The 19th century gave birth to a new dynamic psychiatry. At the time, Europe was a society that was dominated by men. It was a world for men by men, and women had no say in politics and were not admitted into universities. Male values were celebrated. Among the aristocracy, women and men who had … Read more
The background of dynamic psychiatry can be traced to two centuries back. The 1800’s was a time that is difficult for us to imagine. People were much tougher, since they had no access to the luxuries and comforts of today. Sedatives and narcotics were almost unheard of and public hygiene was at a primitive stage. … Read more
Below are my favorite selection from The Madman by Gibran Khalil Gibran. HOW I BECAME A MADMAN You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,-the seven masks I have fashioned an … Read more
A source of the first dynamic psychiatry was imagination. Montaigne thought that imagination was a frequent cause of physical, emotional, and mental disease, of death, and of manifestations attributed to magic. Imagination could cause conspicuous physical phenomena such as the appearance of the stigmata or even the transformation of one sex into another. But imagination … Read more
In this post, I will give a summary of the first chapter of Ellenberger’s The Discovery of the Unconscious. The first chapter is a review of the history of dynamic psychology. Ellenberger begins with Freud and moves chronologically through the history of dynamic psychology. Ellenberger starts with Freud because he is the father of dynamic … Read more
Philosophy Pierre Janet was a psychologist who invented the idea of the “subconscious.” He had a religious background and he questioned the spirit of Darwinism. To him, the cult of progress is dangerous because it leads to hatred for the present, and the destruction of the past. After being interested in theology, Janet shifted his … Read more
In the book The Happiness Myth, Hecht observes that each generation had its prescriptions for ultimate happiness. Some of these included bizarre aphrodisiacs like Spanish fly, chocolate, and green M & M candies. But things are no less silly today, arguably, with things like feng shui, aromatherapy, and mood enhancing crystals. The old trope is … Read more
Nassim Taleb’s Ergodicity is the idea that you cannot judge the egalitarianism of a system based on a static representation. You cannot say that inequality in a country is high because at this point in time, a minority of people own the vast amount of resources. But rather, you must take into consideration what happens … Read more
Based on the book The Discovery of the Unconscious. Homer Shakespeare Goethe Schiller Heine Grillparzer Nestroy Dostovesky Kraepelin Freud Janet Wernicke Bleuler
Borne recommended shutting oneself away for three days with a supply of paper, to write, “without falsehood and without hypocrisy,” about every topic that comes to mind. Borne’s idea was that men are stifled by the burden of conventional ideas, and that they do not dare to think for themselves. His aim was to free … Read more