Violent behavioral crisis accompanied by loss of self-control, the raptus must lead those around him to alert the emergency services, to calm the person, and, as far as possible, to treat him with coolness.

From the Latin “rumpo” to break, a raptus is a paroxysmal impulse, a violent psychological crisis, bordering on the voluntary act and the reflex, which belongs to what we call an “automatic act”. It is a sudden, compelling and sometimes violent desire to do something, to take action. It is the accomplishment of a psychological and motor act which escapes the control of the will of an individual. He no longer manages to evacuate one or more intense tension (s) by means of the responses he knows. He evaluates his situation in a negative way, he no longer has the perception of reality and can find himself in a phase of confusion. An automated attitude, like a robot with a total lack of awareness of the possible consequences of his act. The duration of the seizure turns out to be variable, ranging from a minimum of a few seconds.

Among the other automatic actions, we find:

• running away (abandonment of the home);
• posturing (gesturing in all directions);
• or sleepwalking.

The automatisms of acts like the raptus, are observed mainly in mental confusion and in acute phase psychological disorders. They can also occur in certain schizophrenias. When the raptus occurs during a psychosis as is the case in melancholy, it sometimes pushes the patient to suicide or self-harm.

When an individual loses his usual capacities to cope with stressful events, for example, he finds himself in a state of vulnerability,

The suicidal captus denotes a mode of suicide attempt carried out suddenly and in a very short time, with an unpredictability of the complex elaboration of the gesture for third parties. Ideas are rarely expressed before the gesture. The passage to the suicidal act, in this situation, is carried out with impulsivity, and most often surprises relatives and caregivers. The explanation of the gesture is all the more dramatic because it is misunderstood by relatives.

In the history of suicidal patients, we find a desire to call on those around them for help, a desire to flee, a pessimistic logic (feelings of incurability, despair), self-deprecation, a sadness of feeling. mood or feelings of deep guilt.

Sudden awareness of a serious psychiatric disorder can also lead to wanting to radically escape it. Delusional ideas, obeying a cold and hermetic logic can also be at the origin of a suicidal gesture.

Anxiety is a state of alert, psychological and somatic tensions, related to feelings of fear, worry, or even other emotions that turn out to be unpleasant. At its highest level, anxiety manifests itself in a total control over the individual which causes a modification of his perceptions of the environment, time, and the emotions to which he is accustomed. It can happen, for example, after an overdose of amphetamines but most of the time anxiety is felt depending on the onset of certain situations.

Generalized anxiety disorder is a pathological condition in which an individual can no longer control their anxiety which can then cause a panic attack and a desire to flee as quickly as possible.

This violent psychological crisis can be the symbol of a mental illness (schizophrenia, panic attack or melancholy). If the final behavior is not the same, all raptus have the same characteristics:

• loss of self-control;
• a sudden urge;
• brutal that it is impossible to reason;
• an automated attitude;
• reflex behavior;
• a total lack of measurement of the consequences of the act.

The aggressive raptus

It can result in desires for murder (as in paranoia for example) or desires for self-harm (as in the borderline personality) where the person inflicts scarifications or burns.

Bulimic raptus

The subject has an irrepressible urge for food which is often accompanied by vomiting.

The psychotic raptus

Ideas are delusional with hallucinations that can lead to self-harm or suicide.

The angry kidnapping

It occurs mostly in psychopaths with a sudden destruction of all the objects they are around.

The epileptic raptus

It is characterized by gesticulation, agitation, anger.

Faced with a person who is in the middle of an anxiety attack, it is necessary to treat him with coolness, to maintain a calm and understanding attitude, allowing the patient to verbalize his anxiety, to put him away from an overly anxious entourage, and have a somatic examination performed (to rule out an organic cause).

These measures often result in sedation of anxiety. The emergency services or a health professional warned by the entourage, can give an emergency sedative injection. In addition, in order to protect the person from themselves, it is possible to restrain them to a medical bed (attached) to protect and calm them. In a second step, it will be necessary to seek the cause of this raptus, suicidal or anxious, to locate the underlying psychopathological diagnosis (neurosis or psychosis, depression or not), then to evaluate the underlying personality to consider a processing. Very often, it consists of psychotherapy with medication (antidepressants, anxiolytics) often accompanied by relaxation sessions. But hospitalization may sometimes be necessary.