Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Psychology

  • Viktor Frankl: the meaning of a life

    Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States   Figure 1. Viktor Frankl, 1965. Photo by Prof. Dr. Franz Vesely via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. Not long before the Dachau concentration camp was liberated in April 1945, Viktor Emil Frankl was seriously ill with typhus and writing feverishly on stolen scraps of paper, determined to…

  • William Halse Rivers Rivers

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Figure 1 WHR Rivers in public domain, from Wikimedia William Rivers MD FRCP FRS (1864-1922) William Rivers (Fig 1) was a most unusual man, a polymath with careers in neuroscience, ethnology, and psychology. But above all—notwithstanding or perhaps because of personal nervous constraints—he was a man of originality and great…

  • Carl Gustav Jung

    Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States   Carl Jung. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Creative Commons. In the autumn of 1913, Carl Gustav Jung was traveling alone by train through the rust and amber forest of the Swiss countryside. The thirty-eight-year-old psychiatrist had been lately troubled by strange dreams and a rising sense of tension,…

  • Applause, Honours and Mortification: Admiral Pellew’s psychology of achievement in combatting slavery

    Stephen Martin United Kingdom & Thailand Aidan Jones United Kingdom   Opening section of letter. Photo © Cat Ring Books, Amherst, Massachusetts. A revealing, unpublished letter was written by Edward Pellew two months after commanding the Bombardment of Algiers to suppress Mediterranean slave traders. Short, sensitive, and emotional, it is an insight into the psychology…

  • Emblems and psychological medicine on the Sutton Hoo purse

    Stephen Martin Durham, England, and Thailand   The recent film The Dig1 has brought into the wider public eye the story of an Anglo-Saxon ship burial.2 The burial mound, at Sutton Hoo, in Sussex, England,3,4 contained a high-status figure, almost certainly Royal. The most expensive of the grave goods5 are high-craftsmanship gold, set with very…

  • A wrong time to die

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Lockdown in Thessaloniki. Photo by the author. Death is the one absolute and unexceptional certainty in life. In the Bible we read that there is a time for everything, including a time to die [Ecclesiastes 3:2]. Is there ever a “right” time to die? Faced with such a question, we…

  • Maria Callas—her inner voice revealed

    Eelco Wijdicks Lea Dacy Rochester, Minnesota, United States   Cover: Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas. In Prima Donna: The Psychology of Maria Callas, Paul Wink convincingly concludes—based on largely secondary sources—that Maria Callas was not only a wildly ambitious operator who was not known for an emollient manner, but a prime example of…

  • Hemodialysis treatment for schizophrenia?

    Nicolas Roberto Robles  Badajoz, Spain   Figure 1. Jean-Baptiste Denys (1643–1704). Via Wikimedia Public Domain. “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did, and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.” Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus)  …

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella Scerri Victor Grech  Malta   Portrait of Virginia Woolf in 1902. By George Charles Beresford. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia. “While I was as busy as anyone on the sunny plain of life, I heard of you laid aside in the shadowy recess where our sunshine of hope and joy could never penetrate to you.”…

  • Wellbeing

    Sanjana Sundara Raj Sreenath El Paso, Texas, United States   This painting portrays the physical and psychological impact of the pandemic. It captures not only the physical isolation due to social distancing but also feelings of loneliness. The cognitive and mental health after-effects can persist long after recovering from Covid-19. With increased feelings of anxiety,…