Insanity Comes In All Shapes And Sizes
From Wikipedia
Insanity,
craziness or
madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of
societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity. In modern usage
insanity is most commonly encountered as an informal unscientific term denoting mental instability, or in the narrow legal context of the
insanity defense. In the medical profession the term is now avoided in favor of diagnoses of specific mental illness such as
schizophrenia and other
psychotic disorders.
[1] When discussing mental illness in general terms, "
psychopathology" is considered a preferred descriptor.
[2]
In
English, the word "sane" derives from the
Latin adjective
sanus meaning "healthy". The phrase "
mens sana in corpore sano" is often translated to mean a "healthy mind in a healthy body". From this perspective, insanity can be considered as poor health of the mind, not necessarily of the brain as an organ (although that can affect mental health), but rather refers to defective function of mental processes such as reasoning. A Latin phrase for "sane" is "compos mentis" (lit. "of composed mind"), and a euphemistic term for insanity is "non compos mentis". In law,
mens rea means having had criminal intent, or a guilty mind, when the act (
actus reus) was committed.