Psychiatry and the clinical findings

The twenty-fourth entry is o internamento compulsivo, and it is the one term on this page an English reader is most likely to get wrong. The adjective looks like « compulsive », and « compulsive » is a word this very list needs elsewhere, for a compulsão: it names something driven from inside the person, against their own judgement — a compulsive gambler, a compulsive checker, a compulsive liar. Compulsivo here says the opposite. The pressure is external, it arrives from a court, and the English for it is « compulsory »: compulsory admission, a compulsory order, compulsory schooling. Both adjectives descend from the same Latin compellere, to drive together, to force, and only modern use split them — one force working from within, the other from without. The working rule is short. Where the sentence names an authority, write « compulsory »; where it names a symptom, write « compulsive ». Rendering o internamento compulsivo as compulsive admission says that the patient could not stop admitting himself, which is not what any judge decided.