From SIMS, give definition of viral feelings

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Sims "Symptoms in the Mind" "viral feelings" definition psychiatry

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I have the full definition. The term you are looking for is "vital feelings" (not "viral feelings" - this is likely a transcription/spelling error). Here is the complete definition from Sims' Symptoms in the Mind:

Vital Feelings - Sims' Symptoms in the Mind

"Vital feelings" is a term coined by Wernicke (1906) to describe certain somatic symptoms occurring in the affective psychoses.

Definition

The word vital comes from the concept of the vital self - which describes the close relationship of the body to awareness of self, the way we experience our bodies, and the impression we consider our physical presence makes on others.

Vital feelings are those that make us aware of our vital self. These are the feelings of mood that appear to emanate from the body itself: localized and somatized affect.

In practical terms, they represent the localization of depression in a bodily organ, complained of perhaps as pain in the head, chest, or elsewhere. On further questioning, the symptoms are described as unpleasant, painful pressure or heaviness rather than true pain.

Classic example: A depressed patient complains of headache. On closer inquiry, they say "it's not exactly a pain, but more an unbearable feeling of pressure like a tight band around the head."

Clinical Significance

Schneider (1920) considered vital feelings to be of paramount diagnostic significance in depressive illness, equivalent to the first-rank symptoms in schizophrenia.
He viewed them as the core of cyclothymic depression and autonomic in origin.
They are also related to what Dupre (1913) called coenestopathic states - "the distressing feelings which emanate from one or other of the coenesthesic areas," defined as a change in the deep but more or less indefinite awareness of one's own body and general functional tone.
The affect of depression may be localized somatically in vital feelings, taking the form of profound misery or dejection, feelings of loss of capacity, helplessness, or an inexplicable loss of feelings "that ought to be there."

Note: The term in Sims is "vital feelings" (from Latin vita, life), not "viral feelings." This is almost certainly a spelling/autocorrect error. The concept refers to somatic/bodily localizations of depressive affect - a key concept in descriptive psychopathology.

Sims' Symptoms in the Mind, Chapter 16 (Disorders of Affect) and Chapter on Self and Body

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