What does it mean when your thought process is circumstantial?

A circumstantial thought process is also known as circumstantiality. It’s when you include a lot of unnecessary and insignificant details in your conversation or writing. This takes away from the main point of what you’re saying.

What is the difference between circumstantial and tangential thinking?

Unlike in flight of ideas, circumstantiality contains tighter and more coherent associations that may be easier to follow or understand. Unlike tangential speakers, i.e., those who are circumstantial eventually arrive back at the main point of speech or the answer to a question.

What are circumstantial symptoms?

People with circumstantiality, also known as circumstantial thinking, or circumstantial speech, often include excessive irrelevant details in their speaking or writing. They maintain their original train of thought but provide a lot of unnecessary details before circling back to their main point.

What is circumstantiality mental health?

n. circuitous, indirect speech in which the individual digresses to give unnecessary and often irrelevant details before arriving at the main point. An extreme form, arising from disorganized associative processes, may occur in schizophrenia, obsessional disorders, and certain types of dementia.

What is an example of circumstantial speech?

Example. An example of circumstantial speech is that when asked about the age of a person’s mother at death, the speaker responds by talking at length about accidents and how too many people die in accidents, then eventually says what the mother’s age was at death.

What causes scattered thinking?

Anxiety. Anxiety is a common cause of racing thoughts. While racing thoughts are extremely common during an anxiety attack, they can also occur at any time. They may also precede or follow an anxiety attack.

What is circumstantial language?

Circumstantial speech (also referred to as circumstantiality) is a communication disorder in which the focus of a conversation drifts, but often comes back to the point. In circumstantiality, unnecessary details and irrelevant remarks cause a delay in getting to the point.

What is loose thought process?

Derailment or Loose Associations In cases of severely disordered thinking, thoughts lose almost all connections with one another and become disconnected and disjointed. 5 This illogical thinking is called derailment or “loose” associations.

What is a loose thought process?

How do you use circumstantiality in a sentence?

Circumstantiality Sentence Examples Not even so, however, did their witness agree together, so, as a bold stroke, Oates, with great circumstantiality, accused the queen before Charles of high treason.

What is an example of tangentiality?

Examples of Tangentiality For example, when a therapist poses the question, “How was your week?” a person may respond with, “When I was five, my cat was killed.” When the therapist asks about the cat the person may then begin to discuss something completely different such as religious beliefs or previous illnesses.

How do you treat circumstantial speech?

Treatment. Treatment often involves the use of behavioral modification and anticonvulsants, antidepressants and anxiolytics.