We hear it in the news all the time: some high profile person or movie star had a nervous breakdown. This is a term that is often used, as is meltdown, and they are accurate in that they paint a picture. However, nervous breakdown is not a medical term and not a diagnosis. So, what IS typically the diagnosis that is given when someone goes through a nervous breakdown? Is it depression and stress? With depression and stress, people can still be high functioning. I'm talking about the ones where people disappear, and reappear much later. It seems they would need to differentiate between these two.
I am not a doctor so do not take anything I say as professional. However, Thomas Szasz's theories on the medicalization of deviance will be the forefront for my response. "Breakdown," I believe, is a term that is applied to widely and has had its meaning reduced as a result. If it were a career-technical term, it would be more precise and more consistently understood (despite that all meanings are arbitrary-- Sapir Whorf) like penitentiary, punitive, plaintiff, bake v. roast, marinade, brine, stew v. soup, poach v. shallow poach, braise v. poach, etc. (I only chose legal and culinary words because I am most familiar with them). To that end, I also imagine many other established *conditions* or *events* have had a word developed for them and the treatment of such a condition became institutional. Like ADHD or schizophrenia, for example... In other words, I do not suspect "breakdown" has ever been professionally recognized.
A "breakdown" can mean a lot of different things. In its most serious form, it might represent a psychotic break, such that the person becomes detached from reality; they might have difficulty communicating coherently, they might have delusions or see things that aren't there. A less serious form of "breakdown" might be an existential crisis of sorts... your life simply isn't working, and you basically become non-functional because you feel stuck and unable to do the daily things you need to do. And a very temporary "breakdown" might be a "meltdown" where you are crying so incessantly that you can't communicate, talk, think, or do much of anything else... sometimes for hours These sorts of things are generally differentiated from, say, schizophrenia or severe depression in that they are transient episodes usually directly tied to some triggering event or situation; high stress, death of a loved one, failure to attain some goal that was absolutely crucial, that sort of thing. Finally, there's some interesting research in the literature about the intersection of "psychosis" and "spiritual emergence." It seems that -- at least according to the psychiatrists and psychologists who study this -- some people who hare having what otherwise looks like a psychotic episode (breakdown) are actually having, essentially, a powerful, ecstatic opening up to a spiritual experience. (And, more often than not, without any drug or hallucinogen to trigger it.) Again, according to these researcher/clinicians, this sort of situation can be "normalized" by the therapist, after which the patient is very quickly able to integrate the experience into his or her daily life and return to a normal state of functioning.
That's not a clinical term. It's media-eze. A cover-all, cover-up deliberate misnaming. Could be anything. Depression. A manic episode if bipolar. Anything public relations people don't want to name.
Right. I know it's not a clinical term, but meltdowns are reality. Nervous breakdown is used by everyday people as a result of its media use. So, therefore, the event could be described by a myriad of medically valid terms.
