses that allow a person to live, recognize and cognize the world around him. Cognition occurs through the effects on the human senses - light, sound, taste, smell, tactile and spatial perceptions. All this is the basis of knowledge and the existence of man in the world around him. And perceptual disturbances, whatever they may be and for whatever reasons, are a serious problem.
Perception: reality plus imagination
The fact that a person can perceive the world around him involves the senses and the imagination. The knowledge that is obtained with the help of vision, hearing, taste, tactile impact, smell and determination of the position of the body in space is processed by special departments of the brain and with the help of imagination and previous experience become ideas about the world. Disorders of perception in any area do not allow a person to get a holistic picture.
Far and near
Disorders of sensations and perceptions of the received data are closely interconnected. Receptors, which receive information about the surrounding reality, transmit nerve impulses to the brain, where analysis, processing of the obtained information takes place and a response occurs in the form of an idea about an object or phenomenon affecting the receptors. Moreover, some of the receptors should receive such an effect in direct contact with the object, and some through space. So, for example, taste sensations arise when food enters the oral cavity and tongue. But vision allows you to see objects at a distance. The perception of the information through various senses and receptors is the main mechanism for understanding the world by man. Perceptual disorders are a complex physiological and psychological problem.
Sensory organs and receptors
In addition to the six sensory organs known from school, the human body perceives much more stimuli. So, there are receptors responsible for the perception of heat - cold, pain, and also the sensations of your body. So science distinguishes not six, but 9 kinds of sensations:
- vision;
- hearing;
- sense of smell;
- touch;
- equibrioception - a sense of balance;
- taste;
- nociception - the perception of pain;
- thermoception - a feeling of warmth;
- proprioception is the spatial sensation of one’s body.
Obtaining information about the world through various receptors, the brain processes them into perceptions of the surrounding reality.
Perceptions and Medical Practice
If any disturbances occur in the human body, a big problem can arise - perceptual disorders. Psychiatry, as a scientific and practical field of medicine, studies these disorders and, as far as possible, helps to correct them. For many centuries, psychiatrists have been studying perceptual disorders, helping not only the patients themselves, but also the people around them, to live with such problems. Disruptions in the functioning of one or more sensory organs are not always disorders of a comprehensive analysis of the surrounding world. A person who has lost his sight knows what objects and colors look like in reality, and with the help of the work of other senses, he can present a real picture of the world around him. In psychiatry, disorders of the perception process are a whole complex of disorders caused not so much by problems in the functioning of receptors as by changes in the processes of processing the information received and obtaining the final result.
How are perceptual disorders?
The field of psychiatry is a special field of medicine that studies various mental disorders and their manifestations. This is a very specific area of human knowledge, which operates with the concepts of "disease", "health", "norm" and "pathology" in relation to the mental state. One of the areas of work of a psychiatrist is perception disorder. Psychiatry considers such problems to be mental pathologies. Disorders of sensations and perceptions are manifested in several conditions:
- Anesthesia is manifested by the inability to perceive tactile sensations, taste and smell. In its manifestations, it is similar to medical anesthesia, which is called to disable the sensitivity of pain receptors in patients during medical interventions.
- Hyperesthesia is a disorder of sensitivity caused by an apparent increase in smell, light, sound. Very often hyperesthesia occurs in patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury.
- Hyposthesia - reverse hyperesthesia is a change in sensitivity. Sensory perception reduces natural irritants. Patients with depressive disorders suffer from hyposthesia, which the world seems dull, boring.
- Paresthesias are expressed in sensations of itching, burning, tingling, "goosebumps" caused by impaired blood supply and innervation. Often paresthesias occur in the Zakharyin-Ged zones: problems of internal organs manifest themselves in the form of unpleasant, painful sensations on certain parts of the surface of the human body.
- Senestopathies are unpleasant sensations that arise inside a person’s body, it is difficult to describe them in words, most often the patient uses vivid comparative images to talk about these sensations.
“Wrong” sensations sometimes coincide with the clinical manifestations of a disease, and not only from psychiatric practice. A competent diagnosis of a disease or condition is the basis of quality treatment.
Key Perceptual Disorders
Psychiatry as an area of clinical medicine operates with the concepts of methodology, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. To make a diagnosis, it is necessary to clearly know the manifestations of the disease, this is helped by clinical tests, history taking, laboratory and instrumental studies. Categorization of judgments allows you to correctly interpret the data obtained in order to make an adequate diagnosis. To identify specific mental health problems in psychiatry, two main categories of perceptual disorders are distinguished:
- illusions;
- hallucinations.
