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
_Nov. 4._ Still has to be catheterized. She sits up,
staring, with expressionless face, but when asked how she
felt she responded and said feebly: “I don’t know how I
feel or how I look or how long I have been here or
anything.” (What is wrong?) “Oh, I only want to go to a
convent the rest of my days.” (Why?) “Oh, I have only said
wrong things, I thought I would be better dead, I could not
do anything right.” Later she again began to stare.
_Nov. 5._ During the night she is said to have been
restless and wanted to go to church. To-day she is found
staring, but not resistive. When questioned she sometimes
does not answer. She said to the physician, “I should have
gone up to Heaven to you and not brought me down here.” She
called the physician “Uncle James.” Again she said, “I want
to go up to see Jim.” Sometimes she looks indifferent,
again somewhat bewildered.
_Nov. 6._ She eats better, catheterizing is no longer
necessary. She is found lying in bed, rigid, staring,
resistive, does not answer at first, later appears somewhat
distressed, says “I want to go and see Jim.” (Where?) “In
Heaven.” She gave the name of the place and of the
physician, also the date.
_Nov. 8._ In the forenoon, after she had presented a rather
immobile expression and had answered a few orientation
questions correctly, she suddenly beckoned into space, then
shook her fist in a threatening manner. When later asked
about this, she said: “Jim was down there and I wanted to
get him in.” (And?) “You was up here first.” (And?) “I
thought we was going down down, up up--the boat-- --you
came in here for--to lock Jim out so we wouldn’t let him
in.” Later she said, when asked whether anything worried
her, “Yes, you are taking Jim’s place.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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