Disorganized Mind And Catastrophic Reaction: Intrinsic And Extrinsic Emotion Regulation In Acquired Brain Injury Survivors

The experience of a disorganized mind is a common phenomenon after pre-frontal cortex lesions. Even though during the last decades there has been a better understanding of the neuropsychological mechanisms that are often compromised in a disorganized mind, its emotional consequences have been scarcely described. This article suggests that a main problem of having a disorganized mind is the difficulty of using that same mind to self-regulate emotional states. In addition, this paper also proposes that in situations where the mind is in a state of disorganization, patients tend to use other's people's minds-brains as a source of affective regulation, a process commonly known as extrinsic regulation. Finally, the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic regulatory processes is addressed through the description of a clinical case.