I hope that begins to help, and that I didn't confuse you. Affect can be described as within normal range, constricted, blunted, or flat.

They don't express emotion or feeling in their speech. Affect may or may not be congruent with mood.

MSE GUIDELINES The MSE must include detailed observations regarding the person’s appearance, speech, attitude, behavior, mood, and affect. mini mental status exam (MMSE) cannot be substituted for a MSE. They'll tell you their dog died, their sister had a baby, they have an ingrown toenail, and they saw a huge car wreck with seventeen bodies lying all over the road with ABOUT THE SAME AMOUNT OF EXPRESSION. DSHS 13-865 Addendum mental status exam (MSE) must accompany all Mental Incapacity Evaluations, including narrative reports and DSHS form 13-865. People with flat affect have little to no real voice inflection and inject no real expression into their speech. Nothing excites them, makes them smile, animates them. When I worked with autistic patients, they used no hand gestures, no expressions, no nothing. If someone has flat affect, they show no emotion. It is not a condition by itself it’s a symptom of various other conditions, including schizophrenia, autism, or post-traumatic stress disorder. A person with flat affect does not express emotion the way other people do. It also says that words used to describe affect can include broad, restricted, blunted, flat, and inappropriate. Flat affect is a severely restricted or nonexistent expression of emotion. My psych text defines affect as: behaviors such as hand and body movements, facial expression, and pitch of voice that can be observed then a person is expressing and experiencing feelings and emotions. It's hard to explain affect in the abstract, but I'm willing to try to help you out.

Constricted blunted flat affect