Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: psychiatry

  • 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  …

  • The white-collar antisocial personality

    Richard Zhang Farmington, Connecticut, United States   Man in a Hat. Painting by Josef Capek, 1915–16. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. A frequently overlooked topic in psychiatry is “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD) or “sociopathy,” specifically as it manifests in higher socioeconomic backgrounds and thus evades recognition. I once cared for a well-spoken, charming patient who practiced…

  • Winnie Ille Pu and Dr. Alexander Lenard

    Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel   Alexander Lenard. Photo via Wikimedia. Public domain. Sandor (Alexander) Lenard1 was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910 and died in Dona Irma, Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1972. He was a Jewish poet, author, physician, painter, musician, translator, language teacher, philosopher, and polyglot. A short outline of Lenard’s life events…

  • Christian Sibelius: Finland’s first professor of psychiatry

    Jonathan Davidson Durham, North Carolina, United States   Photo of Christian Sibelius taken c. 1915–1920 by Atelier Nyblin. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. When the name Sibelius is mentioned, most people will think of the famous Finnish composer, Jean. Outside of Scandinavia, few will know that Jean’s younger brother, Christian, achieved distinction in a very different…

  • It’s not the patient who hit you…

    JP SutherlandNorth America Although Christopher’s appearance was extraordinary, there was no sign (not even in retrospect) that he would kick me in the groin within the next hour. He was naked, and standing motionless with his arms held out perpendicularly from his sides. If anyone tried to cover him with a blanket then he would…

  • Movie review: Kings Row – Assassins in white coats

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Above all, I must not play God.”— Revised Hippocratic Oath2 Kings Row (1942) is a film set in a small American town in the early nineteen-hundreds. It features two doctors who are best avoided as well as a bright young man called Parris sent by his wealthy grandmother to study medicine in…

  • Qualis artifex pereo

    Henri Colt  Laguna Beach, California, United States   Man sitting. Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash. This short story is a work of fiction. Translation: “What an artist the world is losing with me!” — cited by Suctonius, The Twelve Caesars, Nero 49; Loeb ed., 2:177   Michael had jet black hair and sorrowful brown…

  • Hope

    Rima Nasser Beirut, Lebanon   Cedar tree of Lebanon. Originally located atop the police and investigative branch building in Martyr’s Square in downtown Beirut. Photo by an anonymous photographer. 2021. Private collection. Modified from the original by Rima Nasser. Published with permission.  “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.   This is not an incendiary rant about…

  • Lebanon: a thumbprint in medicine

    Jonathan Mina Beirut, Lebanon   Fig 1. Dr. Debakey, holding the MicroMed-DeBakey VAD (ventricular assist device) with one of his heart transplant patients, David Saucier, a NASA Johnson Space Center engineer. Photo by NASA. July 29, 2013. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0. Lebanon is a country that has long developed and exported physicians and other…

  • The talented Dr. Cotton and other quacks

    Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   Portrait of Henry Andrews Cotton from Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1924. Via Wikimedia. Over the centuries there has been a surfeit of talented medical quacks in all parts of the world. The word “quack,” indeed, is derived from the archaic Dutch word “quacksalver,” meaning “boaster who…