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
_Retrospectively:_ She claimed to remember things at home,
and at both interviews said she recalled being taken to the
Observation Pavilion. While there she thought she knew
where she was, remembered that she did not talk. She had a
feeling she was going to die and said “I thought I would
die if I kept still.” However, the transfer to this
hospital was vague in her mind, as was the entrance on the
ward, and she claimed not to have known for quite a while
where she was. She added that she used to wonder where she
was, how she had gotten here, and how she could get out,
and thought the questions which were asked were queer.
Individual occurrences, too, specifically inquired into
were not recollected, such as an examination in a special
room. Of the mixed-up writing at the end of the second
week, she had no recollection even when it was shown to
her. She did not recall having her picture taken (with eyes
open) two months after entrance. Yet a sudden angry
outburst ten weeks after admission was remembered. She
stated that she struck the patient because the latter
annoyed her by her shouting. She had a general recollection
of being stiff, having her head raised, and of soiling and
drooling, but could not account for it. She felt stubborn.
She also claimed not to have been hungry and not to have
felt pin pricks.
In regard to ideas which she had, she claimed to be afraid
at first that she would be cut up. She remembered repeated
visions of her father at night, also once of her dead aunt,
who said “Come to me.” She thought she was in a cemetery,
all the family were dead, the baby dead. In the beginning,
too, she sometimes heard a priest whom she had known, say
“Be good and God will look after you.”
In regard to the later period, she recalled that she got up
in May and felt cross. She did not answer because she did
not want to be bothered. She pushed the baby away because
she did not think it belonged to her, the husband because
she did not like him. (She did not think she was not
married.) She evidently remembered the visits, thought she
knew where she was, knew she stood near the door “because I
wanted to go home.” Besides the idea that the baby was not
hers, she recalled none, and thought she had no
hallucinations.
She was discharged perfectly well six months after
admission to the hospital. Soon after that, she left the
husband, once had him arrested in 1908 and sent to the
workhouse. She was again examined in 1913, and was found to
be perfectly well, and she stated she had been well since
the discharge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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