Schreber'sMemoirs: Myth or personal lamentation

Lucy Bregman's approach to Schreber'sMemoirs is scrutinized and found to be based on a number of fallacious and contradictory assumptions that call her interpretation of the book as personal religious myth into question. A social constructionist approach to mythology maintained by Berger and Luckmann is advanced, suggesting that at best Schreber's work qualifies as a quasi-mythical attempt to explain the source of his personal sociopsychic suffering. The family and interpersonal dynamics of Schreber's quasi-myth are investigated. Similarities to other cases of psychotic quasi-myths are noted and a general relationship between oppressive socialization and psychotic communications is advanced, as well as a specific alternative interpretation of Schreber's work to that proposed by Bregman.Nathan Church, M.S., is currently teaching at Douglass College of Rutgers University, where he is nearing completion of his Ph.D. in sociology.     

The encounter with God in myth and madness

Background

It is well known how often psychiatric patients report religious experiences. These are especially frequent in schizophrenic and epileptic patients as the subject of their delusions. The question we pose is: are there differences between this kind of religious experiences and those we find in religious texts or in the mythological tradition?

Results

An overview on famous mythological narratives, such as The Aeneid, allows us to establish that the divinities become recognizable to the human being at the moment of their departure. Thus, Aeneas does not recognise his mother, Venus, when she appears to him in the middle of the forest at the coast of Africa. A dialogue between the two takes place, and only at the end of the encounter, when she is going away and already with her back to Aeneas, she shows her son the signs of her divinity: the rose-flush emanating from her neck, her hair perfume and the majesty of her gait. Something analogous can be observed in the encounter of Moses with Yahweh on Mount Sinai. Moses asks God: "Show me your glory, I beg you". And God replies, among other things: "you shall see the back of me, but my face is not to be seen". In the same sense, the Emmaus disciples do not recognise Jesus till the moment of his disappearance ("but he had vanished from their sight"), and Saul of Tars falls off his horse just in the moment when he feels the divine presence. In short, the direct encounter with the divinity seems not to occur in the realm of myth or in religious tradition. The realm of madness is exactly the opposite. Our research on religious experiences in schizophrenic and epileptic patients leads us to conclude that God appears to them face to face, and the patient describes God the father, Jesus or the Virgin Mary in intimate detail, always in an everyday setting. So, the divinity is seen in the garden, or in the bedroom, or maybe above the wardrobe, without any of its majesty. The nearness to God also tends to be so extreme that even an identification of patient and God can occur. That light emanating from the world of the divine ceases to be perceived by them.

Conclusion

While in mythological narratives God appears to the human being at the moment of His departure or showing His back, psychiatric patients with religious delusions experience the divinity in a direct way, face to face. Given the deformation of the divine occurring on the edge of madness we can better understand the mysterious words from Yahweh to Moses in Exodus: "for man cannot see me and live".     

Narcissism and the personal myth

Kris (1956) described the concept of the personal myth as an autobiographical story built around a family romance fantasy seen specifically in obsessive characters and serving a defensive function. In this paper the concept of the personal myth was expanded to include similar defensive constellations originating from within the grandiose self, built around omnipotent and omniscient fantasies and occurring in character formations with pregenital, narcissistic pathology. The case of a known author and poet, Nikos Kazantzakis, was used to illustrate the thesis of the paper. The available biographical material and the work of the author offer evidence to support the claim that the author's personal myth was a protective shield against anxiety originating in early narcissistic traumata.     

The personal myth: A re‐evaluation

This paper presents a re‐evaluation of Kris's personal myth. The notion has been used rather sparingly despite the Delphi Symposium in 1984 on the question of its clinical usefulness. After framing the notion of myth, some difficulties related to the question are identified. A clinical vignette exemplifies some of the ambiguities in its definition but stresses its clinical relevance. A discussion expands on these situations so as to propose three various aspects of personal myths to account for the two variants identified by Kris. The actualization of the underlying fantasy in the character organization is a third form and the technical aspect associated with it is reviewed from a new perspective. The family romance is revisited to reassess its role as the basis of the personal myth in the face of studies favouring an earlier development of the myth.     

The anatomy of madness: Psychosis as functional hippocampal afterdischarge

Psychosis is viewed theoretically as hippocampal seizure and afterdischarge resulting from conditions of stressful stimulation and/or inhibitory disinhibition. Key anatomical structures involved and their dynamic interrelationships in health and psychosis are discussed. Several pathological physical conditions as well as certain autostimulatory behavior are seen as contributory or perpetuating to this condition.     

Religion as culture

When we understand religion as culture, we can value religion as a many-thousand year expression of lived human experience with accumulated wisdom. If we ask religion to carry the torch of civil harmony into the election battles, however, religious leaders will have to give up one quite precious thing, namely, the claim to absolute and unchanging truth.     