Both concepts in most people cause quite negative feelings, but the patient himself has no power over them, although in many cases such disorders occur due to conditions in which the person drives himself, for example, drug or alcohol poisoning. Some types of perceptual disorders can occur in people who are completely healthy in terms of psychiatry.
Blue Caterpillar from Wonderland
“What you see, but what really isn’t” - this is it, a hallucination. Problems in perceiving reality as it really is are manifested by the appearance of pseudo-real images. Psychiatry, when studying perceptual disorders, defines hallucinations as an image that appears in consciousness and is defined as really existing, but without an external stimulus affecting human receptors. These images appear from scratch, so to speak, due to a disturbance in perception. Hallucinations by psychiatrists are divided into several varieties:
- True hallucinations - are vivid images for the patient having certain forms, color, smell, emitting specific sounds. True hallucinations are perceived by the patient as a manifestation of reality through his senses, he is trying to manipulate them, as if the phenomena or objects he sees are existing in reality. In addition, in the opinion of a patient experiencing true hallucinations, all those around him should perceive them in the same way as he did.
- Pseudo-hallucinations are perceived by the patient as something unnatural, but really existing, it is devoid of brightness, often disembodied, can come either from the body of the patient himself, or from areas not subject to his receptors. Often, false hallucinations are considered to be patients forcibly enclosed in his body with the help of special devices, apparatus, machines or because of the mental impact exerted on him.
In addition to these two types of hallucinations, they are also divided into those sense organs with which they can be caused:
- visceral;
- flavoring;
- visual;
- olfactory;
- auditory;
- tactile.
Each such type of hallucination has its own scientific definition and can be decomposed into several subspecies, which is important for clinical psychiatry.
By the way, hallucinations can be suggested and caused. One of the methods of psychiatry uses the Aschaffenburg symptom when the patient is allowed to listen to a previously disconnected telephone, thus checking his readiness for auditory hallucinations. Or the Reichardt symptom is a symptom of a blank slate: the patient is given a completely white sheet of paper and is invited to talk about what is depicted on it. Hallucinations can also be functional, arising against the background of irritation of various receptors and disappearing after removal of the stimulus. By the way, the image of the Blue caterpillar smoking a hookah on a mushroom hat from Lews Carroll's fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland" is widely regarded as a classic hallucination.
Such a beautiful illusion
In psychiatry, another type of perceptual disorder is highlighted - illusions. Everyone is familiar with this concept, even those who do not suffer from psychiatric perceptual disorders. People often use the expression "beautiful illusion, terrible illusion." So what is it? The scientific definition of one type of perceptual disorder sounds like a wrong, erroneous perception of objects that exist in reality. Deception of feelings - that is what an illusion is. For example, an illusion can occur when the level of stimulus is insufficient - in the dark it is very easy to take the outline of a bush for a human figure. So the appearance of illusions is not always the field of psychiatry. The characteristic signs of an illusion are:
- an object or phenomenon undergoing sensory distortion: a figure, voice, tactile or spatial sensation;
- distortion, misperception and evaluation of a real object;
- the illusion is based on sensory perception, that is, the human receptors are actually affected, but they are perceived somewhat differently from what they really are;
- sensation of false as real existing.
Visual disturbance is one of the frequent illusions of healthy people. Moreover, such a mistake can have a physical or physiological character. The physical nature of the illusions of psychiatry has nothing to do with it, the same mirage in the desert is a logical justification, though not very simple, but proved by the exact science of physics. Clinical psychiatry considers psychopathological illusions:
- affective, arising against a background of fear or nervous excitability about impending danger;
- verbal, i.e. verbal, illusions are individual words or phrases that are heard by a person;
- pareidolic illusions - visual illusions that arise against the background of a real image by imagining images, for example, a picture on a wallpaper can become an illusion of the awesome content of a picture; most often such illusions are observed in creative personalities, for example, scientists have found that Leonardo da Vinci suffered from pareidolia.
The basis of illusions is a disturbance in perceptions and ideas about the world. They are not always pathological. Often they are caused by distortion of perception against the background of an incorrect assessment of the activity of receptors.
