Timeline
g.arrieta on Dec 13th 2015
Document 1
Madhouse Act- Insanity (1774)
In 1774, the Madhouse Act was implemented in the British parliament. The set standard for determining who was mentally ill and in need of involuntarily confinement was changed from the justices of the peace to the medical community. In other words the people in charge of defining who was mentally ill switched from Court to the Hospital. This Act created a Group from the Royal College of Physicians to license and inspect private madhouses in London. The bill specifically required an order in writing from a physician, surgeon, or apothecary stating that such person needs this form of medical attention. Allowing Medical Professionals to certify lunatics created a change in society’s view of lunacy shifting the view of madness from a spiritual disorder to one in need of medicalization.
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Document 2
Que Viene El Coco (1797)
This Portrait was painted by 18th Century Spanish artist Francisco De Goya. It’s titled Que Viene El Coco, which means “Here comes the boogey man” in spanish. The painting shows two kids that are in the arms of their mother, and are frightened by a creature covered in blankets. This creature represents the folk tale story of the Boogey man (a.k.a the monster under the bed). This folk tale has been past down from century to century, a long with many variations around the world. The variation demonstrated in the painting shows the custom that Hispanic Cultures have, which is telling their kids to sleep or the Boogey Man will get them. This Document represents an example of how the binary Sane vs. Insane being presented to children in the late 1700s. Our main focus on insanity is a focus on Psychosis, which manifests itself in dellusions and Hallucinations. The delusion being portrayed is the idea that someone is out there to get you, which is represented by the boogey man. This scary delusion has led kids around the world to actually hallucinate a monster under their bed.
Work Cited: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. “Que viene el Coco” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1797 – 1798.
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Document 3
Frankenstein 1818
Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley for a competition she had with her husband, Percy Shelley, and their friends for the best scary story. The story of Victor Frankenstein creating this creature came to Shelley in a dream one night following the days of her visit near the Frankenstein Castle. The monster Frankenstein creates in this novel causes him to have deep paranoia, scared of the thing that he created, Frankenstein spends a lot of the novel fleeing and trying to get his family away, which ultimately is not a solid plan, when the monster finds him again. The paranoia and living in constant fear of what one created themselves plays a big part in the binary of sane or insane. Is this person rightfully paranoid, or are they blowing things out of proportion, making things that aren’t really there a threat.
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Document 4
The First Use of the Word Psychosis (1845)
The term “Psychosis” was first introduced by E. Von Feuchtersleben, in his textbook “Principles of Medical Psychiatry” in 1845. The original text is currently very rare and expensive to find. In this document, M. Dominic Beer speaks on the history of the word Psychosis, and references to Feuchtersleben and his textbook when speaking about the original use of the word. He sums up Feuchtersleben definition of the word by stating that Psychosis has four categories: melancholia, mania, dementia, and idiocy. He then goes and describes what each of these terms individual referred to. Melancholia referring to depression, Mania to anxiety and delusions, Dementia to memory lost, and idiocy to abnormal motor behavior. Dominic afterwards speaks on different uses of the word from then to the present.
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Document 5
Brief Reactive Psychosis 1868
This document references to different case studies in the past 2 centuries of people that suffered from Brief Reactive Psychosis. This form of psychosis was originally called Hysterical Psychosis, which according to text, occurs after someone has experience some form of traumatic event in their life. One of the cases that it references to is a case study that was published in 1868 about a woman named Van der Hart. Before experiencing symptoms of Psychosis, this woman suffered from repeated abuse, rape, drowning, and her finance committing suicide. After going through all this, she began to experience the following symptoms: periods of continuous talking, some amnesia, hallucinations of reenactments of the traumatic event, delusions, seizures, depression, and suicidal urges. What helped her to be cured was going through hypnotic therapy.
