Euthymia (medicine)

Euthymia is defined as a normal, tranquil mental state or mood. It is often used to describe a stable mental state or mood in those affected with bipolar disorder that is neither manic nor depressive, yet is distinguishable from healthy controls. Euthymia is also used to describe the “baseline” of other cyclical mood disorders like major depressive disorder (MDD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). This state is the goal of psychiatric and psychological interventions.^[1]

The word “euthymia” traces its roots to the Greek words “eu”, meaning well, and “thymo”, meaning soul or emotion. The word “thymos” also had four additional meanings: life energy; feelings and passions; desires and inclinations; and thought or intelligence. Euthymia is also derived from a verb, “euthymeo”, that means both “I am happy, in good spirits” and “I make others happy, I reassure and encourage”. This is the basis on which the first formal definition of euthymia was built.^[1]

Democritus said that the state of euthymia is when “one is satisfied with what is present and available, taking little heed of people who are envied and admired and observing the lives of those who suffer and yet endure”. This was later amended in the translation given by the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger in which euthymia means a state of internal calm and contentment. Seneca was also the first to link the state of euthymia to a learning process; in order to achieve it, one must be aware of psychological well-being. Seneca’s definition included a cache^{[clarification needed]} about detachment from current events. Later, the Greek biographer Plutarch removed this cache with his definition which focused more on learning from adverse events.^[1]

In 1958, Marie Jodah gave a modern clinical definition of mental health in the terms of positive symptoms by outlining the criteria for mental health: “autonomy (regulation of behavior from within), environmental mastery, satisfactory interactions with other people and the milieu, the individual’s style and degree of growth, development or self-actualization, the attitudes of an individual toward his/her own self”. In her definition she acknowledged the absence of disease as being necessary, but not enough, to constitute positive mental health, or euthymia.^[1]

Carol Ryff (1989) was the first to develop a comprehensive scale that could assess euthymia: the Six-factor Model of Psychological Well-being. The 84-item scale includes facets of self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. It did not include a notion of resilience, which people in the field started working to add in the 2000s.^[1]

Parathymia on the other hand, is related to pathological laughter (called “Witzelsucht”).^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Fava, GA; Bech, P (January 2016). "The Concept of Euthymia". Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 85 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1159/000441244. PMID 26610048.
^ Black DW (1982). "Pathological laughter. A review of the literature". J Nerv Ment Dis. 170 (2): 67–71. doi:10.1097/00005053-198202000-00001. PMID 7057172. S2CID 25616832.

[Concept-1] Fava, GA; Bech, P (January 2016). "The Concept of Euthymia". Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 85 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1159/000441244. PMID 26610048.

[2] Black DW (1982). "Pathological laughter. A review of the literature". J Nerv Ment Dis. 170 (2): 67–71. doi:10.1097/00005053-198202000-00001. PMID 7057172. S2CID 25616832.

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v t e Emotions (list)
Emotions	Acceptance Admiration Adoration Aesthetic Affection Agitation Agony Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Attraction Awe Belongingness Boredom Calmness Compassion Confidence Confusion Contempt Contentment Courage Cruelty Curiosity Defeat Depression Desire Disappointment Disgust Distrust Doubt Ecstasy Embarrassment vicarious Emotion work Empathy Emptiness Enthrallment Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Excitement Faith Fear Flow Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Joie de vivre Hatred Hiraeth Homesickness Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Hygge Hysteria Ikigai (sense of purpose) Indulgence Infatuation Insecurity Inspiration Interest Irritation Isolation Jealousy Joy Kindness Loneliness Love limerence at first sight Lust Mono no aware Neglect Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity self-pity Pleasure Pride grandiosity hubris insult vanity Rage Regret Rejection Relief Remorse Resentment Revenge Sadness melancholy Saudade Schadenfreude Sehnsucht Sentimentality Shame Shock Shyness Social connection Sorrow Spite Stress chronic Suffering Surprise Sympathy Trust Wonder sense of wonder Worry
Worldviews	Cynicism Defeatism Fatalism Misanthropy Nihilism Optimism Pessimism Reclusion Weltschmerz
Related	Affect consciousness in education measures in psychology Affective computing forecasting neuroscience science spectrum Affectivity positive negative Appeal to emotion Amygdala hijack Emotion and art and memory and music and sex and sleep classification evolution expressed functional accounts group homeostatic in animals perception recognition in conversation regulation interpersonal work Emotional aperture bias blackmail competence conflict contagion detachment dysregulation eating exhaustion expression and gender intelligence and bullying Empathy quotient intimacy isolation lability labor lateralization literacy prosody reasoning responsivity security symbiosis thought method well-being Emotionality bounded Emotions and culture history in decision-making in the workplace in virtual communication moral self-conscious social social sharing sociology Feeling Group affective tone Interactions between the emotional and executive brain systems Jealousy in art Meta-emotion Pathognomy Pathos Social emotional development Stoic passions Theory affect appraisal constructed emotion discrete emotion somatic marker
Italics indicate emotion names in foreign languages

See also

References