Organic Personality Changes

The traditional concept of “organic personality change” implies a lasting and irreversible change of personality structure, behavior, and affect in consequence of changes in the brain of whatever origin. In its clinical application, the term “organic” in this context refers to psychopathological manifestations produced by a morbid disturbance of brain function. Kraepelin (1909) and other authors validated this concept largely in the context of a single construct, that of the so-called epileptic personality change. According to the classical understanding, the epileptic personality change is characterized by (among other features) viscous, perseverative, circumstantial, and diffuse thinking; loss of initiative; certain affective abnormalities; and a dedifferentiation, or leveling out, of premorbid personality traits.