Psychiatry and the mental state examination

One entry here lives a double life, and the everyday half is the one a learner meets first. Aneinander vorbeireden is what two people do when each thinks the conversation is going well and neither is talking about the same thing: a couple arguing about the holiday, one of them meaning the dates and the other the money. English says they are at cross-purposes. The written findings take the same verb and turn it round. Das Vorbeireden in a report is one person, alone, answering beside a question they have plainly understood: asked for the date, they talk about the ward’s curtains. In the idiom nobody notices the miss; in the report the miss is the observation. That is the habit of the whole list. Zerfahren, weitschweifig and die Ideenflucht each record how speech moves, and they are written down before anyone guesses why.