Emotional lability in psychology: symptoms and causes

All people experience emotions, but they are expressed differently in everyone. Some behave calmly and reservedly, while others react to current events overly emotionally. There are also people whose mood is subject to frequent and sudden changes. This condition is called “organic emotionally labile disorder” or simply “emotional lability.” Today we will analyze in detail what this condition is, how it manifests itself, for what reasons it develops and how to cope with it.

What is emotional lability?

From a psychological point of view, emotional lability is a mental disorder characterized by mood swings without significant reasons, caused by disturbances in the functioning of the brain or somatic diseases. Any little thing can cause such a person an overly emotional reaction , both positive and negative.

If you give an emotionally labile person the usual routine compliment, he may be delighted with it. If someone looks at him judgmentally, this can cause him depression or reflection about his imperfection. At the same time, mood changes in any direction occur almost instantly, given even the slightest reason.

The term "lability" is derived from the Latin word labilis, which translates as "sliding" or "unstable." It can also be used in other scientific disciplines to denote changeable, unstable phenomena or processes.

Emotional lability means that a person has great difficulty controlling his emotions and mood swings. Because of this, it is quite difficult to communicate with such people. But they become quite attached to those who have the patience and understanding to get along with them (however, this does not mean that they will behave well). Interestingly, in childhood, boys are more likely to demonstrate emotionally labile behavior than girls, and in adulthood, the opposite is true.

Psychotherapy

The basis of psychotherapeutic intervention is the goal of identifying internal conflicts, fears, and the possible psychological root cause of the condition. Correction is aimed at eliminating negative factors by working through the problem, relieving anxiety, working with stress resistance and disorders of self-perception. Attention is paid to controlling aggressive behavior.

If there are problems with social adaptation and communication, training sessions and group therapy may be required.

Along with the work carried out with the patient, family therapy is often carried out. It is important not only to teach a person to control emotions and suppress an affective reaction, but also to help family members find an approach to such a person and learn to correctly respond to the mood swings of a person with weakness.

Despite the fact that lack of control over emotional reactions brings a lot of discomfort, one should not assume that the condition is completely uncorrectable. There is no need to try to suppress emotions on your own. Timely seeking help from specialists will allow you to get rid of not only the consequences of emotional instability, but also learn to cope with the condition without harm to yourself or others.

Author of the article: Alena Igorevna Lobzova, clinical psychologist, specialist in developmental psychology

Symptoms of emotional lability

In psychology, there are two types of emotional lability:

• Border
• Impulsive

Each type has its own set of symptoms. Let's look at each of them in more detail.

Border type

The full name of this condition according to ICD-10 is “Emotionally unstable personality disorder, borderline type,” but much more often you can hear the abbreviated wording: “Borderline personality disorder.” It is characterized by symptoms such as:

• excessive impressionability;
• affective lability (too bright and unstable emotions);
• well-developed and poorly controlled imagination;
• mobility of cognitive perception;
• painful reaction to external obstacles that arise on the way to the goal, as well as to one’s own mistakes, failures and failures;
• hyperbolic perception of all external events;
• constant stress associated with excessive sensitivity.

The borderline type of emotional lability is typical for young children who do not yet know what responsibility is. They are very capricious, and they put their desires above the rules and prohibitions imposed by adults. In adolescence, this type of emotional instability leads to restlessness, constant changes in mood, frequent frustrations, and inability to concentrate on studies.

In adulthood, emotional instability of the borderline type makes a person weak-willed. He copes poorly with life's challenges and quickly gives up when faced with difficulties. This is due to the fact that such people endure even the slightest failures extremely painfully. They quickly become dependent on alcohol and drugs, and easily succumb to other bad habits that help them escape from their painful experiences.

Emotional lability is a serious obstacle to personal relationships. People forced to live with the borderline type of this disorder become very attached to loved ones. At the same time, they are often unbearable and intrusive, constantly demanding attention, and when they receive it, they begin to behave aggressively and jealously , pushing away those they need most. They also often try to attract attention or blackmail loved ones with demonstrative suicidal intentions.

Impulsive type

In ICD-10, this condition is called “Emotionally unstable personality disorder, impulsive type,” but the abbreviated name “Impulsive personality disorder” is more often used. Such people behave extremely unrestrained and impulsive; if they are angry with themselves, they can resort to self-harm. They are characterized by emotional outbursts, during which they do not think about the consequences of their actions. Because of this, the behavior of an adult with impulsive personality disorder often resembles that of a child.

Characteristic signs of a person with an impulsive type of emotional lability:

• moodiness;
• touchiness;
• tendency to hysterics;
• infantilism;
• rapid transition to insults and even physical aggression.

