Psychic anesthesia is a depressive depersonalization that is accompanied by a painful experience of incomplete emotional response. At the same time, kindred feelings may disappear, there is a lack of empathy along with a lack of emotional response to everything around. Patients have a loss of emotional attitude to work and the aesthetic side of the perceived.
Basic concepts
Psychic anesthesia is a personality disorder in which the patient loses all depth with the colorfulness of emotional experience, becomes indifferent to absolutely everything. Nothing can please him, interest him or surprise him. Gifts and successes of children do not touch a person who is in such a state. Another name for this disorder is anesthetic depression. It is worth saying that this phenomenon is similar to local anesthesia, when patients see, hear, understand what is happening around, but no sensations from everythingthey are not experienced at all, as they are muted or absent altogether.
Reasons
Specialists attribute the occurrence of the causes of mental anesthesia to the growth of busy schedules, the rhythm of life and an endless flow of information. Thus, we can say that anesthesia, and in simple terms, banal depression, is becoming a disease of our century. Stressful situations, combined with mental trauma and illness, provoke a condition whose detrimental effect cannot be underestimated, since it is very dangerous.
Symptoms
In each specific situation, there may be a set of indicators, and different in severity. Typical depressive symptoms of mental anesthesia are:
- Occurrence of hypothymia or persistent depression of mood for two weeks or longer.
- Anhedonia along with a loss of interest in activities and socializing that used to bring joy.
- The appearance of astenergy (increased fatigue) in the form of lethargy, lack of strength to perform standard work or any household chores.
Atypical depressive symptoms with mental anesthesia
Such signs are:
- Loss of confidence along with reduced self-esteem.
- Inhibition of the thought process, combined with difficulty concentrating and timidity in making decisions.
- Having an unfounded sense of guilt along withconstant self-criticism for no reason.
- The appearance of thoughts of death and suicide attempts.
- Occurrence of a sudden and dramatic change in appetite in either direction, combined with a five percent loss or gain in body weight in just one month.
- Sleep disturbance in the form of early awakening, insomnia, lack of need for a night's rest.
In the case of a combination of two main signs with two additional symptoms, we can talk about the presence of mild depression, and with four - about the development of its moderate form. When all three main manifestations and five additional manifestations are observed, then the disease is considered severe.
Classic Signs
Psychic anesthesia is based on standard manifestations, but may also have specific features, for example:
- Emotional dullness up to the development of complete insensibility.
- Awareness of the state with its painful living.
- Loss of sex drive.
- Having a short, intermittent sleep with difficult awakening.
- Aversion to food.
- Own thoughts with sensations can be seen as unnatural, alien.
The last point differs from a similar manifestation in schizophrenia in that people do not believe that someone else puts thoughts into their heads. Individuals simply feel they are unusual for themselves, but the authorship of a thought remains preserved in a person's mind.
This kind of depression is easyto distinguish from asthenia. In the second situation, people wake up with a certain reserve of strength, which is depleted very quickly. With mental anesthesia, the picture can be just the opposite: the morning begins with weakness, and only in the evening the face becomes active. The core of the symptomatic complex is the loss of emotional reactions to the signal of the outside world, as well as feelings towards others. Mental anesthesia seriously torments patients, bringing them great suffering.
Treatment
Depression can become chronic, making it difficult to reverse. It can facilitate access to various diseases, complicate their course, and can lead to alcoholism or drug addiction. Painful devastation, along with the loss of colors and meaning of the surrounding world, self-flagellation - all this sometimes pushes people to commit suicide.
Anesthetic depression needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Moderate and mild mental anesthesia is treated by family doctors, psychotherapists, psychologists with special training. With the development of a severe stage (especially with suicidal intentions), mandatory supervision by a psychiatrist will be required. The specialist will certainly help to accurately determine the severity of the disorder that has arisen and prescribe all the required supportive measures and drugs.
Therapy directions
As part of mental anesthesia treatment, the following is done:
- Engaging patients to actively participate in the healing process.
- Implementation of preventionpossible countermeasures.
- Conversation on exciting issues and hypnotherapy.
- Performing cognitive therapy.
- Ordering the regime in the form of feasible work, good rest with a regular change of such periods.
- A he althy lifestyle in the form of giving up any bad habits combined with exercise, outdoor walks and auto-training.
Medications
They are prescribed exclusively by doctors. The type and dosage of the drug is selected individually. Commonly used antidepressants are:
- Monoamine oxidase inhibitors, such as Nialamide or Fenalzine.
- Use of selective serotonin inhibitors in the form of Fluvoxamine, Fluoxetine, Sertraline, Paroxetine and Citalopram.
It is worth noting that the use of MAO inhibitors will require a special diet due to their incompatibility with certain foods. Failure to comply with this condition can cause a sharp increase in intraocular pressure along with angina pectoris and hypertensive crisis. Red wine should be excluded from the nutritious diet, along with beer, products made using yeast, chocolate, smoked meats, legumes, cheese and cream.
After the withdrawal of antipsychotics
Antipsychotic withdrawal syndrome often occurs in situations where pharmacotherapy lasts less than six months. Peak withdrawal symptoms usually occur within four days ofsubsequent resolution two weeks in advance.
Negative manifestations of mental anesthesia after the abolition of antipsychotics are most pronounced against the background of a sharp interruption of therapy, as well as during the transfer of a patient from a low-potency antipsychotic to an analogue, and in the event of simultaneous discontinuation of correctors.
The mechanisms of withdrawal syndrome are based on the development of pharmacodynamic stress due to the adaptation of mediator systems, mainly cholinergic ones. In addition, the cessation of the sedative effect of neuroleptics plays a certain role.
