Euthymia is a frequently used term in psychiatry that, in my experience, is just not used in everyday conversation. As a result, when it comes up during early outpatient psychiatry visits or during hospital rounds, some psychoeducation is usually needed before we start to use it to help guide treatment planning.
At first, the term seems straight forward. The prefix eu means "well" and thymos means "soul, emotion". So a straight forward translation is that it means a person feels well. Classicists would go so far as to note the original definition provided by pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus: 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.
In the day to day practice of modern psychiatry, the clinical definition is not as straightforward.
When a psychiatrist describes a person as euthymic, they are not expecting them to be constantly happy, content, or pleased. Rather, they are describing a person who is at a stable baseline of emotional functioning where they are not trending towards either constant happiness or constant sadness or a constant feeling of numbness.
For example, a person can be frustrated to be cut off in traffic, upset or scared they have lost their wallet, or overjoyed they got a promotion to work...and still be described as euthymic. As long as these emotional states are transient and reasonable emotional responses to everyday life, their overall status is euthymic.
It is important to note that the concept of euthymia is only one clinical goal that helps guide treatment planning when it comes to stabilizing a person's mood through psychotherapy or medication management. I hope to eventually cover other goals in future posts.
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