Contracture:
Let’s take a look what Wikipedia says about this term:
“A muscle contracture is a permanent shortening of a muscle or tendon in the human body in response to continued hypertonic stress exerted on that muscle or tendon, such as constant spasticity. Contractures are most often seen in the tightest muscles of people with conditions like spastic cerebral palsy. Contractures can't be stretched or exercised away once they occur; they need orthopedic surgical intervention to be corrected. One focus of physical therapy and occupational therapy exercise in people with spasticity is usually to try to prevent contractures from occurring so that all muscles can continue to be voluntarily stretched.”
In psychology this term is used for such cases when a person’s emotions have left on his/her face because of the long term of this emotions. You have probably seen some people having a nervous facial expression or sometimes, but rare, a smiling facial expression and probably
noticed that some people almost always have the same facial expression, even if they don't have this specific emotion at that time. This is because the muscles are getting used to be in the position the emotions make them be for a long time. If a person is getting some specific facial expression for a long time the muscles “freeze” in that position. So if there's such a function of our muscles like to “freeze” emotions on our faces, why don't we always smile and let the HAPPY emotions freeze on our faces ;)
0 comments