Such a person usually strives to lead in any dispute. If it doesn’t work out, he begins to demonstrate aggression towards others, even if they are very close people. At the same time, he usually does not think about the consequences, so he allows himself to make rude and offensive statements , in some cases he can even turn to physical aggression. This will not necessarily be the use of force. He may, for example, rashly throw water from a glass in the face of his interlocutor.

People with impulsive personality disorder have difficulty forming relationships. They alienate even the most dear people, and any attempts to make peace turn into streams of accusations, scenes of jealousy and other unpleasant ways of communicating.

Labile psychopathy . Emotional lability itself can reach such a degree that it turns into affective explosiveness.

However, more often the core of emotional lability is layered with traits of another type - hysterical, unstable, sensitive.

Labile-affective psychopathy is usually considered in the mentioned group of excitable psychopathy. Although affective outbursts arise for an insignificant reason, they are quickly exhausted. Anger easily gives way to tears. In passion there is no tendency towards brutal aggression. Usually, affect is limited to violent emotional manifestations - crying, moaning, swearing, throwing things, and sometimes reactions of an auto-aggressive type occur. Constant changes in mood lead to extreme restlessness, lack of composure, distractibility, and rapid changes of interests. From all this, first of all, studies suffer; constant conflicts arise both with elders and with peers. Typically, the correctness of self-esteem inherent in labile accentuation is lost, and there is no criticism of one’s behavior.

Alexander L., 14 years old. The father had a “difficult character,” explosive, jealous, and left the family when his son was 3 years old. Mother is calm and gentle in character.

Early development was without any special features, but from the age of 4 he suffered from severe attacks of paroxysmal tachycardia (an ambulance was often called and was treated with injections of novocainamide). From the age of 5, a stepfather appeared, and from the age of 8, a half-sister. He is hostile towards his stepfather, and his mother is jealous of him. Since childhood, he has been sociable with his peers, but is noisy and touchy. At school, clashes immediately began with both teachers and classmates.” At the slightest reason he was offended, could not tolerate comments, quarreled with his comrades - he would either get into a fight or cry. At home, in his own words, he just “began throwing tantrums,” meaning by them affective outbursts with screaming, crying and swearing. Due to continuous conflicts with teachers and fellow students, his mother continually had to transfer him from one school to another - in 8 years of study he changed six schools. I couldn’t stay at the pioneer camp for even a few days - the ball was brought home by the teacher.

Scandals often ended with attacks of paroxysmal tachycardia (pulse rate up to 160-180 per minute), which were difficult to bear, he was very afraid of them, and nevertheless could not resist quarrels and conflicts. For the last few months, he stopped going to school, but at home he carefully completed all his assignments and answered what he learned to the teachers who came to him. I smoked a lot. One day he drank a little wine with his friends in the yard - in his words, he “immediately fell asleep like a stone” and woke up with a severe headache. Since then I have avoided drinking.

In the conversation I discovered great emotional liveliness. He spoke with tears about his stepfather, who “loves only his daughter.” He explained that he stopped going to school because “all the same, his stepfather tried to persuade his mother to send him to a boarding school.” He admitted to lack of restraint, to “throwing hysterics,” and then he himself regrets it. He noted the variability of mood, but “joy quickly flashes by,” and “a bad mood is sometimes due to all sorts of nonsense.”

Physical development with pronounced infantilism (prepubertal phase).

Neurological examination and EEG showed no abnormalities. Autonomic lability was noted: vasomotor play, increased sweating.

During a pathocharacterological examination using PDO, a mixed labile and astheno-neurotic type was diagnosed on an objective assessment scale. There is an indication of the possibility of the formation of labile type psychopathy. A pronounced reaction of emancipation and a sharply negative attitude towards alcoholism were noted. Self-assessment is inaccurate: according to the subjective assessment scale, astheno-neurotic and sensitive traits appeared reliably, schizoid traits were denied.

Diagnosis. Psychopathy of labile-affective type of pronounced degree.

Labile-hysteroidal psychopathy can be either constitutional or a consequence of psychopathic development when raising a labile teenager in a system of indulgent hyperprotection. Hysterical egocentrism here turns into a demand for boundless love and care on the part of emotionally significant persons, and not just a desire to attract the gaze of the entire environment. Fantasies are usually devoid of an intoxicating and adventurous streak. With their inventions they want to show not the exclusivity of their nature, but how they are loved, cared for and pampered by people who are emotionally significant to them. Dreams have a more romantic connotation; they are rather imaginary idylls about the fulfillment of hopes, about serene happiness and bliss. According to D.N. Isaev and V.E. Kagan (1979), such teenagers are especially prone to platonic homosexual love with friends. Nevertheless, under the influence of mental trauma and in difficult situations, acute affective reactions and reactive states usually acquire a distinctly hysterical coloring.