Thinking and memory in perceptual disorders
What distinguishes a reasonable person from all other living beings? The ability to think. Thinking is the main cognitive process that integrates the world around a person into a logical picture. Thinking is inextricably linked with perception and memory. All processes that characterize a person as a rational creature have changed, developed and transformed for thousands of years. And if for a start it was only necessary to exert physical strength to satisfy your natural needs (food, reproduction and self-preservation), then over time, a person has learned to build logical chains - to think in order to get the necessary result with less physical effort and harm to his health and life. To consolidate the favorable result, memory began to develop - short-term, long-term, as well as other mental functions inherent in people - imagination, the ability to see the future, self-awareness. The symbiosis of disorders of perception and thinking is psychosensory disorder. In psychiatry, these disorders are divided into two main types:
- Depersonalization can also manifest itself in the wrong sensations of one’s body, the so-called psychic depersonalization, and in distorted concepts of one’s own “I” - mental depersonalization;
- derealization is manifested in a distorted perception of the world - space, time, dimensions, forms of reality are perceived by the patient as distorted, although he is absolutely sure of the correctness of his vision.
Thinking is a feature of man. Reasonable thinking is denied with impaired perception. Psychiatry as an area of clinical medicine is trying to find ways to resolve the differences caused by impaired perception in mental patients. In case of perceptual disorders, patients also exhibit a thinking disorder - delirium, obsessive or overvalued ideas that become the meaning of such a person’s life.
Psychiatry is a complex science of human mental illnesses, the area of which is disorders of perception, memory, and thinking, as well as other mental functions. Moreover, any problems with mental health are most often associated with a whole range of mental functions - from the work of the senses to short-term or long-term memory.
Why is perception of reality disturbed?
When faced with problems of a psychiatric nature, the question arises: what are the causes of perceptual disorders? They can be a whole complex: from alcohol and drug poisoning to the pathological state of the human psyche. Mental illnesses are rather difficult to diagnose, often due to the fact that a person cannot accurately describe his feelings, events that happened or are happening to him, and the initial stages of the disease are not always noticeable to others. Perceptual disorders can develop as a result of any diseases of internal organs or systems, as well as due to a violation of the processing of the information received, its analysis and obtaining a specific result. Psychiatric practice at the moment cannot determine exactly the reasons for the development of perceptual disorders, except for intoxication, when the pathology mechanism is precisely determined by the poisonous substance. Violations of the perception of reality can and should cause caution among people around them, since often the patients themselves are in no hurry to contact specialists, not counting these violations as something pathological. Timely identified problem with the perception of the surrounding reality can help the patient avoid serious problems. Distorted reality is a huge problem both for the patient and for the people around him, both mentally and physically.
Children's fantasies and perceptual disorders
Child psychiatry and psychology are a special type of medicine. Children are big dreamers and inventors, and the increased reactivity of the child's psyche and insignificant life experience do not give the child the opportunity to correct false feelings on time. That is why perceptual impairment in children is a special area of pedagogy, psychology and psychiatry. Visual and auditory illusions are one of the components of each person’s childhood. A terrible tale told at night becomes a real nightmare for a baby hiding under a bed or in a closet. Most often, such disorders occur in the evening, affect the child’s fatigue and drowsiness. Terrible tales and stories, especially those told to the baby at night, can become the basis for the development of a neurotic state. Hallucinations occur in children most often against the background of diseases of a somatic and infectious nature as a result of an increase in body temperature. The age of the most frequent manifestation of such disorders is 5-7 years. - , , , , , , . .
. , . , . , 12-14 , , , .
In a special group of pediatrics and child psychiatry distinguishes children with congenital impaired perception. In these cases, the child grows and learns to compensate for the lack of some sensations by strengthening the development of other sensory abilities. A classic example - a child with congenital hearing loss is distinguished by excellent eyesight, notices the smallest details, pays more attention to minor details of the surrounding reality.
Perception is the basis of knowledge of the world in all its manifestations. In order to feel, a person is given six senses and nine varieties of receptors. But in addition to sensations, the information received must be transmitted to the corresponding departments of the brain, there, through the process of processing and analysis, drawing up a general picture of reality based on a complex of sensations and life experience. The result of perception is a picture of the surrounding reality. Violations in at least one link in the chain of view of the world lead to a distortion of reality. Psychiatry as an area of clinical medicine studies the causes of occurrence, stages of development, signs and symptoms, methods of treatment and prevention of perceptual disorders of both individual phenomena and components of general problems with human health.