Insanity
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Insanity, or madness, is a general term for a semi-permanent, severe mental disorder.The concept has been used in a number of ways historically. Today it is most commonly encountered as a generic informal term, or in the more narrow legal context of criminal insanity. In the medical profession, it is nowadays avoided in favor of specific diagnoses of mental illness.
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[edit] Criminal & Civil law
In criminal law, insanity may serve as a defense by excuse for a person's criminal acts. In most U.S. states, legal insanity is not sufficient to avoid a guilty verdict, rather to be not guilty by reason of insanity it must be demonstrated that the defendant could not tell the difference between right and wrong.
In civil law, insanity renders a person unfit for entering contracts or other legal obligations.
In some judicial systems, it may allow for someone to be involuntarily committed.
Many who support the movement of anti-psychiatry take the position that mental illness is questionable as a diagnosis either legally or medically, and that claims of insanity should not free said persons from legal responsibility for criminal acts, and especially should not permit their involuntary commitment.
[edit] Slang usage
In popular culture, "insane" could also refer to something extremely foolish, while persons may be deemed "insane" if their behavior strongly deviates from accepted social norms. The term is typically negative, but departure from established norms may also be seen as a positive quality; in this case, being "insane" is being daringly unconventional or individualistic. This use of insane is illustrated by the following quote from Henry David Thoreau's A Plea for Captain John Brown, an essay supporting the well-known militant abolitionist:
Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.
In this sense, "insanity" is not implied to be an actual disorder, let alone severe.
Concerning substance addiction and abuse, insanity is recognized in twelve-step recovery groups as "repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results".
[edit] Linguistic roots
In English, the word "sane" shares the Latin adjective sanus meaning healthy. The phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" refers to a "healthy mind in a healthy body". From this perspective, one can see that "insanity" of the mind can also be considered poor "health" of the mind. This of course does not refer to the health of the brain as an organ, though that can affect one's mental health, but rather it refers to the health of the mind itself. The Latin phrase itself for "sane" is "compos mentis" (lit. "of composed mind")
Synonyms: SPARTA, ape, barmy, batty, berserk, bonkers*, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, delirious, demented, deranged, dingy*, dippy*, disturbed, erratic, flaky, flipped*, flipped out*, freaked out*, fruity*, haywire, idiotic, insane, kooky, lunatic, mad, maniacal, mental*, moonstruck*, nuts, nutty, potty*, psycho*, screw loose*, screwball*, screwy*, silly, touched*, unbalanced, unglued*, unhinged*, unzipped*, wacky, and whacko.
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