Nervous Breakdown in 20th-Century American Culture

This article traces the rise of the term and concept, nervous breakdown. It emphasizes the reasons the concept gained ground, particularly between the 1920s and 1950s, as an explanation for various new or newly-pronounced professional diagnoses and as a plea for some time and space for individual recovery. While nervous breakdown had medical overtones, it emphasized a collapse of personal understanding but also the possibility for personal reconstitution. The causes for the popularity of nervous breakdown, ranging from shifts in standards in the 1920s, altered gender roles, and changing pharmacology, also help explain the concept's decline after the 1960s; but surprising persistence is discussed as well.