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Document 6
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1886
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde display a split personality disorder in the novella. While Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that turns himself in Mr. Hyde so he can both remain a respected doctor and fulfill his vices without being identified, he loses the ability to control the transformation between the two. Ultimately Hydes personality sticks and Jekyll can no longer transform himself back, in which case he decides to commit suicide. It has been reported that the author of this novella, Robert Stevenson, was suffering from an intense fever while writing this novella, fevers can often illicit hallucinations. Also while writing this, Stevenson kept in contact with a woman in a mental institution who was suffering from split personality disorder. Many people believe it was not a fever induced story but that Stevenson was on drugs while writing the novella, however his wife and son claim it was fever and nightmare which gave the inspiration.
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Document 7
Dracula 1899
Dracula was Published in the United States in 1899. Here’s a brief summary of the story: it is about a man named Jonathan Harker who goes to visit Count Dracula to give him legal help with a real estate transaction. When he visits the castle, he slowly begins to realize that the count isn’t a regular person and tries to escape. This article speaks about the psychological background of the story. The author of this writing claims that Jonathan Harker was going through a development of paranoia. He compares this character to a case study that happened around the same time Dracula came out, of a man who is referenced to as Judge Schreber. In the case study, Schreber goes through different stages all dealing with delusions and hallucinations. These stages included: having hypochondriac thoughts, having sensory hallucinations and delusions of being chased, and mystic/religious mania which included being harrassed by demons.
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Document 8
Mental Health America 1909
Mental Health America is the United States’ leading Mental Health Organization. It is a Non-profit organization that was establish in 1909 as a Country-wide benefactor to people with metal Health issues. This organization is an example of the shift of the view of insanity in the world to a medical centered issue. It’s goal is to identify mental illness in patients at the earliest stage possible. Some of its commendable contributions to Mental Health as a whole in America are the creation of over 100 Child guidance clinics around the country, the creation of various ethical laws and statutes that are now incorporated in several states, and conduction of surveys and case studies of common mental illnesses such as bi-polar disorder.
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Document 9
The Little Prince- 1943
The little prince was created by Antione de Saint Exupery and was published in America in 1943. The book was inspired by an event that the author had in 1935. In this year got into a plane crash, and landed in the middle of the Arabian. desert a long with his pilot. They were stranded for about a week, and began to experience hallucinations because of the heat. This experience led him to create the story of a man who was flying a plane and gets stranded in a desert where he meets a little boy who calls himself the little prince. The author uses this story to teach kids not just about his experience in the desert, but how he felt in his in transition from living in France to North America, such as loneliness and sadness. This story presents psychosis to children using emotions other than common fear.
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Document 10
A Mobius Strip 1982
This document lays out the influences of Paul Möbius on the progression of psychosis and the way the world understands it. He believed that psychosis covered the spectrum of hysteria melancholy mania and paranoia, and in this text is described as the reason for the breakthrough of the understanding of hysteria as a psychogenic condition rather than a condition of the nervous system. He also is credited, in this document, as the first to establish private institutions for work therapy. These ideas and implements are pivotal in the worlds understanding of psychosis because it helps us understand the shift from problems stemming just physical issues of the nervous system to the problem actually being from the brain.
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Document 11
Historical/Contemporary Document
This document is a ghost story abut four young girls playing with a ouija board for the first time. First thinking it was a joke the girls mess around with it, until it takes hold of one of their hands and they seem to be communicating with a ghost. They communicate with a girl Amber who is asking for their help, the board spells help over and over again. In the end the girls hear on the news that there was a flood in Alabama and among the deceased, was a girl named Amber. This ghost story applies to our wonderland because of the supernatural element. Before mental illness was treated as a medical issue it was considered spiritual, this document is a story told to kids about communicating with different spirits. Also Ouija boards are a game many kids have or had the access to and the whole “speaking to ghosts or spirits” may be deemed insane by none believers which fits in with our binary of sane versus insane.
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Document 12
The Cotard Delusion
In 1880, Jules Cotard, a neurologist, recorded cases where people legitimately thought they were dead. They thought they were missing important body parts or thought that an organ was punctured and that they had bled out, so they rationalized they were dead. In their minds, they were quite literally, the walking dead. The most famous case was about a woman only know as Mademoiselle X. She thought she was missing her stomach, and thus did not eat. She eventually died from starvation.
Mademoiselle X shows how serious this syndrome is, and how lasting the affects are.