Confinia psychiatrica. Borderland of psychiatry. Grenzgebiete der Psychiatrie. Les Confins de la psychiatrie最新文献

The problems of individuality are demonstrated in the traditional Punjabi-Muslim society. The individual, as an independent social unit with its needs and reactions, does not exist. Hence the idea of health and disease in an individual is expressed only as in pars familiae. In spite of this the individual resists the oppression. This is demonstrated by the example of the female individual.

In the article a psychoanalytic and pragmalinguistic oriented interpretation of 'Endgame' by S. Beckett is offered. This method obviously demonstrates the necessity of interpreting 'Endgame' in connection with the communicational situation between author/text and reader/interpreter. The conclusion is that the meaning of 'Endgame' is not offered by the text alone, but lies in the process of irritation of reader and interpreter, induced by specific reactions (transferences and counter-transferences) on the text presented.

Delusion is described from a phenomenological point of view. Based on the observation of 15 cases of delusion over a period of several years and 3 cases described by Japanese and American authors, I have concluded that delusion cannot be understood from a genetic, psychological or sociological standpoint alone. My aim was to discover symptoms which could not be explained by psychodynamic, sociological or other causes. Such symptoms may be called irrational (incomprehensible) symptoms. Their irrationality is analogous to the same symptoms which are described in their autobiographies by two great mystics about their ecstasy. We can see these symptoms in the accounts of Zen Buddhists. These symptoms represent experience of evidence, pseudohallucination, suffering in delusion, a message to do something, loss of awareness of time and space, the polarity of guilt and blessedness following each other in close succession and the feeling of shame. We will better understand delusion if we bear in mind the irrational factor.

Research on schizophrenia and on the psychopathology of creativity is increasingly absorbing and transforming insights from literature (Büchner, Celan, Kafka, Proust) and literary aesthetics. This development is discussed against the background of the history of psychiatric research. Regarding contemporary research trends, special emphasis is placed on communication theory as presented by the Palo Alto group (double bind theory), anti-psychiatry (Cooper, Laing), French structuralism (Foucault, Lacan), and on schizoanalysis (Deleuze and Guattari). Traditional concepts of mental health and illness are called into question.

The phenomen of transitory artistic creativity in adolescence is discussed. Although adolescents have the same qualities as adults their artistic productivity varies. Various concepts of creativity as found in the literature are discussed, especially those comparing adult and adolescent personality. The different developmental stages of adolescence correspond to different stages of creativity which are the products of various ego stages and ego defense mechanisms during the three adolescent periods.

Using texts by the late 18th century Scottish writer Henry MacKenzie, the German Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist, and the American psychologist William James, the use of visual models for the perception of the insane is illustrated. In the latter two cases, the seeming hallucinatory nature of the texts is shown to have had its roots in visual models.

As an instrument and a weapon in the struggle for existence man has at his disposal the intellect which enables him, by means of language, to make use of conceptional thinking. But if he uses the intellect in order to manage the interactions with his equals, he unaffectedly has to observe and to manipulate the behaviour of his fellow-men as well as his own psychic processes like functions of intricate technical apparatuses, disregarding or violating the incalculable 'endothymic' part (strivings and feelings) of human being. Innate dispositions of behaviour, urges, moods, and emotions, however, constitute real life. Suppression of vital powers by the laws of rationality makes civilized people suffer.

Psychiatry unlike philosophy (with its problem of solipsism) recognizes the existence of other minds from the nonverbal communication between doctor and patient. This nonverbal, or having deeper roots in evolution, preverbal communication, is the connection within a herd or horde. As psychiatry gains many of its diagnostic criteria like mood, excitation or fear by nonverbal communication, it brings the patient in a biological-ethological frame where aim, biological sense and evolutional origin are justified questions of normal and abnormal behavior and of psychological events.