Tag: Psychology
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Enlightenment from Sherlock Holmes on COVID-19 associated perilous boredom
Daniel Gelfman Indianapolis, Indiana, United States Evening silhouette of Sherlock Holmes’s statue at Baker street, the real place where he never lived. Photo by dynamosquito. Taken January 11, 2010. Via Wikimedia Boredom can useful. It can motivate people to do great things. It can also be dangerous by increasing the risk of depression and…
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A moonie
Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel Untitled blue face, Acrylic on Canvas, 50/70 cm, 2017. Painting by Daniel Wein. Published with permission of the artist. Wally Moon was a legend who stood at least 1.90 meters tall. The most striking things about him were his appearance and his gruffness. When I met him during my…
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The Yellow Wallpaper: The flawed prescription
Mahek Khwaja Karachi, Pakistan Yellow Wallpaper Art: A Bowl with “The House”~ Tower, the Yellow Room. By Julie Jordan Scott on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story The Yellow Wallpaper in nineteenth-century America when gendered norms prevailed in society at large and notably in medicine. In a previous article, “Charlotte Perkins Gilman,…
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The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Carol-Ann Farkas Boston, Massachusetts, United States The Goldfinch By Carel Fabritius. 1654. Mauritshuis. Public Domain. Wikimedia. I. Diagnostically speaking, the “nervous” or “mental” breakdown is not a thing. The term has never been formally used in psychology, which has long preferred specific, definable categorizations of symptoms and conditions: stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma.1 And yet…
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W.H.R. Rivers and the humane treatment of shell shock
Soleil Shah London, UK A shell-shocked soldier receives electro-shock treatment from a nurse during the First World War. Image Source: Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine (ref Reeve 041476) via Flickr “Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.” – Hippocrates War neurosis, or “shell shock”…
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Edvard Munch: The child who never grew up
Michael YafiHouston, Texas The paintings of Edvard Munch are often used as an example of the association between creativity and mental illness. Can we, however, analyze them from the perspective of the feelings of a child? Traumatized by the death of his mother when he was only five years old1 as portrayed in The Dead…
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A song for me
Steve Sobel St. Albans, Vermont, United States Taylor Swift by WEZL Sometimes the obvious is revealed to us as a life-altering revelation that shifts the tectonic plates of our world. Such was the case when I sat in a stuffy, cramped bedroom listening to Taylor Swift singing “Love Story” on the radio. Suddenly I…