ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to reassess the study of ‘mental diseases’ in Assyriological studies. It offers an overview of how such artificial labels as ‘mental disturbances’, ‘psychology’ and ‘Babylonian psychiatry’ have often been used to approach a rather heterogeneous set of symptoms and conditions characterised mainly by the alteration of behaviour, perception, feeling and mood in the patient. It analyses the different medical contexts dominated by situations of ‘mental strain or distress’ in order to map out the underlying connections between them, proposing an aetiological-based model of classification. Finally, it reflects upon alternative epistemological approaches to the question that may mitigate the tension in existence between the emic and the etic perspectives.
