Jane Wood
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187608
- eISBN:
- 9780191674723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187608.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter explores the relationship between physiology and consciousness. It begins with the shared fascination of doctors and fiction writers for states of altered consciousness such as those ...
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This chapter explores the relationship between physiology and consciousness. It begins with the shared fascination of doctors and fiction writers for states of altered consciousness such as those experienced in delirium. Collins's Basil and Dickens's Great Expectations and Bleak House are only three of the many literary texts in the period shortly after the mid-century which make use of altered consciousness in delirium to examine concepts of identity away from the objects and events that fill normal waking life. This chapter then turns to the period when mental science became more directly linked to physiology and neurology through the fast developing life sciences.Less
This chapter explores the relationship between physiology and consciousness. It begins with the shared fascination of doctors and fiction writers for states of altered consciousness such as those experienced in delirium. Collins's Basil and Dickens's Great Expectations and Bleak House are only three of the many literary texts in the period shortly after the mid-century which make use of altered consciousness in delirium to examine concepts of identity away from the objects and events that fill normal waking life. This chapter then turns to the period when mental science became more directly linked to physiology and neurology through the fast developing life sciences.
Andrew M. Fearnley
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780300117592
- eISBN:
- 9780300210804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300117592.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Clinical Child Psychology / School Psychology
This chapter analyzes the Yale Longitudinal Study (YLS)—which documented the early and middle childhood years of a dozen children in New Haven County, Connecticut—within the context of other similar ...
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This chapter analyzes the Yale Longitudinal Study (YLS)—which documented the early and middle childhood years of a dozen children in New Haven County, Connecticut—within the context of other similar studies that were carried out during the middle decades of the twentieth century. It shows how the YLS became a popular tool for many practitioners in the field of child psychiatry from the 1950s through the mid-1970s when investigating children's cognitive, social, and emotional development. It also examines the role played by the YLS in the transformation of research on children within the mental sciences in the post-World War II era. The chapter argues that longitudinal research was embraced by child psychiatrists because it offered a means of accurately documenting the psychological phenomena involved in child development, including ego formation, development of individuality, and mother-child interactions.Less
This chapter analyzes the Yale Longitudinal Study (YLS)—which documented the early and middle childhood years of a dozen children in New Haven County, Connecticut—within the context of other similar studies that were carried out during the middle decades of the twentieth century. It shows how the YLS became a popular tool for many practitioners in the field of child psychiatry from the 1950s through the mid-1970s when investigating children's cognitive, social, and emotional development. It also examines the role played by the YLS in the transformation of research on children within the mental sciences in the post-World War II era. The chapter argues that longitudinal research was embraced by child psychiatrists because it offered a means of accurately documenting the psychological phenomena involved in child development, including ego formation, development of individuality, and mother-child interactions.
James R. Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195331493
- eISBN:
- 9780199852321
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331493.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Scientology, its beliefs, practices, and the conflicts and controversies associated with it. The Church of Scientology originated from a therapy ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of Scientology, its beliefs, practices, and the conflicts and controversies associated with it. The Church of Scientology originated from a therapy movement called Dianetics, founded by L. Ron Hubbard. In 1950, Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, describing techniques designed to eliminate irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses. The birth of Scientology was announced in 1951 soon after Dianetics became a bestseller and groups were formed to participate in the so-called “auditing” process. Dianetics and Scientology auditing consists of an “auditor” guiding someone through various mental processes in order to first free the individual of the effects of the “reactive mind,” and then to fully realize the spiritual nature of the person.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of Scientology, its beliefs, practices, and the conflicts and controversies associated with it. The Church of Scientology originated from a therapy movement called Dianetics, founded by L. Ron Hubbard. In 1950, Hubbard published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, describing techniques designed to eliminate irrational fears and psychosomatic illnesses. The birth of Scientology was announced in 1951 soon after Dianetics became a bestseller and groups were formed to participate in the so-called “auditing” process. Dianetics and Scientology auditing consists of an “auditor” guiding someone through various mental processes in order to first free the individual of the effects of the “reactive mind,” and then to fully realize the spiritual nature of the person.
Anne C. Rose
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832813
- eISBN:
- 9781469605630
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807894095_rose
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented ...
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In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented conflicting views of human nature. American psychiatry and psychology were optimistic about personality growth guided by the new mental sciences. Segregation, in contrast, placed racial traits said to be natural and fixed at the forefront of identity. In a society built on racial differences, raising questions about human potential, as psychology did, was unsettling. As this book lays out, the introduction of psychological thinking into the Jim Crow South produced neither a clear victory for racial equality nor a single-minded defense of traditional ways. Instead, professionals of both races treated the mind-set of segregation as a hazardous subject. The book examines the tensions stirred by mental science and restrained by southern custom. It highlights the role of southern black intellectuals who embraced psychological theories as an instrument of reform; their white counterparts, who proved wary of examining the mind; and northerners eager to change the South by means of science. The book argues that although psychology and psychiatry took root as academic disciplines, all these practitioners were reluctant to turn the sciences of the mind to the subject of race relations.Less
In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented conflicting views of human nature. American psychiatry and psychology were optimistic about personality growth guided by the new mental sciences. Segregation, in contrast, placed racial traits said to be natural and fixed at the forefront of identity. In a society built on racial differences, raising questions about human potential, as psychology did, was unsettling. As this book lays out, the introduction of psychological thinking into the Jim Crow South produced neither a clear victory for racial equality nor a single-minded defense of traditional ways. Instead, professionals of both races treated the mind-set of segregation as a hazardous subject. The book examines the tensions stirred by mental science and restrained by southern custom. It highlights the role of southern black intellectuals who embraced psychological theories as an instrument of reform; their white counterparts, who proved wary of examining the mind; and northerners eager to change the South by means of science. The book argues that although psychology and psychiatry took root as academic disciplines, all these practitioners were reluctant to turn the sciences of the mind to the subject of race relations.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226709635
- eISBN:
- 9780226709659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226709659.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter resurrects a substantial body of Shakespeare criticism in the first-ever psychiatric journal, the American Journal of Insanity. In this work, the physicians cite the Bard as a precursor ...
