Språkliga synpunkter på begreppet ångest

Abstract

Basala språkliga svårigheter – här vad gäller begreppet ångest – vållar betydande problem av bland annat kommunikativ art. Olika möjligheter att övervinna dessa antyds.

The Swedish word 'ångest' – which might be translated with words as anxietey and/or angwish – was until recently rather uncommon except among psychiatrists and psychologists. In the last decades the word has become much more wide-spread and has undergone an essential change in meaning towards “broader” and “milder” sense. This has caused resonable trouble in psychiatry and psychology and indeed the word can signify both quite different qualities of experience and quite different nosological belonging. In the absence of a broadly accepted definition of the word it seems necessary to stress that the Swedish word 'ångest' – as well as often the corresponding words in other languages – is always expressis verbis given a clear-cut circumscription and content, which is strictly to adhere to in the investigation or paper in question.