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In
psychiatry, derailment (also loosening of association, asyndesis, asyndetic thinking, knight's move thinking, or entgleisen) is a
thought disorder characterized by
discourse
Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. ...
consisting of a sequence of unrelated or only remotely related
ideas. The frame of reference often changes from one sentence to the next.
[P.J. McKenna, ''Schizophrenia and related syndromes'', Psychology Press, 1997, , pp. 14-15][A.C.P. Sims, ''Symptoms in the mind: an introduction to descriptive psychopathology'', Edition 3, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2003, , pp. 155-156]
In a mild manifestation, this thought disorder is characterized by slippage of ideas further and further from the point of a discussion. Derailment can often be manifestly caused by intense emotions such as euphoria or hysteria. Some of the synonyms given above (''loosening of association'', ''
asyndetic thinking'') are used by some authors to refer just to a ''loss of goal'': discourse that sets off on a particular idea, wanders off and never returns to it. A related term is
tangentiality
Tangential speech or tangentiality is a communication disorder in which the train of thought of the speaker wanders and shows a lack of focus, never returning to the initial topic of the conversation.''Forensic Aspects of Communication Sciences and ...
—it refers to off-the-point, oblique or irrelevant answers given to questions.
[ In some studies on creativity, ''knight's move thinking''—while describing a similarly loose association of ideas—is not considered a mental disorder or the hallmark of one; it is sometimes used as a synonym for lateral thinking.][
]
Examples
* "The next day when I'd be going out you know, I took control, like uh, I put bleach on my hair in California."—given by Nancy C. Andreasen
Nancy Coover Andreasen (born November 11, 1938) is an American neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist. She currently holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.
...
* "I think someone's infiltrated my copies of the cases. We've got to case the joint. I don't believe in joints, but they do hold your body together."—given by Elyn Saks.[Elyn Saks: "A tale of mental illness — from the inside." TEDGlobal 2012. Recorded in June 2012. ]
* "I have choose right over wrong. When there are two options, I have to look to the right. I can choose left or right, but always look right."—patient interview, Mayo Clinic.
History
''Entgleisen'' ( derailment in German) was first used with this meaning by Carl Schneider in 1930.[ The term ''asyndesis'' was introduced by N. Cameron in 1938, while ''loosening of association'' was introduced by A. Bleuler in 1950.][Tony Thompson, Peter Mathias, Jack Lyttle, ''Lyttle's mental health and disorder'', Edition 3, Elsevier Health Sciences, 2000, , pp. 136, 168-170] The phrase ''knight's move thinking'' was first used in the context of pathological thinking by the psychologist Peter McKellar
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a su ...
in 1957, who hypothesized that individuals with schizophrenia fail to suppress divergent associations.[Robert Spillane, John Martin, ''Personality and performance: foundations for managerial psychology'', UNSW Press, 2005 , pp. 239-243] ''Derailment'' was used with this meaning by Kurt Schneider
Kurt Schneider (7 January 1887 – 27 October 1967) was a German psychiatrist known largely for his writing on the diagnosis and understanding of schizophrenia, as well as personality disorders then known as psychopathic personalities.
Bi ...
in 1959.[
]
See also
* Nonsense
* Non sequitur (logic) and non sequitur (literary device)
A non sequitur ( , ; " tdoes not follow") is a conversational literary device, often used for comedic purposes. It is something said that, because of its apparent lack of meaning relative to what preceded it, seems absurd to the point of being h ...
* Red herring
A red herring is a figurative expression referring to a logical fallacy in which a clue or piece of information is or is intended to be misleading, or distracting from the actual question.
Red herring may also refer to: Animals
* Red herring (fis ...
* Relevance logic
* Schizophasia
* SCIgen, a program that generates nonsense research papers by grammatically combining snippets; many of the sentences generated are individually plausible
* Tip-of-the-tongue
* Train of thought
The train of thought or track of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to a ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Derailment
Cognition
Medical signs
Thought disorders