Last update:
19-Sep-2022

The Latin languages, based on words and concepts that had already been coined and used in the Greek language to render the term "psyche", after the 15th–16th century, under the influence of the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, adopted the word "mental" to mean exclusively a process of the mind. In Greek, the word "psyche", despite its original variety of meanings, has continued, from the fall of the Εastern Roman Empire until to the present day, to be a prisoner of theocratic concepts. The rendering of the word "psyche" in such a context is to the detriment of the psychiatric patient, but also psychiatry itself, since the general meaning of "psyche" may underestimate the clinical condition of the patient and impede access to biological means of recovery. To deal with this condition, it is suggested that physicians must be aware of this history, and should defend the semantic richness of the medical terms produced by science but will also protect their patients, respecting the various different abilities that society shows in the assimilation of new knowledge within these terms.

Key words: Mental, Psyche, Psychiatry, Psycholiguistics, Terminology.