Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231163275
Joseph Gough
Originally put forward to defend history from the encroachment of physics, the distinction between understanding and explanation was built into the foundations of Karl Jaspers' 'phenomenological' psychiatry, and it is revised, used and defended by many still working in that tradition. On the face of it, this is rather curious. I examine what this notion of 'understanding' amounts to, why it entered and remains influential in psychiatry, and what insights for contemporary psychiatry are buried in the notion. I argue that it is unhelpfully associated with the view that the mental is epistemologically and methodologically autonomous, but that it nevertheless highlights an important lacuna in many views of psychiatry and the scientific study of humans more generally.
{"title":"Understanding <i>understanding</i> in psychiatry.","authors":"Joseph Gough","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231163275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231163275","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Originally put forward to defend history from the encroachment of physics, the distinction between understanding and explanation was built into the foundations of Karl Jaspers' 'phenomenological' psychiatry, and it is revised, used and defended by many still working in that tradition. On the face of it, this is rather curious. I examine what this notion of 'understanding' amounts to, why it entered and remains influential in psychiatry, and what insights for contemporary psychiatry are buried in the notion. I argue that it is unhelpfully associated with the view that the mental is epistemologically and methodologically autonomous, but that it nevertheless highlights an important lacuna in many views of psychiatry and the scientific study of humans more generally.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 3","pages":"249-261"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10443229/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10150499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231175575
Pedro Henrique Costa de Resende, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Humberto Schubert Coelho
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) of London was founded in 1882 with the purpose of investigating psychical phenomena, especially the theme of survival, with scientific rigour. Despite the recognized importance of the SPR for dynamic psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there are few studies of its epistemological contributions to the theme of survival and its implications to science. In order to fill this gap, we have consulted the main journals of the SPR in its golden period, and highlight the epistemologies of Sidgwick, Myers, James, Podmore, Schiller, Lodge and Richet. We conclude that the authors, whether for or against survival, argued in defence of an expanded science, and looked forward to understanding the complexity of human experience.
{"title":"The epistemologies of research on the survival of consciousness after death in the golden era of the Society for Psychical Research (1882-1930).","authors":"Pedro Henrique Costa de Resende, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Humberto Schubert Coelho","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231175575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231175575","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) of London was founded in 1882 with the purpose of investigating psychical phenomena, especially the theme of survival, with scientific rigour. Despite the recognized importance of the SPR for dynamic psychiatry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there are few studies of its epistemological contributions to the theme of survival and its implications to science. In order to fill this gap, we have consulted the main journals of the SPR in its golden period, and highlight the epistemologies of Sidgwick, Myers, James, Podmore, Schiller, Lodge and Richet. We conclude that the authors, whether for or against survival, argued in defence of an expanded science, and looked forward to understanding the complexity of human experience.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 3","pages":"287-304"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10139510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231163764
Ivana S Marková
The hybrid constitution of psychiatry carries important implications for understanding the discipline and the legitimacy of its research approaches. One implication concerns the central role of concepts in forming the knowledge base of psychiatry. Because of this, it is vital to explore the structures and interrelationships of concepts through their historical constitution. Using this approach to compare concepts of empathy as articulated by R Vischer, T Lipps and E Stein shows that, despite overlap, the concepts vary in structure, in meaning and in the aspect of reality they capture. This suggests that the concept of empathy carries an unstable ontology and epistemology. In turn, this carries implications for the concept itself, for psychiatry and for research approaches in this field.
{"title":"Empathy: a case study in the historical epistemology of psychiatry.","authors":"Ivana S Marková","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231163764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231163764","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The hybrid constitution of psychiatry carries important implications for understanding the discipline and the legitimacy of its research approaches. One implication concerns the central role of concepts in forming the knowledge base of psychiatry. Because of this, it is vital to explore the structures and interrelationships of concepts through their historical constitution. Using this approach to compare concepts of empathy as articulated by R Vischer, T Lipps and E Stein shows that, despite overlap, the concepts vary in structure, in meaning and in the aspect of reality they capture. This suggests that the concept of empathy carries an unstable ontology and epistemology. In turn, this carries implications for the concept itself, for psychiatry and for research approaches in this field.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 3","pages":"273-286"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10150982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231169217
Johan Schioldann
Serious and realistic research into the inheritance of the psychoses started in earnest at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was encouraged by both the acceptance of the Kraepelinian classification and the rediscovery of the Mendelian model of inheritance. The application of Mendelian rules to the very complex genetics of the psychoses led to agonizing debate. The Classic Text is a translation of the introduction of the doctoral thesis of Jens Chr. Smith, a little-known Danish psychiatrist who was able to summarize, with the enthusiasm typical to his youth and with surprising accuracy, the early stages of the debate mentioned above.
