The picture of mentally ill people in German colloquial language. Historical and etymological remarks

Objective: This paper investigates the picture of the mentally ill in Germa n colloquial language. Method: The empirically collected single words and p hrases were subject to systematic semantical, linguo-historical as well as etymological investigations, the results of which were then contrasted with selected psychiatric concepts of the 18th/19th century. Results: Most of t he words found aim at the head or brain which are often compared with a mec hanism and regarded as the actual starting point of the disease. Other term s refer to blows or other mechanical impressions as the cause of mental ill nesses. There is another group of words depicting weakness or even total lo ss of mind. Some of the ideas expressed by the words or structures analysed coincide with concepts psychiatrists had in the past. Many of the words ev en had been terms in psychiatric theory before they became part of the ever yday language after having been loaded with negative connotative meanings m aking them inappropriate for being a scientific term. Some lexemes have bee n taken over from other languages, above all from English. Conclusion: Lang uage mirrors stigmatisation of mentally ill people by society in an extraor dinarily drastic way. Thus the colloquial names for them share the same fat e as the words for other - ethnic, sexual, whatsoever - minorities: by pure means of language those people are regarded as somewhat strange, not belon ging, something negative one does not wish to have contact with. On the oth er hand however, there have always been attempts to counter this by replaci ng negatively connotated words by other, neutral or even positive ones. Thu s was the introduction of the new word nervenkrank ("ill in the nerves", cf English brainsick) in the 19th century, making mentally ill people even to bodily ill ones, what meant an enormous enhancement in value for both the patients and the psychiatrists. Today's name Betroffene ("affect-ed") is an other example for those attempts. As can be seen from the historical retros pective this had been the case in former times as well.