Battling demons with medical authority: werewolves, physicians and rationalization
Werewolves and physicians experienced their closest contact in the context of early modern witch and werewolf trials. For medical critics of the trials, melancholic diseases served as reference points for medical explanations of both individual cases and werewolf beliefs in general.
This paper attempts to construct a conceptual history of werewolf beliefs and their respective medical responses. After differentiating the relevant terms, pre-modern werewolf concepts and medical lycanthropy are introduced. The early modern controversy between medical and demonological explanations forms the main part of this study. The histor...
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Metzger, N. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The birth and death of Villa 21
This study attempts to construct a history of Villa 21 and to reassert its historical importance as a manifestation of British anti-psychiatry and the radically anti-institutional politics of its time. Beginning before the opening of the ward, this article follows the story of Villa 21 on theoretical, practical and personal levels through its experimental journey and into its dramatic aftermath when Cooper’s experiment was ideologically obliterated by his successor Michael Conran and physically obliterated by the Hospital administration. It contends that Villa 21 is an example of anti-psychiatry’s attempt to en...
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Wall, O. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Psychodynamics in child psychiatry in Sweden, 1945-85: from political vision to treatment ideology
In this article, changing treatment ideologies and policies in child psychiatric outpatient services in Sweden from 1945 to 1985 are examined. The aim is to discuss the role played by psychoanalytic and psychodynamic thinking in this process of change. When mental health services for children were introduced in the mid-1940s, psychoanalytic thinking was intertwined with the social democratic vision of the Swedish welfare state in which children symbolized the future. In practice, however, treatment ideology was initially less influenced by psychoanalytic thinking. From the early 1960s, child psychiatric services expanded a...
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Nelson, K. Z., Sandin, B. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Mental health issues of Maria I of Portugal and her sisters: the contributions of the Willis family to the development of psychiatry
This article reports the nature of the illnesses of Maria and her two similarly affected sisters, and uses the program OPCRIT to propose diagnoses of major depressive disorders. The high prevalence of consanguinity and insanity among the Portuguese monarchy and their antecedents probably contributed to their mental health problems. The successive contributions of the Willis family from Thomas Willis (1621–75) to his grand-nephew, Francis Willis (1792–1859), are reviewed; the popular image is somewhat inaccurate and does not highlight their part in the development of psychiatry. (Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Peters, T. J., Willis, C. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The Bavarian royal drama of 1886 and the misuse of psychiatry: new results
The deaths of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Bernhard von Gudden, Professor of Psychiatry in Munich, in Lake Starnberg near Munich on 13 June 1886 have often been mentioned in the psychiatric-historical literature and in fiction. Von Gudden had written a psychiatric assessment of the King, rating him permanently mentally ill and incapable of reigning. Ludwig II was declared legally incapacitated, dethroned and psychiatrically interned. We will report on an interdisciplinary research project conducted at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Information was collected from state, local and private archives in Ger...
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Hafner, H., Sommer, F. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The theoretical root of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology. Part 2: The influence of Max Weber
The present study explores and compares Jaspers’ methodology of psychopathology with Weber’s methodology of sociology. In his works, Weber incorporated the arguments of many other researchers into his own methodology. Jaspers respected Weber as a mentor and presented arguments that were very similar to Weber’s. Both Weber and Jaspers began from empathic understanding, but at the same time aimed for a rational and ideal-typical conceptualization. In addition, their methodologies were similar with respect to their detailed terminology. Such similarities cannot be seen with any other scholars. This suggests ...
Source: History of Psychiatry - August 27, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Kumazaki, T. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
Book Review: L Stephen Jacyna and Stephen T Casper (eds), The Neurological Patient in History
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Wynter, R. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Luis Montiel, El Rizoma Oculto de la Psicologia Profunda. Gustav Meyrink y Carl Gustav Jung
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Villasante, O. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Angela McCarthy and Catharine Coleborne (eds), Migration, Ethnicity, and Mental Health. International Perspectives, 1840-2010
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: York, S. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: Howard Padwa, Social Poison: The Culture and Politics of Opiate Control in Britain and France, 1821-1926
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Malleck, D. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
Book Review: E James Lieberman and Robert Kramer (eds), The Letters of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank: Inside Psychoanalysis
(Source: History of Psychiatry)
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Harding, C. Tags: Book Reviews Source Type: research
'Struensee's memoir on the situation of the King' (1772): Christian VII of Denmark
Christian VII of Denmark (1749–1808) was insane throughout his long reign. The royal physician, Johann Friedrich Struensée (1737–72), usurped his power. In 1771 the King appointed him Privy Cabinet Minister. Struensée revolutionized the whole administration of the Danish-Norwegian kingdom and had an adulterous relationship with the Queen, Caroline Mathilda, George III’s sister. In January 1772 he was arrested, sentenced to death for lese-majesty and executed. During his confinement, he wrote a memoir on the King’s condition, which he considered to be caused by, or the effect of, mastur...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Schioldann, J. Tags: Classic Text No. 94 Source Type: research
The theoretical root of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology. Part 1: Reconsidering the influence of phenomenology and hermeneutics
The present paper investigates the methodology involved in Jaspers’ psychopathology and compares it with Husserl’s phenomenology and with Dilthey’s cultural science. Allgemeine Psychopathologie and other methodological works by Jaspers, the works of Husserl and Dilthey that Jaspers cited, and previous research papers on Jaspers are reviewed. Jaspers had conflicting views on understanding, which were comprised of both empathic understanding and rational, ideal-typical understanding. Such a standpoint on understanding is considerably different from Dilthey’s. Additionally, the present paper reconfirms...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Kumazaki, T. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
The bones of the insane
This article examines alienist explanations for fracture among British asylum patients in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. A series of deaths in asylums came to light in the 1870s which, in placing the blame for such incidents on asylum staff, called for a response from the psychiatric profession. This response drew upon other medical fields and employed novel pathological techniques to explain why fractures occurred among the insane, in many cases aligning bone fragility with particular forms of insanity (namely, General Paralysis of the Insane). Although such research aimed to provide a medical explanati...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Wallis, J. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
A 'German world' shared among doctors: a history of the relationship between Japanese and German psychiatry before World War II
This article deals with the critical history of German and Japanese psychiatrists who dreamed of a ‘German world’ that would cross borders. It analyses their discourse, not only by looking at their biographical backgrounds, but also by examining them in a wider context linked to German academic predominance and cultural propaganda before World War II. By focusing on Wilhelm Stieda, Wilhelm Weygandt and Kure Shuzo, the article shows that the positive evaluation of Japanese psychiatry by the two Germans encouraged Kure, who was eager to modernize the treatment of and institutions for the mentally ill in Japan. Th...
Source: History of Psychiatry - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Hashimoto, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research