{"title":"Classic Text No. 135: 'On inheritance of the insanities', by Jens Chr. Smith (1924).","authors":"Johan Schioldann","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231169217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231169217","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Serious and realistic research into the inheritance of the psychoses started in earnest at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was encouraged by both the acceptance of the Kraepelinian classification and the rediscovery of the Mendelian model of inheritance. The application of Mendelian rules to the very complex genetics of the psychoses led to agonizing debate. The Classic Text is a translation of the introduction of the doctoral thesis of Jens Chr. Smith, a little-known Danish psychiatrist who was able to summarize, with the enthusiasm typical to his youth and with surprising accuracy, the early stages of the debate mentioned above.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 3","pages":"350-362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10151001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231152684
{"title":"Erratum to: Gustav Nikolaus Specht (1860-1940): psychiatric practice, research and teaching during a change of psychiatric paradigm before and after Kraepelin.","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231152684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231152684","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"228"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9428382","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X221146399
Claire Hilton
Amid extensive press coverage, George Stephen Penny (1885-1964) was tried for murder in 1923. He was found 'guilty but insane' due to 'confusional insanity' associated with malaria which he suffered during World War I. Penny was admitted to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum at a time of great public concern about inadequate and cruel care in mental institutions, but he was treated with humanity and respect. Penny's story also reveals much about challenges of psychiatric diagnosis and the relationships between crime, insanity, the public, lawyers and the medical profession. Following discharge from Broadmoor, Penny built himself a life in the community. His pseudonymous memoir, with masterly concealment of his identity and crime, tells his story up to 1925.
{"title":"George Stephen Penny (1885-1964): his life and medical encounters before, during and after admission to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.","authors":"Claire Hilton","doi":"10.1177/0957154X221146399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X221146399","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Amid extensive press coverage, George Stephen Penny (1885-1964) was tried for murder in 1923. He was found 'guilty but insane' due to 'confusional insanity' associated with malaria which he suffered during World War I. Penny was admitted to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum at a time of great public concern about inadequate and cruel care in mental institutions, but he was treated with humanity and respect. Penny's story also reveals much about challenges of psychiatric diagnosis and the relationships between crime, insanity, the public, lawyers and the medical profession. Following discharge from Broadmoor, Penny built himself a life in the community. His pseudonymous memoir, with masterly concealment of his identity and crime, tells his story up to 1925.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"196-208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9573937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231152774
Margaret White
Mortality in asylum populations increased during World War I. This paper seeks to analyse the mortality data from Scotland, where governmental statistics allow comparison between different lunacy institutions, poorhouses and prisons, as well as people certified under lunacy legislation but living in the community. Detailed study is made of two Lothian asylums, the Royal Edinburgh Asylum and the Midlothian and Peebles District Asylum, and the 1918 influenza pandemic is considered in the asylum context. Similarities and differences between the situation in Scotland and that in England and Wales are discussed, and parallels are drawn with the Covid-19 pandemic in Scotland.
{"title":"Mortality among those certified under lunacy legislation in Scotland during World War I.","authors":"Margaret White","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231152774","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231152774","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mortality in asylum populations increased during World War I. This paper seeks to analyse the mortality data from Scotland, where governmental statistics allow comparison between different lunacy institutions, poorhouses and prisons, as well as people certified under lunacy legislation but living in the community. Detailed study is made of two Lothian asylums, the Royal Edinburgh Asylum and the Midlothian and Peebles District Asylum, and the 1918 influenza pandemic is considered in the asylum context. Similarities and differences between the situation in Scotland and that in England and Wales are discussed, and parallels are drawn with the Covid-19 pandemic in Scotland.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"162-179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9623837","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231157187
Nadine Metzger
Ancient Greek and Latin medical authors considered a flight into solitude a compelling sign of mental disturbance, frequently described as misanthropia, a word fraught with meaning beyond the medical discourse. The fictionalised character Timon of Athens, the quintessential misanthrope, can shed light on ancient cultural concepts of self-imposed isolation from human contact. To cope with the sense of unease this deviant behaviour induced, misanthropia was explained as 'madness', ridiculed in various genres of humour, morally condemned in philosophy, and ultimately demonized in Christian cosmology. These various attempts at containment echo in the medical works of the age, making it impossible to comprehend the concept of misanthropia in ancient medicine without taking full account of the cultural context.
