Tag: DSM-V
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The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Carol-Ann FarkasBoston, Massachusetts, United States I. Diagnostically speaking, the “nervous” or “mental” breakdown is not a thing. The term has never been formally used in psychology, which has long preferred specific, definable categorizations of symptoms and conditions: stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma.1 And yet the phenomenon persists in popular usage.1,2 Why? We like the “breakdown”…
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Alden Nowlan, the schizotypal poet
Shane NeilsonHamilton, Ontario, Canada I suspect a psychiatrist would have pronounced me a victim of dementia praecox or some such thing.1—Alden Nowlan Applying a psychiatric diagnosis to the dead is a mug’s game. Alden Albert Nowlan (1933–1983), the critically acclaimed Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright, might agree, if one considered the bitter evidence of his…