I am a psych student trying to write a paper on the stigma of counseling in our culture however I can not find information pertaining to the word "shrink." Where did that term orginate from? Who starting using it? Why is it used? And what is it's true meaning for those who use it? If you have any information on this subject I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you, A. Santangelo

-- Anna Josephine Santangelo (asantangelo811@hotmail.com), June 08, 2003

Answers

The website word origins at http://www.wordorigins.org/wordors.htm gives the following, which is accurate but of course doesn't give details of the origins:

Why is a psychiatrist called a shrink? The term is a clipping of headshrinker, a US slang term that dates to 1950. It is based on a metaphor that evokes the image of a head-hunter who preserves shrunken heads. The idea is that a psychiatrist or psychoanalyst messes or screws with your head.

Chris Green provides essentially the same answer on this website at http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00714f

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), June 09, 2003.

I thought that it might have dated to earlier than 1950. I've seen the term attributed to a manager of the Chicago Cubs in 1938, but perhaps the author (from the mid-1970s) was inserting his own vocabulary.

The OED dates it only to the mid-1960s:

2. A psychiatrist. Cf. head-shrinker s.v. head sb.1 66. slang (orig. U.S.).

1966 T. Pynchon Crying of Lot 49 i. 16 It was Dr Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist.

1969 C. Young Todd Dossier 78 What you've written may prove helpful. That's what the man said, the shrink.

1973 Nation Rev. (Melbourne) 31 Aug.-6 Sept. 1434/1 A number of value judgments were offered..by a couple of the shrinks.

1978 M. Walker Infiltrator iii. 39 He could have gone to a pricey shrink who would have certified him too delicate for the Army.

1980 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Oct. 117/2 It does not take a shrink to see that a man so humanly flawed and artistically inept has got to be a loser.

--------

It is quite possible that it was in popular usage before it appeared in Pynchon's book in 1966.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), June 10, 2003.