Tag: Psychiatry and Psychology
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Mrs. Dalloway and shell shock
Cristóbal S. Berry-CabánFort Liberty, North Carolina, United States The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I surpassed those of previous conflicts, as some 8.5 million soldiers died from wounds or disease.1,2 Artillery caused most of the casualties, followed by small arms and poison gas. However, the war’s signature injury became known as shell…
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Psychopathological aspects of the war in Ukraine
Sergei JarginMoscow, Russia 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 paranoid and delusional ideas coexist in…
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John E. Fryer, M.D.: A majority of one
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “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 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (APA).1 Because homosexuals could be diagnosed as “mentally ill,” they could be…
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Breaking Bad: A case study of antisocial personality disorders
Jason LiuSan 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 disorders. Both…
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Book review: A History of Insanity and the Asylum
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK 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 people with mental illness over the centuries. Although the book is written from a…
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Alfred Adler
JMS PearceHull, 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 neurology at…
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William Sargant
JMS PearceHull, England 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, but William Walters Sargant (1907–1988) was an exception, trained as a physician and famed for physical treatments of mental…
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Thomas Szasz
JMS PearceHull, England “[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 In a discipline as diverse as medicine, it should occasion no surprise that odd characters, eccentrics, and unorthodox adventurers emerge…
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Vincenzo Chiarugi, who freed the insane from their chains
Vincenzo Chiarugi was one of the pioneers of a more humane treatment of the mentally ill, along with William Tuke (1732–1822) in York and Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) and Étienne-Jean Georget (1795–1828) in Paris. They all lived at a time when those with mental illness were frequently confined in dungeons and ill-treated, chained to the wall,…
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Henry Cotton: Pulling teeth to cure disease
Dr. Henry Cotton believed that all mental illnesses were caused by chronic “focal” infections hidden in various organs. He argued that when these infections spread to the brain, they caused inflammation and mental disorders. To cure these conditions, Cotton advocated the aggressive surgical removal of the infected organ, and for this achieved considerable fame in…