A woman deliberately keeps a composed expression in front of colleagues despite feeling intense grief, and when asked privately, readily acknowledges that she is consciously suppressing how she feels and finds it exhausting to maintain. Before revealing the answer: is this a morbid expression of emotion?
No, this is more consistent with an abnormal expression of emotion than a morbid expression of emotion. Here the patient clearly recognises and can describe her own unusual manner of handling her emotion, which is the defining feature of an abnormal expression of emotion rather than the characteristic lack of self-recognition seen in a morbid expression of emotion.
References
- Casey, P. & Kelly, B. (2019). Fish's Clinical Psychopathology, 4th ed. Ch. 6, 'Disorders of Emotion'.