Edward Aloysius Pace

Summary Edward Aloysius Pace, pioneer of experimental psychology among American Catholics, was the first American Catholic and the first Catholic priest to study with Wilhelm Wundt. Upon his return from Leipzig, where he received his PhD in 1891, he established a psychological laboratory and department of psychology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. This department became the model for most of the early departments of psychology at Catholic colleges and universities as well as the training center of many teachers who staffed the new departments at these Catholic colleges and universities. From Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, the experimental psychology of Wundt radiated to Catholic circles throughout the United States.The best account of Pace's life is to be found in Hart C (ed), Aspects of the New Scholastic Philosophy (New York: Benziger 1932, pp 1–9); a series of philosophical essays dedicated to Pace by the American Philosophical Association on the occasion of his seventieth birthday     

Reply by Edward S. Casey

Stigma and discrimination against mental illness represent chronic social stressors that can inflame psychiatric symptoms and limit functional adjustment. The implication is that the prevalence and severity of mental illness is determined, at least to a certain extent, by aversive socio-cultural factors. In a hostile social environment, these factors may seriously limit the effectiveness of professional interventions; whereas, removing social barriers to functioning often results in a favorable clinical outcome. For example, studies show that inclusive settings with supportive employment decrease psychiatric symptoms and the use of mental health services. By extrapolation, these results point to the possibility that a society-wide reduction in the prevalence and severity of mental illness may come from benevolent changes in the social climate, not just from innovative treatments. Public health policies rarely take this possibility into consideration in resource allocation decisions.     

The ironic detachment of Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon, the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has been widely recognized as a master of irony. The historian's early life with parents he found self-serving and unreliable, his reaction to the events surrounding the death of his mother at the age of 9 and the decline of his father, left an impact on his personality and played a role in determining his choice of his life work. Irony has been approached from a psychoanalytic perspective as a mode of communication, as a stylistic device, as a modality through which one might view reality and as a way of uncovering the linkage between pretense and aspiration, between the apparent and the real. Gibbon's ironic detachment can be understood as rooted in his life history. He felt detached from his family of origin, in need of a protective device which would enable him to deal with passion. Sexual and aggressive impulses mobilized defensive postures that were later transformed into an attitude of skepticism and an interest in undercutting false beliefs and irrational authority, positions he attributes to religious ideation which served to instigate historical decline.