Tag: psychiatry psychology
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Geza Csath, in defense of interconnectedness
Gerda Kovacs Aalborg, Denmark Enrique Simonet, La autopsia, Oil on canvas. Height: 177 cm (69.7 in.). Width: 291 cm (114.6 in). Museo de Málaga, Málaga, Andalusia, Spain “I would like to explode, flow, crumble into dust, and my disintegration would be my masterpiece.” – Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair Geza Csath, a…
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She changed her mind
Marlene Berman Boston, Massachusetts, United States The Extended Reward and Oversight System (EROS). Image A shows the major brain regions in EROS. Images B, C, and D show different views of a main fiber tract, the medial forebrain bundle (chartreuse), connecting the regions in EROS.7,9 Neuroscience is demonstrating that torment can be eliminated by altering one’s…
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Emptiness Melancholia: depression sweet depression
Camila Machado Minas Gerais, Brazil Ophelia, 1851 John Everett Millais. Oil on Canvas. Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom The opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality.1 – Andrew Solomon Vitality had seemed to seep away from me through the years, stopping me from feeling joy, sadness, affection, and love. I felt empty…
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The 1960s in North American psychiatry
Mary Seeman Toronto, Ontario, Canada Rhonda’s “Monks” 1963 Private collection of Mary V. Seeman When I graduated from medical school in 1960, an unprecedented wave of optimism was sweeping the field of psychiatry. Effective antipsychotic medication, the offspring of chlorpromazine,1 was clearing out mental asylums. New antidepressants, such as imipramine and its many progeny,…
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Listening to the patient
Marina Maffoni Francesca Dionigi Pavia, Italy Death and Life by Gustav Klimt Alex was a smart thirty-nine year old man with drug-resistant lymphoma. In four years he had undergone two unsuccessful bone marrow transplants. That is all my senior psychologist tutor and I were told by the referring clinician, except that the patient himself…
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Medical murder
Susan Jacob Australia Archangel Michael reaching to save souls in purgatory, 17th century, Jacopo Vignali Medical murder or clinicide is defined by the psychiatrist Robert Kaplan as the “unnatural death of multiple patients in the course of treatment by a doctor.”1 Medical murder must be distinguished from euthanasia in that patients do not request the termination…
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“Hills Like White Elephants” and the collusion of non-communication
Clayton Baker Rochester, New York, United States Photography by Vanessa P. There is a particular type of dysfunctional communication that can occur between doctor and patient, a sort of a temporary folie-a-deux. This “collusion of non-communication” happens when a doctor-patient interview reaches a topic that one or both parties find particularly distasteful, frightening, or…