Nervous breakdown is a term often used to refer to anything from fatigue caused by overwork to a severe mental illness. The term has no precise medical meaning. Psychiatrists and others who study and treat mentally ill patients do not use the term. It is used by those who believe it is an accepted medical term, or who want to avoid using the term “mental illness.” The original idea behind the term was that mental symptoms of a person were caused by a failure of the nerves to function properly.