Gennady K., 14 years old. Born from an extramarital affair of his mother, does not know his father. The mother is prone to alcoholism and is cold towards her son. He was raised by his grandmother, to whom he was very attached and who doted on him and indulged him in everything. When he was 10 years old, his grandmother died. After that, he became attached to a friend in the yard, for his sake he was “ready to do anything”: for him, he stole sweets from self-service stores, and then wine, which he himself did not drink. At home there were constant quarrels with my mother. When his mother threw away the puppy he had sheltered, he ran away, disappeared for several days, and spent the night in the basement of his own house. The mother knew about this, but did not look for him. Recently, his friend was sent to a special boarding school for theft. I missed him, “I didn’t want to live anymore.” He fantasized about going to places of former battles and getting blown up by a mine. Unexpectedly, I received a note from a friend that he was “waiting” for him at his boarding school. He decided to get there and for this purpose he quit going to school and committed several thefts of food in a self-service store - he acted in such a way that he was caught every time. He was sent to the same special boarding school. But here his friend suddenly turned away from him and said that he would no longer be friends with him, since he was weak and frail, and such people were not needed here. Other classmates began to mock him, teased him, and gave him offensive nicknames. He escaped home from the boarding school, was caught, put in the same class and beaten at night by his fellow students, since they were deprived of a movie for his escape. After that, within a month he made demonstrative suicide attempts three times. In front of the teacher, he tried to swallow glass. Secretly ate a piece of soap to cause diarrhea and end up in an infectious diseases hospital. Finally, after being persecuted by fellow practitioners, he tried to cut the veins on his forearm in front of their eyes.

hyperthymic-explosive type – previous | the next one is labile accentuation

Adolescent psychiatry. Content.

Causes of emotional lability

To better understand what emotional lability is, it is necessary to understand that it is not just a harmfulness or a feature of human behavior. This disorder usually results from serious problems in the functioning of the brain. Psychologists cite the following factors as the most common reasons:

1. Psycho-emotional stress. This can be stress, intense mental stress, participation in competitions, passing exams, lack of sleep, interpersonal conflicts and other actions that cause emotional stress.
2. Mental trauma. A traumatic event can also cause emotional instability.
3. Endocrine imbalance. Hormones regulate all processes in the body, including processes occurring in the central nervous system. Therefore, emotional lability is often observed in adolescents and pregnant women, as well as in people whose hormonal balance is disturbed due to various diseases.
4. Deterioration of blood supply to the brain. Diseases of the cardiovascular system can affect the quality of the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the brain, causing various disturbances in the functioning of the central nervous system and even organic damage to the nervous tissue.
5. Neurological diseases. As noted above, emotional lability is most often a consequence of various brain diseases. These could be injuries, tumors, infectious diseases, intoxication, etc.
6. Mental disorders. Neuroses, dementia and psychopathy are often accompanied by emotional instability.

Who gets it and why?

If emotional lability is considered in a psychological context, then this property of the nervous system is considered innate and relevant for the choleric type of temperament.
For choleric people, quick reactions and mood swings are the norm. Usually, a minor stimulus is enough for a person to show emotions uncontrollably. Even though such instability of the nervous system is not pathological, it can cause the development of both mental and somatic problems.

Emotional lability as a pathological condition that requires correction means a combination of mental and somatic manifestations. Often weak-willedness coexists with VSD or vegetative lability. If autonomic lability is involved, then in addition to mood swings, a physiological reaction to stress is noted.

The reasons for the negative state can be divided into two subsections.

Not physiological reasons

Such reasons include upbringing, negative influence on the child, lack of attention. Emotional lability is often considered in the context of ADHD. Additional reasons include stress and traumatic circumstances at any age.

The basis for the occurrence of weakness may be suicidal behavior or unsuccessful suicide attempts, neurotic conditions. Often, with neuroses or mental pathologies, lack of control over emotions becomes a symptom or the basis for deterioration of the condition.

Somatic, organic factors

Emotional lability is often associated with somatic disorders.
It is diagnosed under the influence of changes in the body that occur due to hormonal changes or due to age. This is why weakness is so common among older people. The presence of asthenic syndrome (an organic emotional-labile disorder) is also closely related to weakness and can be both a cause and a result. It is the asthenic syndrome in combination with emotional weakness that usually leads to depressive states and anxiety disorders.

