CONFUSIONE MENTALE

MENTAL CONFUSION. - A characteristic state proper to amentia (q.v.), following acute and chronic intoxications or the severe ideational disorder produced by violent emotional traumas. Ideas lose their clarity and the relationships of logical correlation, being linked to one another through mere contiguity. Rational and critical activity is more or less abolished, so that mental activity often unfolds in absurd conditions similar to those of a dream, up to a dissociation of personality such as to abolish every form of thought. In the course of such vague and chaotic mental activity, the individual struck by mental confusion is to be considered incapable of establishing a logical relationship with those around him and devoid of moral responsibility.