Bingo. Consider This Psychiatric Term "Poverty of Thought"

[Grasswire2]

Hat tip to DU-er Caliman 73 for mentioning the term "poverty of content", and I found this just now. Need a subscription to the publication to read more.


Behold. Donald J. Trump.


Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Guide
Thought Disorder
Paul Rivkin, M.D., Patrick Barta, M.D., Ph.D.
DEFINITION

Formal thought disorder refers to an impaired capacity to sustain coherent discourse, and occurs in the patient’s written or spoken language.

Whereas delusions reflect abnormal thought content, formal thought disorder indicates a disturbance of the organization and expression of thought.
Indeed, the most basic assessment of thought content requires at least some degree of language competence.
For research purposes, scales have been developed to study the quality and severity of abnormalities in thought, language, and communication.
In clinical practice, formal thought disorder is assessed by engaging patients in open-ended conversation and observing their verbal responses.
A number of medical and surgical conditions can affect language performance; the term formal thought disorder is used when these conditions are excluded from the diagnosis.
The cause of formal thought disorder is not established. Research has implicated abnormalities in the semantic system in patients with schizophrenia.
Thought disorder is often accompanied by executive function problems and general disorganization.
Abnormalities in language are common in the general population, in everyday conversation. Thus, the categorical presence or absence of the following language problems is not absolutely diagnostic of any condition. However, heightened frequency and severity of these problems should be noted by the physician and accounted for in the patient’s diagnostic formulation.

Formal thought disorder descriptors (adapted from the Thought, Language, and Communication scale)[1]:

Poverty of speech: restricted quantity of speech; brief, unelaborated responses
Poverty of content of speech: adequate speech quantity with prominent vagueness and inappropriate level of abstraction
Pressure of speech: increased rate and quantity of speech; speech may be loud and difficult to interrupt
Distractible speech: topic maintenance difficulties due to distraction by nearby stimulus
Tangentiality: Replies to questions are off-point or totally irrelevant.
Derailment (loosening of associations): spontaneous speech with marked impairments in topic maintenance
Incoherence (word salad, schizaphasia): severe lack of speech cohesion at the basic level of syntax and/or semantics within sentences
Illogicality: marked errors in inferential logic
Clanging: speech in which word choice is governed by word sound rather than meaning; word choice may show rhyming or punning associations
Neologism: the creation of new "words"
Word approximations: unconventional and idiosyncratic word use
Circumstantiality: excessively indirect speech; speech is liable to be overinclusive and include irrelevant detail
Loss of goal: difficulty in topic maintenance in reference to failure to arrive at the implicit goal of a statement
Perseveration: excessive repetition of words, ideas, or subjects
Echolalia: speech repeats words or phrases of interviewer
Blocking: interruption of speech while ostensibly in pursuit of a goal
Stilted speech: odd language use that may be excessively formal, pompous, outdated, or quaint
Self-reference: The patient is liable to refer the subject of conversation back to him/herself.
Paraphasic error (phonemic): word mispronunciation, slip of the tongue
Paraphasic error (semantic): substitution of an inappropriate word to make a specific statement

[link:https://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/view/Johns_Hopkins_Psychiatry_Guide/787025/all/Thought_Disorder|

[treestar]

1. That's the Dotard again

And most of his minions. They make a practice of tangentiality and poverty of content.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. It's all there.

[Grasswire2]

3. the term for the word salad is "schizaphasia"

good to know!

[Grasswire2]

4. the trouble is this -- it's associated with general disorganization in all things

God, that's what is driving the mess he's made of the coronavirus response.

Exactly.

[Mike 03]

5. This is extraordinarily helpful

This is Trump, and it's all in one place.

It's interesting that they mention "loudness" because I've wondered if Trump speaks loudly (at times, and in part) to compensate for the deficit of ideas and to obscure the incoherence of the content.

[Grasswire2]

8. yeah, I wondered when I saw it why it hasn't been called to our attention by anyone with national ..

...platform

[yonder]

6. It's probably covered but I'd add poverty of curiosity.

[Faux pas]

7. Kickin'

[friendly_iconoclast]

9. Yep. Sounds like Our Cheeto in The White House

[tblue37]

10. He hits virtually all of them. nt

[NNadir]

11. This needs a little kick, I think. n/t.

[Grasswire2]

12. yep thanks nt

[smirkymonkey]

13. K&R

[erronis]

14. I'm not sure the linked site "hopkinsguides.com" has anything to do with Johns Hopkins

other than using their name.

As always, be careful citing sources.

[Grasswire2]

15. this is the publisher

[link:https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/index.html|

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine serves three million patients annually.

[erronis]

16. Thanks. I'm quite familiar with JH. I just think it strange that there is no reference to

the "hopkinsguides" site on the official JH sites.

There is so much "borrowing" and repackaging of material that I'm always suspicious. Also suspicious that this JH "guides.com" site wants $$s to see content.

[Grasswire2]

17. In my experience it's not unusual for medical articles I want to read from journals or guides to ..

.....restrict part of the content to subscribers.

[erronis]

18. Agree. I search pubmed and get blocked by elsevier everywhere. But I don't see anything on JH

sites that reference this publishing site. Admittedly I didn't look very hard.

[Grasswire2]

19. fair enough

I like to be scrupulous too. But would the info change if it was from another source? I googled and didn't find any rebuttal or criticism of it.