TheoPhantasmagoria: Part I: Knight Move Thinking

More images by John Tenniel can be found here: www.ebbemunk.dk/alice/alice6.html

Knight's move thinking: a knight moves 1 square orthogonally or 1 square diagonally.
In psychological terms a person can follow an individual's train of thought as there is a link of sorts – a progression of ideas – but it veers off. The problem is that the ideas are linked in ways which make very little overall sense to anyone but the sufferer. This is often a feature of psychosis related to mania or dementing disorder.

It is a disturbance of speech, communication, or content of thought – e.g. delusions, ideas of reference, poverty of thought, flight of ideas, perseveration, loosening of associations.

What is thought disorder?
Our thoughts are revealed in our speech. Thus, observation of patterns of thought naturally involves close observation of the speech of the individual being considered. A psychologist will observe degree, frequency, and the resulting functional impairment. However, it is not to be confused with petit mal seizures, hesitation brought on my anxiety or excessive self consciousness, or slow thought processes.

There are numerous categorised thought disorders, here I have compiled a brief list with simple definitions.

Clanging: a rambling stream-of-conscious-train with a pitty, poetic phrase (can be seen in hip hop lyrics with those under drug induced psychosis). Rhyming or alliteration may lead to the appearance of logical connections where none in fact exists. This disorder is also associated with the irregular thinking apparent in psychotic mental illnesses (e.g. schizophrenia). Sentences are usually patently absurd. Most clang associations are usually non-sense. A manic bi-polar could say "he raged at the hypocrisy of the aristocracy democracy."

Blocking: Interruption of train of speech before completion. This is commonly seen when a joke is being told and the speaker forgets the punchline. True blocking, however, is when the speaker does not recall the topic he/she was discussing. True blocking is a common sign of schizophrenia.

Circumferential speech: speech that is delayed at reaching its goal. Excessive long-windedness. Speaking about many concepts related to the point of the conversation before eventually returning to the point and concluding the thought.

Derailment: (Knight move thinking): ideas slip off the topic's track on to another which is obliquely related or unrelated. "I decided to take control of my life and went outside, err waxed my nails in the thunderstorm".

Distractible speech: during mid speech, the subject is changed in response to a stimulus.

Evasive interaction: attempts to annunciate ideas and/or feelings about another individual comes out as evasive or in a diluted form.

Flight of ideas: (Knight move thinking): a sequence of loose associations or extreme tangentiality where the speaker goes quickly from one idea to another seemingly unrelated ideas. To the listener, the ideas seem unrelated and do not seem to repeat. Often pressured speech is also present.

Illogicality: conclusions are reached that do not follow logically (non-sequiturs or faulty inferences), e.g. Do you think this will fit in the box? draw a rely like "well duh, it's red isn't it."

Incoherence (word salad): speech that is unintelligible because, though the individual words are real words, the manner in which they are strung together results in incoherent gibberish e.g. the question "Why do people smoke a pipe?" elicits a response like "because it makes a twirl in my life my cup is broken help me white elephant. Isn't the goldfish brave?"

Loss of goal: failure to show a train of thought to a natural conclusion e.g. "Why does my computer keep crashing?" "Well you drive a truck, so the tweezers need to be in another drawer".

Phoenemic paraphasia: mispronunciation; syllables out of sequence: e.g. I slipped on the lice and broke my arm."

Pressure of speech: an increase in the amount of spontaneous speech compared to what is considered customary. Difficult to interrupt the speaker; the speaker may continue speaking even when a direct question is asked.

Semantic paraphasia: substitution of inappropriate word e.g. "I slipped on the coat, on the ice I mean, and broke my book."

Stilted speech: speech excessively stilted and formal e.g. "his attorney comported himself indecorously."

Thought insertion: this is the experience of one's thoughts not being one's own but that they have been 'inserted' into one's head by a third party. People experiencing this symptom find it extremely difficult to organise or control their thoughts, partly because they see little point in trying to control the thoughts which belong to someone else. These 'inserted' thoughts are often demanding or controlling and can lead the sufferer to behave in ways they normally wouldn't. In the Christian context this is demonic possession.

"God has not given to us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a SOUND MIND."

To moralize if I can, young people (teenagers and young adults) are particularly vulnerable to psychosis brought on by the use of drugs and excessive consumption of alcohol to drunkenness.

Psychotic disorders: schizophrenia, drug-induced psychosis, psychotic depression, bi-polar disorder, Alzheimer's disease, multi-infarct dementia, delirium tremens, Korsakoffs' syndrome (alcohol related dementia).

Two main psychotic symptions: hallucinations (the more serious) and thought disorder.

Below some of the images used for the visual narrative and collage.