Am J Psychiatry 1979; 136:97-99
Copyright © 1979 by American Psychiatric Association
Mood and affect: a semantic confusion
H Owens and JS Maxmen
Although semantic clarity is a cornerstone of scientific psychiatry,
psychiatrists often use technical words with the false assumption that
their meanings are clear. The common use of the terms "mood" and "affect"
illustrates this point. The authors attempt to show how unclear definitions
of these words have led to confusion and how they could be more clearly
understood by careful semantic and phenomenologic analysis.
