Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type — John Shaqi
Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction TypeHoch, August
Science
Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type
Hoch, August
Manic-depressive illness; Stupor
animation. Usually, even when she got less resistive
towards the end, she was essentially apathetic.
Once in January, 1903, she could be made to write her name
but wrote her maiden name. In the end of 1903 she improved
gradually (a condition not well observed), so that by
December she answered some questions in a low tone. Even in
April, 1904, she was still described as apathetic, though
she had begun to do some work.
3. Then she improved markedly and began to work, looked
after herself in a natural way, spoke freely, was entirely
oriented and her mood generally presented nothing striking.
But her mental attitude was still peculiar when she was
questioned. She seemed somewhat inattentive, sulky,
sneering. Thus, when asked why she was here, she said, “You
will have to ask those who brought me here.”
She denied ever having been pregnant, said the nurses on
the ward had spoken of her having had a child and that they
had showed her a child (one was born on that ward about
August, 1903) but that it was not hers. She thought it was
wrong for the nurses to speak on the ward of her having
been pregnant. Again questioned about her marriage, she
first said she had not been married, again that she was
married “a year ago” (was in the hospital then). Again she
spoke of her husband as her “gentleman friend,” claimed she
called herself Mary M. (maiden name) until a girl friend
wrote her a letter addressed to Mrs. F. From then on, she
called herself by her married name. But she thought that
probably they sometimes spoke of her marriage in fun. If
she were Mrs. F. she would be living in Mr. F.’s house.
On June 29, when again asked about her marriage, she said
she was to have been married in December (correct date).
(Were you?) “So they say.” (Do you remember it?) “In a
way.” (When was the baby born?) “You will have to ask
somebody more superior to me, more experienced.” Then, when
further questioned about the age of the baby, she said,
“The baby I saw in the ward was about a year old,” and she
claimed not to remember ever having a baby. When asked why
she had come here she said, “Well, I don’t know, perhaps
you know better, through sickness I guess,” and later:
“Well, don’t you ever get a cold and want doctors to
examine you?” (What kind of a place?) “This is a nice place
for sensible people who have enough knowledge to know and
realize what they come for.” But she knew the name of the
place, the date, the names of persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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