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Charles Lloyd Tuckey (1854–1925) was one of the leaders of the British 'New Hypnotism' movement of the late nineteenth century. This neglected figure is important because of his contributions to the early psychotherapies in Britain, ushering in the concept of suggestion to British medicine from Europe. Through his networks and clubs, Tuckey demonstrates the bewildering range of institutions that shaped and spread the novel theory of suggestion and the nascent talking therapies at this time. His affiliations to psychic investigation and ceremonial magic societies demonstrate his intellectual curiosity rather than backwards primitivism. Tuckey played an important role in establishing the term 'psychotherapeutics' and legitimising medical hypnotism, a precursor of the psychological therapies of the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychology of Antarctic explorers and groups in Antarctic bases has been much studied in recent years, and current knowledge has been summarized in a review by Palinkas and Suedenfeld (2008). There was no formal psychological research during the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, but a number of the doctors and non-medical personnel on the expeditions were keen observers of the psychological aspects of the expeditions and wrote about them. In this paper, I describe their understanding of the psychology of Antarctic exploration. By comparing this with current knowledge, it is clear that most of what has been found by formal study was known to the explorers of the heroic age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The second of two linked papers examining the interactions of psychiatry and the social sciences since World War II examines the role of NIMH on these disciplines. It analyses the effects of the prominence and the decline of psychoanalysis, and the impact of the psychotropic drugs revolution and the associated rise of biological psychiatry on relations between psychiatry and clinical psychology; and it explores the changing relationships between psychiatry and sociology, from collaboration to conflict to mutual disdain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the history of evolutionary psychiatry and the research of psychologist Harry Harlow on the instinctual nature of the mother-infant dyad in rhesus monkeys. It is suggested that Harlow's research into the significance of peer relationships led to his appreciation of the evolutionary aspects of separate affectional systems. The author considers the influence of the psychological theories of psychologists John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and Bowlby's belief in an innate need for mother love and its impact on psychical organization.

The article describes the early career and writings of Madeleine Pelletier in anthropology and psychiatry. It states that one of her most significant anthropological articles regarding craniometrical measurements was the study of Japanese skeletons that demonstrates the alleged superiority of male over female skeletal development. It mentions that Pelletier was the first woman to enter the French psychiatric profession. A biography of Pelletier is also presented.

The present study looks into the much-neglected history of neurasthenia in Maoist China in relation to the development of psy sciences. It begins with an examination of the various factors that transformed neurasthenia into a major health issue from the late 1950s to mid-1960s. It then investigates a distinctive culture of therapeutic experiment of neurasthenia during this period, with emphasis on the ways in which psy scientists and medical practitioners manoeuvred in a highly politicized environment. The study concludes with a discussion of the legacy of these neurasthenia studies – in particular, the experiment with the famous 'speedy and synthetic therapy' – and of the implications the present study may have for future historical study of psychiatry and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maurice O’Connor Drury (1907–76), an Irish psychiatrist, is best known for his accounts of his close friendship with the eminent twentieth-century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. His only book, The Danger of Words (1973), was well received by those who had an interest in the relationship between psychiatry, psychology and philosophy. This article concentrates on Drury’s experiences, studies and writings in these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Italian psychiatry was characterized by its emphasis on an organic explanation of mental illness. ‘Cerebral mythology’ was a major influence in Italy, at least until the second half of the twentieth century, often at the expense of the development of psychology. In this context, a few psychiatrists adopted a different epistemological perspective, based on a more ‘integrative’ view of their discipline. In particular, Gaetano Perusini stands out. He promoted the concept of psychiatry as a science which embraced many different fields, thus emphasizing the theme of pluralism, which is still debated today in the philosophy of science and psychiatric practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr Constance Pascal’s study of Robert Schumann’s mental illnesses, dating from the early years of the twentieth century, reflects contemporary theories on the relations between gifted individuals and mental illness: the genius vs. madness debate. Pascal’s reading of Schumann’s musical career, in conjunction with his mental profile, offers a sympathetic and nuanced overview of the composer and a critical perspective on extant theories of his illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The activities of both Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983), and the Edinburgh-based Davidson Clinic for Medical Psychotherapy (1941–73) which she directed, exemplify and elaborate the overlap in Scotland of religious discourses and practices with psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Even as post-war secularization began to affect Scottish culture and society, Rushforth and the Davidson Clinic attempted to renew the biographical discourses of Christianity using the idioms and practices of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Furthermore, alongside these Christian-inflected activities, Rushforth promoted a psychoanalytically-informed New Age spirituality. This parallel mode of belief and practice drew on Christian life-narrative patterns, preserving them within psychoanalytic forms grafted onto a vitalist worldview informed by the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article documents medical approaches to mental illness in mid- to late-nineteenth-century India through examining the Indian Medical Gazette and other medical accounts. By the late nineteenth century, psychiatry in Europe moved from discussions around asylum-based care to a nuanced and informed debate about the nature of mental symptoms. This included ideas on phrenology and craniometry, biological and psycho-social causes, physical and drug treatments, many of which travelled to India. Simultaneously, indigenous socio-medical ideas were being debated. From the early to the mid-nineteenth century, not much distinction was made between the Western and the native ‘mind’, and consequently the diagnosis and investigation of mental symptoms did not differ. However, by the late nineteenth century Western medicine considered the ‘Western mind’ as more civilized and sophisticated than the ‘native mind. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although recognized as a medical scientist, the work of Frederick Mott as a physician, educator and clinical policymaker has been overshadowed. As a late entrant to the asylum system, Mott questioned established practices of treating mentally-ill patients and campaigned for reform. During World War I, entrusted with the management of the Maudsley neurological section, he sought to raise clinical standards and experimented with a range of therapies designed to treat the most severe or intractable forms of shell shock. While Mott believed that psychiatric disorder was underwritten by inherited characteristics, he did not dismiss the impact of the environment. The diversity of his interests has led to an understatement of his contribution as a physician, not only to the design and founding of the Maudsley Hospital but also to the therapeutic regime practised there during the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstracts of dissertations related to the history of psychiatry are presented which includes one on English psychoanalyst Donald Woods Winnicott by Michael A. Casali, a study of anxiety in the writings of psychologists Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, and Kirk Schneider by Alberto De Castro, and an exploration of representation in late 19th-century German psychology by Winifred Elysse.

