Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: John Nash

  • Culture frames the experience and response to psychotic delusions

    Colleen DonnellyDenver, Colorado, United States Since the 1950s many people suffering from psychotic delusions have claimed that these were caused by contemporary technology such as electromagnetic and micro- waves or computer chips clandestinely planted during medical procedures or alien abductions. Such tightly held beliefs and anxieties have a long history, as shown by the following…

  • Pursuing “conclusions infinite”: The divine inspiration of Georg Cantor

    Sylvia KarasuNew York, New York, United States There is a “fine line between brilliance and madness”: the distinction, for example, between a “revolutionary” mathematical theory and psychotic thinking may well have to do with what can be done with the theory, i.e., its “significant results.”1 “The mentally ill mathematician” is like the “knight errant, mortified…