Breaking point (psychology)

This article is about human psychology. For other uses of the title, see Breaking point (disambiguation).

In human psychology, the breaking point is a moment of stress in which a person breaks down or a situation becomes critical. For example, finally getting someone to confess to a crime during an interrogation means the suspect has been broken. A breaking point can lead to a shift in morals and world perception, such as in the movie Apocalypse Now where Colonel Kurtz reaches his breaking point after seeing a gruesome act of the Vietcong, and in turn defects from the U.S. Army.

References

• Wordnet.Princeton.edu