Flat affect is when you feel emotions but show practically nothing visually. Blunted affect refers to feelingemotions but only showing some of what you're feeling. (It's a less intense form of the flat affect because you still show some response.)
Some telltale signs of a flat affect include: appearing to lack interest. avoiding eye contact. apathetic body language or nonverbal cues.
Not everyone responds to emotional stimuli in the same way. In some, there may be no response at all. This lack of reaction is called flat affect. It can be a symptom of a psychiatric disorder or a side effect of another medical condition.
But sometimes your emotions and how you express them don't match up -- there's a disconnect between the two. You may be elated or depressed, but others can't tell. You may seem uncaring and unresponsive, but you're still feeling an emotion. This is called flat affect.
Flat affect describes when a person displays absolutely no emotion. Blunted affect is a step above flat, with some mild expression present on occasion.
Flat affect is a severely restricted or nonexistent expression of emotion. A person with flat affect does not express emotion the way other people do. It is not a condition by itself; it's a symptom of various other conditions, including schizophrenia, autism, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Medications treating flat affect largely depend on its cause. For example, antipsychotics are typically the first line of defense for treating schizophrenia symptoms. SSRIs, such as Zoloft, Prozac, and Paxil, are often recommended for treating PTSD.
Flat affect is a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia, although it may also affect those with other conditions. It is a lack of showing emotion characterized by an apathetic and unchanging facial expression and little or no change in the strength, tone, or pitch of the voice.
Affective flattening is a disorder of emotional expression, of which a good definition is 'a gross lack of emotional response to the given situation' (Fish, 1962).
Schizoid personality disorder is one of many personality disorders. It can cause individuals to seem distant and emotionless, rarely engaging in social situations or pursuing relationships with other people.
Emotional blunting means you are numb to both positive and negative emotions. You can't seem to cry or feel sad about things that normally would make you sad. You also can't seem to laugh or smile at things that would normally make you happy.
Flat affect is an inability to display emotion—a behavior that occurs with some mental health conditions, including schizophrenia.
One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to.
Negative symptoms include decreased thought and speech productivity (alogia), loss of ability to experience pleasure (anhedonia), decreased initiation of goal-directed behavior (avolition), and speech with little or no change to their tone, little or no change in their facial expression, even if they are talking about ...
Also, antipsychotic medications as well as antidepressants can cause secondary blunted affect [1, 10].
Flat affect: Existing on one end of the spectrum, flat affect represents an absence of expression, no matter how happy or sad the experience. Labile affect: People with a labile affect will show their state with frequent, excessive, and unpredictable shifts in expression.
There is no one cause of psychosis. Psychosis appears to result from a complex combination of genetic risk, differences in brain development, and exposure to stressors or trauma. Psychosis may be a symptom of a mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression.
To diagnose flat affect, virtually no signs of affective expression should be present; the patient's voice should be monotonous and the face should be immobile. Note the patient's difficulty in initiating, sustaining, or terminating an emotional response.
Alexithymia is when a person has difficulty experiencing, identifying, and expressing emotions.
Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that severely impacts a person's ability to regulate their emotions. This loss of emotional control can increase impulsivity, affect how a person feels about themselves, and negatively impact their relationships with others.
While everyone may have different social skills and interaction preferences, having a lack of presence or emotion in daily interactions can indicate emotional detachment or the presence of mental illness.
However, some people find it slows down their thinking or makes them feel a bit "numb". Sometimes it's hard to know whether this is because the lithium is doing its work to control your mood (if you have mania). Talk to your doctor if you're worried that lithium is slowing down your thinking or numbing your emotions.