PARALOGIA

PARALOGIA (from Greek para- beyond and logos- meaning), a symptom of pathological thinking, a conclusion that does not correspond from the point of view of common sense to the premise, a judgment that contradicts everyday experience. The paralogical thought process is abstract, detached from life; psychological analysis of it presents considerable difficulties; the most characteristic are the so-called 'jumping associations,' which have no connections with the stimulus words. Paralogical thinking is typical for schizophrenics, whose psyche is characterized by the absence of wholeness, being fragmented into several seemingly independent circles of representations, as a result of which in the same situation the reaction of schizophrenics each time turns out to be new, unexpected and incomprehensible. On this basis in the conversational speech of schizophrenics there appear elements of peculiar inconsistencies with the thematic orientations of the interlocutor—a phenomenon denoted by the term 'mimogovorenie' ('Vorbeireden' of German authors).