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This chapter resurrects a substantial body of Shakespeare criticism in the first-ever psychiatric journal, the American Journal of Insanity. In this work, the physicians cite the Bard as a precursor to themselves, modern mental health specialists, on the basis of his theories and even practices of mental science, and they appropriate his legacy in an attempt to legitimate their new profession. For the early psychiatrists, William Shakespeare's medical infallibility both mirrored and masked their own fiercely guarded institutional authority. In their role as critics of modernity who nonetheless were at the vanguard of progress, they appealed to him as a premodern visionary who intuited the modern world but was uncorrupted by it. The chapter concludes with an account of patients reading Shakespeare and responding—sometimes strenuously—to what they perceived as their doctors' misreadings; they used the almost scriptural authority of the Bard to contest the regime of their doctors in much the way that slaves used the bible against the masters who gave it to them.Less
This chapter resurrects a substantial body of Shakespeare criticism in the first-ever psychiatric journal, the American Journal of Insanity. In this work, the physicians cite the Bard as a precursor to themselves, modern mental health specialists, on the basis of his theories and even practices of mental science, and they appropriate his legacy in an attempt to legitimate their new profession. For the early psychiatrists, William Shakespeare's medical infallibility both mirrored and masked their own fiercely guarded institutional authority. In their role as critics of modernity who nonetheless were at the vanguard of progress, they appealed to him as a premodern visionary who intuited the modern world but was uncorrupted by it. The chapter concludes with an account of patients reading Shakespeare and responding—sometimes strenuously—to what they perceived as their doctors' misreadings; they used the almost scriptural authority of the Bard to contest the regime of their doctors in much the way that slaves used the bible against the masters who gave it to them.
John Attridge
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748693252
- eISBN:
- 9781474412346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693252.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter considers James’s The Awkward Age (1899) in the context of fin de siècle mental science and its preoccupation, most evident in theories of emotion, with the materiality of the mind. ...
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This chapter considers James’s The Awkward Age (1899) in the context of fin de siècle mental science and its preoccupation, most evident in theories of emotion, with the materiality of the mind. Contributing to recent accounts that challenge the commonplace equation between psychological depth and James’s transition to modernist novel, the chapter argues that The Awkward Age represents mental life – and in particular awkwardness – as public behavior rather than introspection, self-presence and interiority. In a similar fashion to late-Victorian mental scientists (including his brother, William), James was concerned with finding a vocabulary for representing mental life in physical terms, demonstrating the interrelation of mind and body. James’s use of a behavioural rather than expressive vocabulary for embarrassment determines the shape of the novel’s plot and forms part of its critique of a Victorian prudery that presupposes a mind-matter separation.Less
This chapter considers James’s The Awkward Age (1899) in the context of fin de siècle mental science and its preoccupation, most evident in theories of emotion, with the materiality of the mind. Contributing to recent accounts that challenge the commonplace equation between psychological depth and James’s transition to modernist novel, the chapter argues that The Awkward Age represents mental life – and in particular awkwardness – as public behavior rather than introspection, self-presence and interiority. In a similar fashion to late-Victorian mental scientists (including his brother, William), James was concerned with finding a vocabulary for representing mental life in physical terms, demonstrating the interrelation of mind and body. James’s use of a behavioural rather than expressive vocabulary for embarrassment determines the shape of the novel’s plot and forms part of its critique of a Victorian prudery that presupposes a mind-matter separation.
James Poskett
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226626758
- eISBN:
- 9780226626895
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226626895.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter argues that phrenologists used correspondence to establish reform as a global political project. It explores this argument in three different reform debates: abolition, education, and ...
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This chapter argues that phrenologists used correspondence to establish reform as a global political project. It explores this argument in three different reform debates: abolition, education, and prisons. In doing so, it traces the relationship between science and politics across the globe, ranging from the United States to the Pacific. It also argues that phrenologists saw the very act of writing a letter as a practice of reform in its own right, a practice which could reform the mind as well.Less
This chapter argues that phrenologists used correspondence to establish reform as a global political project. It explores this argument in three different reform debates: abolition, education, and prisons. In doing so, it traces the relationship between science and politics across the globe, ranging from the United States to the Pacific. It also argues that phrenologists saw the very act of writing a letter as a practice of reform in its own right, a practice which could reform the mind as well.
