Thought Disorders

Orange County Mental Health Treatment

Disordered thinking can quickly cause fear and frustration, both in the person suffering from a thought disorder and from those who interact with the person. Often, thought disorders will show a variety of frightening or frustrating symptoms, potentially including hallucinations or trouble interacting with others.

Understanding thought disorders and their symptoms can help friends, family members, and others interact with those patients more successfully. For people who experience symptoms of thought disorders, seeking treatment is essential. First Light Recovery provides comprehensive treatment for people who struggle with thought disorders.

What are Thought Disorders?

Thought disorders occur when patients have a hard time organizing or expressing their thoughts. They can cause substantial complications and difficulty for many patients, particularly when it comes to communicating.

Thought disorders may often come with a variety of damaging symptoms, including poor judgment or insight, diminished thinking, feelings of hopelessness, increased reckless behavior, or irritability. Patients with thought disorders may also have a higher risk of developing a dependence on drugs or alcohol, often as a way to self-medicate and attempt to control those symptoms.

Different Types of Thought Disorders

Thought disorders can occur in several forms. Some patients may show symptoms of more than one type of thought disorder due to an underlying diagnosis like schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Symptoms of thought disorders may look like:

Alogia

A diminished capacity for speech. It occurs when patients struggle to form thoughts and speak clearly.

Clanging

Speaking nonsense words as patients focus on the sounds those words make, not their meanings.

Echolalia

A high level of repetition, rather than original thought.

Paraphrastic Errors

Regular slips of the tongue.

Blocking

Occurs when the speaker loses their train of thought abruptly, often in the middle of a sentence of thought.

Derailment

When patients jump from one concept to another with connections that do not necessarily make sense to listeners.

Incoherence

The lack of ability to speak clearly.

Stilted Speech

Speaking in an overly formal manner that is not appropriate for the setting or time.

Circumstantiality

Patients may include several irrelevant details as part of their conversations.

Distractible Speech

Patients wander between topics or get distracted from the conversation or topic at hand.

Loss of Goal

Difficulty keeping conversations on track.

Often, thought disorders will show up as a result of another underlying disorder, or will group together because of an underlying condition. People with thought disorders have severe disruptions and irregularities in their thought processes. Some of the most common thought disorders include schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

Schizophrenia

Patients with schizophrenia may have thoughts and behavior patterns considerably out of touch with reality. They may suffer from a number of the symptoms commonly associated with thought disorders. Symptoms of schizophrenia include incoherence, distractible speech, circumstantiality, and more. Often, people with schizophrenia will suffer from hallucinations and overall disorganized thinking patterns, which may not seem to make sense to others who attempt to engage with the patient.

Schizoaffective Disorder

Patients with schizoaffective disorder often struggle with mood disturbances and disorganized thought patterns. Like patients with schizophrenia, patients with schizoaffective disorder may struggle with a variety of unique thought patterns and characteristics, including paraphrastic errors, disordered thinking, and hallucinations.

Schizoaffective disorder may result in several potentially damaging behaviors. Often, the behavior will go in cycles, with patients showing periods of improvement followed by periods of more disordered thinking. A combination of medication and therapy can often help patients with schizoaffective disorder live more productive, normal lives.

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Common Treatments for Thought Disorders

Treatment for thought disorders can involve a variety of interventions designed to help patients cope with those challenges and, in some cases, restore normal interactions. Therapy may involve both individual and group or family therapy options. In addition, treatment for schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder may involve medications alongside that therapy. Those medications can help restore normal thinking patterns or aid in the patient’s overall development.

Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps patients learn how to become more aware of disordered thinking patterns, which can allow them to take command of those thought patterns and respond in a more effective way to the challenges they may face. During cognitive behavioral therapy, patients will focus heavily on learning to identify disordered thoughts and address them as they begin. Learning how to identify and address disordered thinking can make it much easier for many patients to avoid downward spirals.

Group Therapy

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Group Therapy

During group therapy sessions, patients suffering from a variety of thought disorders have the opportunity to talk to others who may have experienced similar symptoms, which may give them a better feel for how they want to approach solutions and symptoms in the future. Group therapy sessions can also encourage patients to open up and speak more about their specific mental health challenges. Many patients find that group therapy sessions are ideal for connecting them with others who have experienced the same challenges.

Dialectical Behavioral
Therapy

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Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

During dialectical behavioral therapy, patients will focus on strategies like self-soothing, thinking through situations carefully, and stepping away from potentially stressful situations or coping with them more effectively. Learning how to self-soothe and think through situations as they occur can help patients address the concerns associated with disordered thinking, which may help them engage in more normal behavior.

Medication

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Medication

Medication is often used to treat mental health conditions such as thought disorders. Patients work with treatment providers to determine if medication would be a good fit for them and their symptoms. People have many options for using the medication as a part of their treatment plan including antipsychotic medication.

Thought Disorders

Orange County Mental Health Treatment

What are Thought Disorders?

Different Types of Thought Disorders

Alogia

Clanging

Echolalia

Paraphrastic Errors

Blocking

Derailment

Incoherence

Stilted Speech

Circumstantiality

Distractible Speech

Loss of Goal

Schizophrenia

Schizoaffective Disorder

Your Recovery Starts Here

Contact our specialists to find how we can help treat your needs.

Common Treatments for Thought Disorders

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Group Therapy

Group Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

Medication

Medication

Are You Looking for Help with Thought Disorders?

Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral
Therapy