Breaking point (psychology)
Encyclopedia
In human psychology, the breaking point is a moment of stress
in which a person breaks down or a situation becomes critical. For example, finally getting someone to confess to a crime during an interrogation
means the suspect has been broken. A breaking point can lead to a shift in morals and world perception, such as in the movie Apocalypse Now
where Colonel Kurtz reaches his breaking point after seeing a gruesome act of the Vietcong, and in turn defects from the U.S. Army.
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
in which a person breaks down or a situation becomes critical. For example, finally getting someone to confess to a crime during an interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
means the suspect has been broken. A breaking point can lead to a shift in morals and world perception, such as in the movie Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
where Colonel Kurtz reaches his breaking point after seeing a gruesome act of the Vietcong, and in turn defects from the U.S. Army.