Tag: depression
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Picasso’s Blue Period and depression
Mary Ellen KellyDublin, Ireland Depression is one of the most common mental disorders globally. The mental illness affects millions and is responsible for an estimated 850,000 deaths per year.1 Depression rates among medical professionals are extremely high,2 and those suffering from depression often find it hard to convey in words the emotions they are experiencing.…
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Depression in Little Miss Sunshine
Emily AtashkariDublin, Ireland The 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine1 follows the dysfunctional Hoover family as they journey from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redondo Beach, California, in their old Volkswagen van to bring seven-year-old Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. One member of the Hoover family is Frank, who has recently attempted suicide. Frank…
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Clausewitz’s death: Cholera and melancholy
Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Carl von Clausewitz. Via Wikimedia. “Sollte mich ein früher Tod in dieser Arbeit unterbrechen” (“If an early death should terminate my work”) — Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the psychological and political aspects…
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Paruresis: “Shy bladder” syndrome
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Keep calm and carry on.”– British motivational poster, 1939 Paruresis is the fear of being unable to urinate without privacy. It is more than simple shyness or embarrassment, but is rather an “intermittent idiopathic form of urinary retention.”1 In severe cases, the individual can only urinate at home, alone. The term “paruresis”…
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Andersonville, Georgia and Elmira, New York: When Hell was on Earth
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” — Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy Andersonville Prison, Georgia. South end view of the stockade, showing the sentry stands in the distance. Photographed by A.J. Riddle, August 17, 1864. Library of Congress Liljenquist Family Collection. No known restrictions on publication. Elmira Prison, Elmira,…
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The mystique of psychiatry: a closer look
Lawrence ClimoLincoln, Massachusetts, United States As a retired psychiatrist, I have been thinking about the mystique that surrounds our profession. Psychiatrists seem to trigger three provocative associations that set them apart from other physicians. The first, sometimes interpreted as a wish, is that psychiatrists read minds and therefore know what is concealed or hidden inside…
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Furniture of bones
D. Brendan Johnson Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States Selvportrett i helvete [Self Portrait in Hell]. Edvard Munch. 1903. Munchmuseet. Via Wikimedia. “Would you like the new patient?” My senior resident offered me the next admission, a patient being stabilized in the emergency department after a suicide attempt. As a fresh medical student in the beginning…
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Remembrance of things past
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash In these troubled times imposed by Covid-19, much attention has been paid to depression, stress, and complaints of enforced isolation and of longing for the old days—the “normal times.” In this and in other contexts, nostalgia is regarded as a normal sentiment…
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Hypochondria
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:Be not the first by whom the new are tried,Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.— Alexander Pope The changing use and meaning of words are the daily bread of dictionary compilers. Long ago…