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Emotion
Psychiatric Department
Medical Faculty-USU

EMOTION
Complex feeling state with psychic, somatic and
behavioral components that is related to affect
and mood

Affect
Observed expression of emotion, possibly
inconsistent with patients description of
emotion

Appropriate affect : condition in which the

emotional tone is in harmony with the
accompanying idea, thought or speech : also
further described as broad or full affect in which
a full range of emotions is appropriately
expressed

Inappropriate affect : disharmony between the

emotional feeling tone and the idea, thought or
speech accompanying it
Blunted affect : disturbance in affect manifested
by severe reduction in the intensity of
externalized feeling tone
Restricted or constricted affect : reduction in
intensity of feeling tone, less severe than blunted
affect but clearly reduced

Flat affect : absence or near absence of any signs

of affective expression : voice monotonous, face
immobile
Labile affect : rapid and abrupt changes in
emotional feeling tone, unrelated to external
stimuli

Mood
Pervasive and sustained emotion subjectively
experienced and reported by a patient and
observed by others: examples include
depression, elation & anger

Dysphoric mood : an unpleasant mood

Euthymic mood : normal range of mood, implying
absence of depressed or elevated mood
Expansive mood : a persons of feelings without
restraint, frequently with overestimation of their
significance or importance
Irritable mood : state in which a person is easily
annoyed and provoked to anger
Mood swings (labile mood) :oscillations between
euphoria and depression or anxiety

Elevated mood : air of confidence and enjoyment;

mood more cheerful than usual
Euphoria : intense elation with feelings of grandeur
Ecstasy : feeling of intense rapture
Depression : psychopathological feeling of sadness
Anhedonia : loss of interest in, & withdrawal from,
all regular & pleasurable activities, often associated
with depression

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Grief or mourning : sadness appropriate to a real

loss; also called bereavement
Alexithymia : a persons inability to, or difficulty in,
describing or being aware of emotions or mood
Suicidal ideation : thoughts or act of taking ones
own life
Elation : feelings of joy, euphoria, triumph, intense
self-satisfaction, or optimism
Hypomania : mood abnormality with the qualitative
characteristics of mania but somewhat less intense

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Mania : mood state characterized by elation,

agitation, hyperactivity, hypersexuality &
accelerated thinking & speaking
Melancholia : severe depressive state : used in
the term involutional melancholia both
descriptively & also in reference to a distinct
diagnostic entity
La belle indifference : inappropriate attitude of
calm or lack of concern about ones disability

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Other emotion
Anxiety : feeling of apprehension caused by
anticipation of danger, which may be internal or
external
Free floating anxiety : pervasive, unfocused fear
not attached to any idea
Fear : anxiety caused by consciously recognized
& realistic danger

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Agitation : severe anxiety associated with motor

restlessness : similar to irritability characterized
by excessive excitability with easily triggered
anger or annoyance
Tension : increased & unpleasant motor &
psychological activity
Panic : acute, episodic, intense attack of anxiety
associated with overwhelming feelings of dread
& autonomic discharge
Apathy : dulled emotional tone associated with
detachment or indifference

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Ambivalence : coexistence of 2 opposing

impulses toward the same thing in the same
person at the same time
Abreaction : emotional release or discharge after
recalling a painful experience
Shame : failure to live up to self-expectations
Guilt : emotion secondary to doing what is
perceived as wrong

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Impulse control : ability to resist an impulse, drive or

temptation to perform an action
Ineffability : ecstatic state in which person states it is
indescribable, inexpressible & impossible to convey
to another person
Acathexis : lack of feeling associated with an
ordinarily emotionally charged subject; in cathexis,
the feeling is connected
Decathexis :detaching emotions from thoughts, ideas
or persons