Affective States: concept, types, characteristics

Affect – the emotional experience of an intense nature, which arise at sudden danger. They are always associated with severe manifestations of motor or organic nature.

Affective States can pose a real danger to the individual and the people around him. The reason is simple – when the affect man almost completely loses control of himself, his behavior, his consciousness is literally “narrows” and he does not understand, is not aware of happening at all.

To Express affective States can be in different shapes.

Fear

This condition is considered to be unconditional reflex reaction to any danger, which is reflected in the change of rhythm of life of the whole organism. Fear is regarded as a biological defense mechanism that arose even in animals – in humans, this instinct is preserved, although in a modified form.

Often fear manifests itself by a decrease in muscle tone and lack of any facial expressions on the face (it takes the form of a mask). But there are other manifestations of fear – cry, the flight, faces, doctors klassificeret it as a powerful sympathetic discharge. The characteristic symptoms of fear are dry mouth (which, by the way, and becomes a cause of hoarseness and dullness in her voice), a sharp increase of sugar level in the blood, sudden jump blood pressure.

In the course of the study, it was noted that fear can cause not only biological causes but also social – for example, loss of the results of many days of labour, the risk to public censure.

Horror

This affective state is always a continuation, a higher degree of fear. Moreover, the horror develops quite differently and has its own distinctive characteristics.

You can highlight the following:

• disorganization of consciousness – people call him a mad fear when in the brain pop up all the little things, some episodes from the life, is absolutely untimely thoughts;
• numbness – doctors suggest that it occurs due to the sudden release into the body large amounts of adrenaline;
• muscle excitation is random in nature (motor storm) – the person begins to fuss, somewhere to run and abruptly stop.

Please note: the state of terror man can almost completely lose control over himself and his actions. For example, he is unable correctly to estimate the danger, the defense may be excessive.

Very often the approaching danger to cause fear and terror that develop into aggression – this can be seen in the case of imminent risk of violence if the alleged victim is literally tearing the offender. That is why affective state in criminal law is always a soothing moment.

Phobias

They are suffering people who have exaggerated notions of the danger. Moreover, phobias can be completely different – someone is afraid of spiders, someone can’t get up even on the stool for fear of heights, some are really afraid of germs and so forth: to list all the known phobias is beyond the scope of this article.

Very often phobias pose no danger to humans and other people, but if the condition is present in individuals with weakened psyche, his behavior can also be unpredictable. Psychiatrists are often faced with patients who in the background of their own personal phobias to commit crimes.

Anger

If affective States to consider fear, it can be described as the body’s response to impending danger from a stronger person. But if the threat of danger comes from weak persons, that the person may have been to cause anger. This is a very dangerous condition, because that’s when it people often tend to make rash, impulsive actions.

Anger is always accompanied by threatening facial expressions and posture of attack. A person in anger is not able to objectively and logically reason, to act consciously.

Please note that anger and fear may not be as affective disorders, often people can not cope with such strong emotions and start thinking straight. In this case, the outburst will be short-lived, fear is also quickly goes away and the consciousness begins to work in normal mode – no rash acts committed will not be.

Frustration

This negative emotional state, which can occur due to the occurrence of unexpected obstacles to achieve their goals, the collapse of hopes. That frustration is considered the most dangerous affective state from the point of view of psychiatry! The fact is that if people differ mentally unstable and suffers from irreparable loss, the frustration can escalate into depression. And it is accompanied by memory loss, inability to think logically is a significant disruption of consciousness with prolonged over.

Note: frustration is very hard to diagnose, because the person in this state can not determine the cause of your condition. He begins to search for a way out of the situation, does not apply to professionals can generally “escape” from the real world (out in the world of dreams), in some cases in his mental development returns to the initial stage (“falls into childhood”).

Affective States are often very safe for humans. But if he already has even a small disorder, you will need to consult with specialists. Described in this article affects can lead to serious mental illness, and these patients already present a great danger to others.