Masculinity and madness

This paper explores the way madness is culturally represented in the West, and the impact of these ideas on the mental health system. The paper offers an alternative liberationist approach to gender, madness and psychotherapeutics. Strange, unexpected or apparently inexplicable behaviour and/or thoughts are usually considered to be abnormal. Invariably such behaviour and/or thoughts are labelled as madness ‐ psychological conditions deemed to be problematic. Common images associated with madness include emotional display, wildness, irrationality, sexuality, and passivity. In Western cultures these traits representing madness seem to be equated with aspects of femininity, thus inducing unsympathetic, condemnatory reactions within societies. Such responses tend to serve the social function of enforcing conformity within oppressive systems. Western cultures broadly polarise masculinity and femininity: masculinity tends to represent sanity. Yet this apparently positive status of masculinity leaves men with innumerable difficulties. The social conception of masculinity does not encompass many capacities that distinguish humanity, such as cognitive and behavioural flexibility, emotional awareness, empathy, compassion, co‐operation, exuberance, creativity, imaginativeness and sensitivity. Indeed, this cultural conception of madness impacts adversely on the operation of social institutions and is oppressive in different ways in the lives of both men and women.     

Transition as Normative: British Quakerism as Liquid Religion

This article presents a consideration of the ways in which current Quaker belief and practice exemplify the condition identified by Zygmunt Bauman as liquid modernity. After a brief overview of Bauman’s thesis, we describe recent patterns of believing within British Quakerism within its socio-cultural context. While belief has been cast as marginal by scholars of this group, with the creation of habitus centred on behavioural codes or values narratives among participants, the way of believing within British Quakerism has rather unusual significance. An ortho-credence of ‘perhapsness’ maintains an approach to believing that is forever ‘towards’, with any truth considered to be solely personal, partial or provisional. From a rationalist liberal faith position, British Quakers have become cautious about theological truth claims that appear final or complete. They accept the principle of continuing revelation, a progressivist theology in which transition becomes sociologically normative. While wider Christianity may be in transition, British Quakers see perpetual modulation (liquifaction) of belief and practice as both logical and faithful.     

Sanity and madness

The author sets out a schema with some underlying principles aimed at illuminating the nature of madness, how it sabotages our freedom and the deepest reasons why patients want to be sane. He claims that this is not possible without revising Freud's pleasure principle and determinism and replacing it with desire for freedom as the dominant motivating principle.     

Adolescent Satanism: Rebellion Masquerading as Religion

This article describes adolescent satanic practice as studied by the authors working with affected families in 3 Southwestern states in a 7-year period. Because adolescent involvement in satanism seems to be widespread and may be growing, counselors need to understand how satanism is related to religion, family dynamics, and adolescent rebellion. Counselors also need to recognize how their personal values compare with values inherent in satanism; only from a position of psychological equilibrium can counselors potentially help satanically involved clients. This article reviews the authors' observations of signs and symptoms, definitions and distinctions, family dysfunction, and individual dynamics related to satanism. A systemic perspective is suggested.     

The republic as myth: The dilemma of philosophy and politics

What role should government play for achieving a successful transformation of society? This paper discusses changes in the basic philosophy of government's role, the transformation of industrial structure by market mechanisms, and coping with the aging population.     

Models of madness: Science and soul

The historical interplay between psychiatry and religion is placed in a contemporary context here. In their zeal to embrace new discoveries and technologies in neurophysiology, modern psychiatrists are losing sight of spiritual and cultural dimensions. From a biological perspective, there is confusion about what constitutes a cause, a concomitant, or a consequence of mental illness. Computer metaphors are being used to explain mental illness. This article examines such trends and questions whether, in the decade of the brain, psychiatry is in danger of losing its soul.     

Religion as schedule-induced behavior

In this article, I argue that a class of religious behaviors exists that is induced, for prepared organisms, by specific stimuli that are experienced according to a response-independent schedule. Like other schedule-induced behaviors, the members of this class serve as minimal units out of which functional behavior may arise. In this way, there exist two classes of religious behavior: nonoperant schedule-induced behaviors and operant behaviors. This dichotomy is consistent with the distinction insisted upon by religious scholars and philosophers between "graceful" and "effortful" religious behaviors. Embracing the distinction allows an explanation of many aspects of religious experience and behavior that have been overlooked or disregarded by other scientific approaches to religion.     

Religion as Orienting Worldview

Religions are complex, and any attempt at defining religion necessarily falls short. Nevertheless, any scholarly inquiry into the nature of religion must use some criteria in order to evaluate and study the character of religious traditions across contexts. To this end, I propose understanding religion in terms of an orienting worldview. Religions are worldviews that are expressed not only in beliefs but also in narratives and symbols. More than this, religions orient action, and any genuine religious tradition necessarily is concerned with normative behavior, whether ethical or religious in character. Such an understanding of religion has several advantages, one of which is its natural relation to current forms of the science-religion dialogue. Not only can the findings of cognitive science and related areas inform us about the nature of religion; scientific discoveries also prove to be important for any religious synthesis that attempts to construct a worldview for the twenty-first century.     

Purpose as personal

Ethics and Education R. S. Peters London: George Allen &; Unwin, Ltd., 1966 Pp. 333, $4.50     

The Relationship Between Religion and Religious Coping: Religious Coping as a Moderator Between Religion and Adjustment

This study examined the relationship between and among religion, religious coping, and positive/negative psychological adjustment and investigated whether the four religious coping styles of Self-Directing, Deferring, Collaborative, and Turning to Religion would significantly moderate the relationship between religion and psychological adjustment. Each of the four religious coping measures were significant moderators between religion and positive and negative adjustment. However, the high self-directing and high religion group showed opposite results from the other three coping styles, in that they were the most maladjusted and least satisfied with life compared to the other three integration and religious coping groups. The participants high on religion and high deferring, high collaborative, and high turning to religion groups were less maladjusted and more satisfied than the other three groups in each of these religious coping styles.