Category: Psychiatry Psychology
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Pavel Ivanovich Jacobi (1841–1913)
Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel Pavel Jacobi. Via Wikimedia. Pavel Ivanovich Jacobi (1841–1913), largely forgotten and rarely featured in the psychiatric literature, was a Russian socialist who made as great an impact on the treatment of the mentally ill as Jonathan Swift in Dublin, Phillipp Pinel in Revolutionary France, Father William Tuke and his…
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Mental health issues in medical students: The prejudice and the injury
Amairani Gómez RodríguezPuebla, Mexico The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893. National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway. I had my first panic attack at seventeen. Biochemistry was a total headache; no matter how hard I studied, it was never enough to pass. As a school overachiever, I had never experienced failure. I…
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Mrs. Dalloway and shell shock
Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán Fort Liberty, North Carolina, United States Shell shock. Upon suffering a head injury and the loss of his eardrum, this soldier developed shell shock and was put in the Sunshine Room at Chaumont Hospital, installed by the American Red Cross. The room contained absolute quiet, harmonious colors, and cheerful surroundings. Library…
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Psychopathological aspects of the war in Ukraine
Sergei Jargin Moscow, Russia Euromaidan, Kiev, April 2015. Paranoid leaders can remain in positions of great power in nations that lack appropriate checks and balances.1 This is particularly likely in one-party states where mass intimidation and imposed homogeneity of thinking prevail and where everyone conforms with the ruling party. Grave consequences can occur when…
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John E. Fryer, M.D.: A majority of one
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Historical marker honoring John Fryer. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2017. Photo by NMGiovannucci on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. “Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one.” – Henry David Thoreau Homosexuality was defined as a psychiatric disorder in 1952, in the first edition of…
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Breaking Bad: A case study of antisocial personality disorders
Jason Liu San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States Both psychopathy and the non-clinical “sociopathy”1 have been diagnosed in infamous serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and John Gacy, and popular films and TV shows, like American Psycho and Dexter, have drawn from these diagnoses. Psychopathy and sociopathy are amongst the most complex mental…
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Book review: A History of Insanity and the Asylum
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Cover of A History of Insanity and the Asylum by Juliana Cummings. Mental health topics have long been a source of fascination. In this new book, author Juliana Cummings explores the history of insanity and asylums from the Middle Ages to the modern era, revealing the sometimes-shocking treatment of…
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Alfred Adler
JMS Pearce Hull, England The understanding of mental illness was barren until Freud’s time, scarcely risen from medieval notions of madness, moral inferiority, and witchcraft. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) began his career in histology and experimental physiology during six years spent in Ernst Brucke’s laboratory. He published a book on aphasia and was director of…
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William Sargant
JMS Pearce Hull, England Figure 1. William Sargant. Photo by Edward Irvine Halliday, 1967. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Fair use. After the innovative psychology of Freud, Jung, and Adler there was little progress in knowledge either of psychological or organic mechanisms, or their treatment.1 Few psychiatrists had postgraduate training in clinical organic medicine,…
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Thomas Szasz
JMS Pearce Hull, England Figure 1. Thomas Szasz. Crop of photo by Jennyphotos on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. “[Mental illness] is a myth, whose function it is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations.” – TS Szasz (1920–2012), “The myth of mental illness”1 …