The Nuance
What Does It Mean to Have a Nervous Breakdown?
It’s not a formal condition. But life events that are both unpredictable and uncontrollable can leave people vulnerable.
The “nervous breakdown” is getting media attention this month. Recent retrospective accounts of the Apollo 11 moon landing have mentioned astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s “nervous breakdown” in the aftermath of his return to Earth. Last week, a former head of MI6 — the famed British intelligence service — told the BBC that his nation was undergoing a “political nervous breakdown” as it continues to grapple with Brexit.
Most people get the gist of what a nervous breakdown is. But the condition’s borders have always been ill-defined. Even calling a nervous breakdown a “condition” is a bit of an overreach. “The term has been around forever — it was used when I was a kid — but I don’t think it’s ever been a formal diagnosis,” says Michelle Newman, a psychologist and director of the Laboratory for Anxiety and Depression Research at Penn State University.
Newman says the concept of the nervous breakdown exists in a kind of gray area. It does not have accepted diagnostic criteria, and the term isn’t used by psychologists or psychiatrists. (It’s also completely distinct from a “psychotic…
