Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction TypeHoch, August
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Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type
Hoch, August
Manic-depressive illness; Stupor
The improvement commenced in April, 1915. Although still
very inactive, she sometimes began to laugh and sing and
talk a little to other patients. She also answered a few
questions on April 22, 1915. Thus, when asked whether she
wanted to go home, she said “No, I want to stay here.” (Do
you like it here?) “Yes” (smiles), “I can’t get no other
place; I have got to like it here.” She smiled freely. To
orientation questions, she knew the place, month, but not
the year.
She continued inactive and above all diffident, but
improved steadily and, when examined by the writer on
November 15, she made a very natural impression and gave
the retrospective account of the onset embodied in the
history. She was quite frank, thanked the doctor for the
interest he took in her case, and said for example, “You
know I never thought I would get well. I quite gave up--I
am very glad I am well now.”
When questioned about her stay here, the patient evidently
remembered much. She was able to say which wards she had
been in and approximately how long she had been in each
one. She claimed that at first it “seemed strange.” “I did
not eat, I did not want to eat, I used to tell them to
poison me and that I wanted to die, I was _disgusted_, I
thought I would never go home.” She also says she felt
_angry_, wanted to kill herself. She bit and scratched
“because I was nervous.” She remembered talking about
Harry, “I said I was in love with him, I thought I wanted
to die because I could not have him.” She also talked of
having been _stubborn_. Sometimes she felt like running to
the river. She also claimed she imagined people were false
to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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