Avolition is a psychological state characterized by general lack of desire, drive, or motivation to pursue meaningful goals. It is commonly seen in patients with schizophrenia, and is one of the four main "negative" symptoms of that disorder (the others being flat affect, alogia, and anhedonia).^[1] It is sometimes mistaken for simple disinterest or anhedonia but is distinct. Psychological science redirects here. ... A symptom is a manifestation of a disease, indicating the nature of the disease, which is noticed by the patient. ... Blunted affect is the scientific term describing a lack of emotional reactivity on the part of an individual. ... In psychology, alogia, or poverty of speech, is a general lack of additional, unprompted content seen in normal speech. ... In psychology, anhedonia is a patients inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, and social/sexual interactions. ...

The DSM IV says of schizophrenia that characteristic symptoms are two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence), grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms, i.e., affective flattening, alogia, or avolition. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the handbook used most often in diagnosing mental disorders in the United States and other countries. ... A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. ... A hallucination is a perception in the absence of a stimulus that the person may or may not believe is real. ... In psychiatry, thought disorder or formal thought disorder is a term used to describe a pattern of disordered language use that is presumed to reflect disordered thinking. ... Catatonia is a severe psychiatric and medical condition, characterized by, in catatonic stupor, a general absence of motor activity, and, in catatonic excitement, violent, hyperactive behavior directed at oneself or others but with no visible purpose. ...

References

1. ^ Meadows G., Singh, B., & Griggs, M. (2007). Mental Health in Australia, Collaborative Community Practice 2^nd Ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Chapter 25, p539.

In my experience avolition is the breaking down of the sensibility character of your persona. The persona in which to term is the story of your being. The memory of your life, the coherence of your existence. And Avolition is the refracted reflection of it. In which where a person would manifest a great deal of disorganized logic and incoherent thoughts. It starts on Neurotic breakdown and the natural instinct of a person to combat fear. Then if sleeplessness or insomnia is your routine, you are likely prone to this. On the basis of medications like ex. Quetiapine [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetiapine ], do not actually help curing this sickness but actually worsens it. If you would read the Quetiapine link in wikipedia that my 3 years of taking it daily did not actually change anything with regards to my psychiatric well being and more devastating to my psychological mind workings. It was more of a sedative and nerve destroyer... Irritable bowel Syndrome, Tardive dyskinesia, paranoia, difficulties on waking up and most specially high blood pressure and anguishing grogginess. I came to a hypothetical guess that it is literally slowly killing me. It's a good thing i don't take them anymore. But there are certain stay down side effects that causes damage would time for your body to recuperate to. Considering real life factors of me taking it, I some what confirmed the existence of the Quetiapine side effects. Although this may still be disproved to some facets of and collated medical research data.