Among the diseases that provoke pathology are:

• neoplasms, malignant brain tumors;
• traumatic brain injuries;
• vascular pathologies;
• hypertension, hypotension;
• brain diseases.

A factor causing emotional lability may be a lack of important microelements and vitamins in the body.

Diagnostics

When diagnosing emotional lability, much attention is paid to the causes of this condition. Initially, an emotionally unstable personality disorder is diagnosed by a psychiatrist , after which the patient is prescribed an examination by other doctors: a therapist, a cardiologist, an endocrinologist and a neurologist. Their task is to identify the disease that caused emotional lability.

When examining a patient, the following methods are used:

• Clinical conversation. At this stage, the doctor’s task is to obtain from the patient the most accurate description of his symptoms: the presence of outbursts of anger, irritability, tearfulness, aggressiveness, inability to restrain emotions, etc.
• Observation. Directly during the conversation, the doctor observes the patient’s behavior. Since this situation is considered stressful, he usually begins to clearly demonstrate characteristic symptoms: he worries, has difficulty formulating thoughts, behaves in conflict, or begins to cry.
• Psychodiagnostics. At this stage, complex questionnaires and other testing methods are used to assess the general condition of the patient and determine the presence of various disorders and neuroses.

How does this translate in life?

There are a number of clear signs by which one can recognize the emergence and “emergence” of emotional lability:

1. The first sign is the inability to cope with difficulties , even the most insignificant ones. A person in advance, without even trying to do something, falls into melancholy and despondency.
2. Outbursts of affect - explosions of hysteria, yelling, crying, laughter, anger, resentment... all in an exaggerated form and suddenly.
3. A person between outbursts of affects is sluggish, apathetic.
4. A tearful state occurs in most cases after “emotional outbursts.”
5. “Close-heartedness” - a person reacts very sharply to any situation, especially to a situation that is negative for him for some reason.
6. Acute reaction to criticism addressed to oneself , especially if the criticism is negative. A person suffering from pathology cannot loyally, calmly and adequately perceive information about himself.
7. Assessment of behavior, assessment of actions, assessment of skills , assessment of life, both personal and public, becomes a reason for aggression or hysteria .
8. There is no constructive thinking, no logically constructed actions . All life is built on a chaotic reaction to what is happening: outbursts of affect, periods of melancholy and despondency.
9. May be accompanied by diseases of internal organs .

Based on the above symptoms, you can already visually imagine what a labile person looks like. A type with clear, fast and clearly expressed facial expressions, constant sharp movements in space, quickly reacting to any external signals (sharp sound, clap, beam of light).

Treatment of emotional lability

When the diagnosis is completed and the causes of emotional instability are identified, they begin to eliminate them. The necessary treatment should be carried out by the doctor whose competence is the cause. This could be not only a psychiatrist, but also a neurologist, endocrinologist, cardiologist, therapist or other specialist. In most cases, therapeutic treatment is required, but sometimes surgery is also resorted to.

Specific treatment may include the following:

• Individual psychotherapy. During sessions, the psychotherapist helps the patient cope with internal conflicts and fears. In each case, an individual approach is used using cognitive behavioral therapy, auto-training and other methods.
• Group psychotherapy. This approach helps solve patients’ social problems: increase self-confidence, develop communication skills, learn to avoid conflicts and better feel the emotions of others.
• Consulting. The psychotherapist communicates with the patient’s family members, explains to them in detail what emotional lability is, and gives recommendations on how to communicate and how to help the person suffering from it.
• Drug therapy. Drugs that reduce anxiety and tension are usually prescribed: tranquilizers, antidepressants and sedatives.

Correction

If emotional weakness manifests itself as an impulsive type, with age and under the influence of changes in the hormonal background, its manifestations may fade a little.

However, in any case, the pathological condition requires help from specialists. Self-medication is often useless, especially in a situation where weakness is the result of somatic problems.

Along with drug therapy or psychological correction, such people are advised to exclude drinks and foods that “stimulate” the nervous system from their diet, give up bad habits, and balance their lifestyle, avoiding psycho-traumatic and stressful influences.

Mental instability

Mental lability is manifested by an unstable emotional state. Such people can suddenly change their mood, become overly impressed, and try to shift responsibility to others. In advanced stages, depression, split personality, and aggression can develop. Therefore, this type of mental instability should be treated by psychiatrists, not psychotherapists.

In the modern world, the described types of unstable human condition appear in young, middle, and adulthood. The cause of deviations can be both hereditary factors and the person’s lifestyle.

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