When disorders fade into normality, how can the threshold between normality and disorder be determined? In considering mild intellectual disability, I argue that economic factors partly determine thresholds. We tend to assume that the relationship between disorder, need and services is such that: first, a cut-off point between the disordered and the normal is determined; second, a needy population is identified; and third, resources are found (or at least should be found) to meet this need. However, the changing definitions of intellectual disability can best be understood if we think of this happening in reverse. That is, first, certain resources are thought obtainable, and then a cut-off point for disorder is selected which supplies an appropriately sized ‘needy population’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article probes the relationship between psychoanalysis and right-wing authoritarianism, and analyses a unique psychotherapeutic institution established by Serbia’s World War II collaborationist regime. The extraordinary Institute for compulsory re-education of high-school and university students affiliated with the Communist resistance movement emerged in the context of a brutal civil war and violent retaliations against Communist activists, but its openly psychoanalytic orientation was even more astonishing. In order to stem the rapid spread of Communism, the collaborationist state, led by its most extreme fascistic elements, officially embraced psychotherapy, the ‘talking cure’ and Freudianism, and conjured up its own theory of mental pathology and trauma – one that directly contradicted the Nazi concepts of society and the individual. In the course of the experiment, Serbia’s collaborationists moved away from the hitherto prevailing organicist, biomedical model of mental illness, and critiqued traditional psychiatry’s therapeutic pessimism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 Germany and abroad on: (1) the correctness of the psychiatric assessment in form and content; (2) the constitutional basis of the deposition; and (3) its background, motives and execution. The results show that the psychiatric assessment was incorrect in substance and form. They highlight how those in power used psychiatry for their own purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is rare that a symptom becomes a disease entity. ‘Self-harm’ is now a full-fledged diagnostic category for DSM-5. The existing literature of the topic posits that it is a trans-historical psychiatric category and that examples of self-harm can be found from the earliest written records, which is part of the underlying argument for its inclusion in DSM-5. But how old is self-harm and indeed what defines ‘self-harm’ historically and culturally? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, a number of the early explorers developed psychiatric illness either in the Antarctic or shortly after leaving it. Most of these were psychotic illnesses and stress reactions. At least six explorers committed suicide either in the Antarctic or after their return. These cases are described, and possible reasons for the apparent high incidence of psychiatric disease and suicide are discussed. There are also examples of the possible misuse of psychiatric labels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents abstracts of various dissertations on psychiatry which include the use of the concept of madness in several tragedies by author William Shakespeare, the impact of World War I on mind, culture and history, and the increasing professional entry standards for the profession of psychology in Alberta, Canada in the 20th century.

The article focuses on the syndrome of accident proneness, a pattern of suffering a series of accidents. According to the author, it is logically attractive for psychoanalysts as a pattern of unconsciously motivated deviant and self destructive behavior. Psychiatrists did not medicalize the pattern except as a symptom of other psychiatric conditions, thus giving limits to the extent psychiatrists would medicalize behavioral patterns.

The article focuses on the neurobiological interpretation of the mental functions in the work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. It states that Cajal first had contact with the fields of psychiatry and psychology through the experimental study of hypnotism. He studied the histophysiological mechanisms of the higher mental functions, the thought, intelligence, memory and perception. He proposed that the pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex formed the substance of the said mental functions.

The article stresses the main lines of theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas's philosophy on the nature of the body-soul union. His writings and thought have become familiar to those acquainted with medieval philosophy, as well as to many others interested in the wide range of problems he dealt with. Aquinas believed that every human being has a soul, but a proper understanding of his concept of "soul" (anima) presupposes some familiarity with the medieval concept of anima rationalis. The soul was considered the core of the human identity and, detached from the body to which it is intrinsically united, it cannot be seen, tasted or felt by means of the senses.

Presents an excerpt from the book "Medicinische Psychologie oder Physiologic der Seele," by Rudolph Hermann Lotze.