Volume : VIII, Issue : IV, April - 2019

SCHIZOPHRENIC BLUNTING: AN APPRAISAL OF CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS

Barun Kumar

Abstract :

Considerable scientific attention has been directed towards the psychiatric condition of Schizophrenia because of its global prevalence and the serious effects that it has on the patient’s life. An important and grossly under-studied symptom of this disorder is the Emotional blunting of Schizophrenia which is present in a considerable number of such patients. The etiology remains far from understood. Since it is a problem of emotional response, it is logical to look at other emotional states for a clue, of which the dream state is a potential candidate which remains inadequately probed. Here we review of evidences for continuity hypothesis and we will propose a dream related hypothesis for the blunted emotional response in Schizophrenia. Our hypothesis can be divided into two sub-hypotheses: 1) The emotional state of dreams, especially the negative emotions like fear is carried on (is continuous) with the waking state of Schizophrenia more than in normal individuals. We name it the “Emotional continuity hypothesis” which derives its name from the original “Continuity Hypothesis” and 2) Due to this continuity, the conscious state continuously experiences an internally generated fear (arising from unconscious mind) which it then suppresses as a compensation response to this negative experience. As this emotional suppression crosses a limit, it results in emotional blunting. We name this aspect the “Emotional overcompensation hypothesis”. For our hypothesis we derive evidences from phenomenological, cognitive and neurobiological studies and we will appreciate that in all of these approaches, our hypothesis holds good. Phenomenologically, the continuity hypothesis has been well appreciated in several dream-models of Schizophrenia. But we add the questions of directionality and emotions to it which has not been asked before in this context. Cognitively, the phenomena of emotional suppression in Schizophrenia have been studied recently. We try to explore the reasons why emotional suppression rather than other emotion regulation techniques is more used in Schizophrenia and we see that the source of origin of these emotions plays a key role which has not been appreciated before. Finally the neurobiological models show the neural correlates of the emotional suppression in Schizophrenia in later stages of fear-experience are associated with a decrease in Amygdala activity. We try to join these separate bits and pieces of neurobiological evidences and will show that all of them put together makes a picture of emotional-overcompensation as per our propositions. This hypothesis should be tested further to develop a treatment module for Schizophrenia patients with the symptom of emotional blunting.

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Article: Download PDF    DOI : https://www.doi.org/10.36106/gjra  

Cite This Article:

SCHIZOPHRENIC BLUNTING: AN APPRAISAL OF CONTINUITY HYPOTHESIS , Barun Kumar GLOBAL JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH ANALYSIS : Volume-8 | Issue-4 | April-2019

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