epithymia

Epithymia is a historical term used in psychology and psychiatry to refer to the instinctual desires or appetites that motivate behavior, particularly sensual or sexual drives, as distinct from longer-term mood states. The word derives from Greek epi- "upon" and thymia "mood" or "spirit," and in early literature it signified the drive component of motivation that prompts action.

In 19th- and early 20th-century psychiatry, epithymia was used to describe the primitive impulses underlying behavior, especially appetitive or erotic desires. Some writers treated epithymia as a preconscious or instinctual layer of motivation, contrasted with thymic affective states that described the quality of mood or emotional tone.

The term is rarely used in modern clinical practice. Contemporary diagnostic systems such as the DSM and ICD do not include epithymia as a standalone category; today, mood disorders, sexual dysfunction, and impulse-control problems are classified by specific symptom criteria rather than by such historical terms. In scholarly work, epithymia is typically cited as part of historical discussions on how clinicians once attempted to distinguish drives from moods.

Etymologically, epithymia sits among related concepts such as euthymia (normal mood) and dysthymia (persistent mild depression) within an older lexicon for emotional and motivational life. Today, references to epithymia mostly appear in historical accounts of drive theory and early psychoanalytic or physiological theories of motivation.