In human psychology, the breaking point is a moment of
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
in which a person breaks down or a situation becomes critical.
The intensity of environmental stress necessary to bring this about varies from individual to individual.
Interrogation
Getting someone to confess to a crime during an
interrogation – whether innocent or guilty – means the suspect has been broken. The key to breaking points in interrogation has been linked to changes in the victim's concept of self – changes which may be precipitated by a sense of helplessness, by lack of preparedness or an underlying sense of
guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
* ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
* "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...
, as well (paradoxically) as by an inability to acknowledge one's own vulnerabilities.
Life
Psychoanalysts like
Ronald Fairbairn
William Ronald Dodds Fairbairn () FRSE (11 August 1889 – 31 December 1964) was a Scottish psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and a central figure in the development of the Object Relations Theory of psychoanalysis. He usually used, and was known as ...
and
Neville Symington
Neville Symington (3 July 1937 - 3 December 2019) was a member of the Middle Group of British Psychoanalysts which argues that the primary motivation of the child is object-seeking rather than drive gratification. He published a number of books ...
considered that everybody has a potential breaking point in life, with vulnerability particularly intense at early developmental stages.
Some psychoanalysts say that rigid personalities may be able to endure great stress before suddenly cracking open.
See also
*
Abreaction Abreaction (german: Abreagieren) is a psychoanalytical term for reliving an experience to purge it of its emotional excesses—a type of catharsis. Sometimes it is a method of becoming conscious of repressed traumatic events.
Psychoanalytic origins ...
*
Psychotic break
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior t ...
Bibliography
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References
{{Reflist
External links
Dealing with Psychological Crisis
Figures of speech
Psychological stress