Emotions and expressions^{[ † ]}

Abstract

The author presents a semantic study of the words Vexation, Mortification and Indignation and the psychiatric implications of these terms in the official nosology. The psychological significance of emotions is analyzed and the current psychosomatic significance of the concept considered. The clinical difficulties of emotional investigation are touched on, and the historical differences in the cultural approach to vexation, mortification and indignation between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are explored, as are peculiarities of northern and southern style. Finally the expression of those emotions is considered and the thwarted manner of Staphisagria patients that accounts for so much in the shaping of the clinical picture.

^† A paper read to the 42nd Congress of the LMHI, Washington 1987.