{"title":"A mad yearning for solitude: Timon the Misanthrope and his relevance to the study of ancient psychopathology.","authors":"Nadine Metzger","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231157187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231157187","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ancient Greek and Latin medical authors considered a flight into solitude a compelling sign of mental disturbance, frequently described as misanthropia, a word fraught with meaning beyond the medical discourse. The fictionalised character Timon of Athens, the quintessential misanthrope, can shed light on ancient cultural concepts of self-imposed isolation from human contact. To cope with the sense of unease this deviant behaviour induced, misanthropia was explained as 'madness', ridiculed in various genres of humour, morally condemned in philosophy, and ultimately demonized in Christian cosmology. These various attempts at containment echo in the medical works of the age, making it impossible to comprehend the concept of misanthropia in ancient medicine without taking full account of the cultural context.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"146-161"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/ca/9a/10.1177_0957154X231157187.PMC10160400.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9574446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X231157051
Johan Schioldann
Expansive autopsychosis, grouped with cycloid psychoses - an illness entity of double origin: (1) Morel's notion degeneracy, reformulated by Magnan and Legrain (reflected in Wimmer's concept: psychogenic psychosis); (2) Wernicke's, Kleist's, Bostroem's (and later Leonhard's) notion of these purportedly independent conditions. Locked in the Danish language, Strömgren and Ostenfeld provided important contributions to this field, exemplified by Ostenfeld's casuistry, translated in this Classic Text.
{"title":"Classic Text No. 134: 'A case of Wernicke-Bostroem's expansive autopsychosis', by Ib Ostenfeld (1944).","authors":"Johan Schioldann","doi":"10.1177/0957154X231157051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X231157051","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Expansive autopsychosis, grouped with cycloid psychoses - an illness entity of double origin: (1) Morel's notion degeneracy, reformulated by Magnan and Legrain (reflected in Wimmer's concept: psychogenic psychosis); (2) Wernicke's, Kleist's, Bostroem's (and later Leonhard's) notion of these purportedly independent conditions. Locked in the Danish language, Strömgren and Ostenfeld provided important contributions to this field, exemplified by Ostenfeld's casuistry, translated in this Classic Text.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"209-225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9574443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-01DOI: 10.1177/0957154X221143613
Burkhart Brückner
This article reviews Emil Kraepelin's address 'Hundert Jahre Psychiatrie', at the opening of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie in 1917, and published as an essay in 1918. Kraepelin's publication represents a part of his late work: his commitment as a historian of psychiatry. He composed a classic narrative of psychiatric progress, which includes an outlook on desirable future developments in therapy and prevention. The present article considers the essay's socio-historical context as well as its structure and content. The focus lies on its time of origin around the end of World War I, its sources in relation to the state of the art of historiography at that time and the history of its reception, including the English-language edition of 1962.
这篇文章回顾了Emil Kraepelin在1917年德国精神病学研究会(Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fr psychiatry)开幕式上的演讲“Hundert Jahre psychiatry”,并于1918年作为一篇文章发表。Kraepelin的出版代表了他后期工作的一部分:他作为精神病学历史学家的承诺。他撰写了一篇经典的精神病学进展叙事,其中包括对治疗和预防的理想未来发展的展望。本文考虑了文章的社会历史背景以及它的结构和内容。重点在于它的起源时间大约在第一次世界大战结束时,它的来源与当时的历史编纂技术的状态和它的接受历史,包括1962年的英文版。
{"title":"Emil Kraepelin as a historian of psychiatry - one hundred years on.","authors":"Burkhart Brückner","doi":"10.1177/0957154X221143613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X221143613","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article reviews Emil Kraepelin's address '<i>Hundert Jahre Psychiatrie</i>', at the opening of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie in 1917, and published as an essay in 1918. Kraepelin's publication represents a part of his late work: his commitment as a historian of psychiatry. He composed a classic narrative of psychiatric progress, which includes an outlook on desirable future developments in therapy and prevention. The present article considers the essay's socio-historical context as well as its structure and content. The focus lies on its time of origin around the end of World War I, its sources in relation to the state of the art of historiography at that time and the history of its reception, including the English-language edition of 1962.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":"34 2","pages":"111-129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub/pmc/oa_pdf/33/91/10.1177_0957154X221143613.PMC10160394.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9570172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}