IG>  I tell this to patients of mine who ask if they have had
 IG>  a nervous breakdown. And, then point to the couple of
 IG>  hundred books I have in my consulting room and say, "I
 IG>  have quite a few books on psychiatry here.  In none of
 IG>  them will you find the term 'nervous breakdown.'"

Is there, then, something called "nervous exhaustion"?

Ivan Goldberg comments:

Also, it should be added, the terms "neurosis" and "psychosis", and
their distinction, label conditions originally presumed to be rooted
in disorders of (literal) nerves and of the mind (i.e. thinking)
respectively.  Nowadays, we tend to think it's the other way round.

--

:  IG>  I tell this to patients of mine who ask if they have had
:  IG>  a nervous breakdown. And, then point to the couple of
:  IG>  hundred books I have in my consulting room and say, "I
:  IG>  have quite a few books on psychiatry here.  In none of
:  IG>  them will you find the term 'nervous breakdown.'"
:  
: Is there, then, something called "nervous exhaustion"?

        Not in the vocabulary of psychiatry. Or as a professor
        of mine once said "Overwork is always the product,
        never the cause, of psychiatric illness."

        - ivan -

        BTW, Terms such as "nervous breakdown" and "nervous
        exhaustion" date from the time around 1900, when it
        was hoped that psychiatric difficulties could be
        simply explained by pathology of the neurons through-
        out the body.
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