The Hysteria Problem: Mental Health, Culture and Alternate History

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this first article by @Lilitou here

 

[FriendlyGhost]

A thought-provoking article, certainly. Many thanks to @Lilitou for writing it.

@Gary Oswald - I think there's something missing at the end of the page; under 'Discuss the article' is 'Lilith C.J. Roberts has a story in the anthology' - but which anthology?

 

[Gary Oswald]

A thought-provoking article, certainly. Many thanks to @Lilitou for writing it.

@Gary Oswald - I think there's something missing at the end of the page; under 'Discuss the article' is 'Lilith C.J. Roberts has a story in the anthology' - but which anthology?

Ha, well spotted. It was the Emerald Isles. Corrected now.

 

[Hendryk]

More broadly speaking, of course, if the prevailing culture in your timeline is not Western at all you might find that gender dysphoria is never really pathologised at all, as many cultures have long traditions of less binary gender norms, such as the Samoan third gender fa'afafine, the hijra in South Asia, the kathoey in Thailand, and various gender expressions that contributed to the term two spirit among Indigenous North American peoples. If these cultures were dominant in your timeline – or even if they were merely the focus – then instead one might find no pathologisation of gender dysphoria, or more likely a kind of pathologisation less like our own.

Quite. Buddhism also assumes the existence of at least three genders, with the Pali Canon saying there are four.

We might instead see those kinds of businesspeople highly pathologised, and considered very much in need of help from mental health professionals. It might even get a separate disorder to sociopathy, highly specific to the business environment.

One is reminded of American Psycho, where the protagonist is indeed a murderous psychopath, and nobody notices because his symptoms are undistinguishable from the expected personality traits of Wall Street executives.

 

[TR1996]

Great article.

The extent to which understandings of mental illness can be culturally constructed, often to the detriment of marginalised or disenfranchised groups, is a major fascination of mine. Mental illness and masculinity was the topic of my Honours thesis.

One of the figures I examined in that- and one of my favourite historical figures generally- the Anglo-Indian prince, parliamentarian, and (alleged?) lunatic David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre is sometimes speculated to have been the victim of the sort of cultural dissonance outlined in this article- with the superstitions stigmatised as evidence of delusion being quite reasonable in the Indian context in which he was raised and suchlike.

Another way you could allohistorically play with mental illness would be changing around prominent historical figures who suffered from it. George III came at a rather important time in the emergence and coalescence of pyschiatry as a profession, and the rise of the asylum system as the central location at which the mentally ill were to be cared for.

 

[Hendryk]

Another way you could allohistorically play with mental illness would be changing around prominent historical figures who suffered from it. George III came at a rather important time in the emergence and coalescence of pyschiatry as a profession, and the rise of the asylum system as the central location at which the mentally ill were to be cared for.

And, reminiscing on Foucault's classic thesis, should European history take a different turn in the early modern era, the very concept of an asylum system might not emerge in the first place.

 

[Lilitou]

A thought-provoking article, certainly. Many thanks to @Lilitou for writing it.

Glad you enjoyed it! I really enjoyed writing it, it had been something rattling about in my head for a while.

Quite. Buddhism also assumes the existence of at least three genders, with the Pali Canon saying there are four.

There are so many of these kinds of things that I lose track, but that's interesting to know. I strayed from mentioning it in the article because I can't quite seem to find the source that I read it in, but it was common so many cultures. I think @Gary Oswald even touched on it in relation to Dahomey Amazons, who were sort of socialised as men, and you also have examples from Mesoamerican cultures etc. Even in the Western context you get more bendy gender norms and binaries than we're used to, with the Mollies and the Albanian sworn virgins!

It's a really, really interesting thing to touch on and explore. Especially, even, from a transgender perspective; like, for example I mentioned the hijra and the kathoey, but there are transgender people in those cultures even now - themselves considered hijra or kathoey - who reject that kind of third gender distinction as they simply see themselves as male or female, which I mean, is hard for me not to relate with! This is something I was going to touch on in the article but felt I'd rambled on to long to include, but those kinds of alternate pathologisation could be in this sort of way; putting those people """in their place""" as a third gender, and denying identification with the male or female identity.

One is reminded of American Psycho, where the protagonist is indeed a murderous psychopath, and nobody notices because his symptoms are undistinguishable from the expected personality traits of Wall Street executives.

I should have tied this in!

Great article.

The extent to which understandings of mental illness can be culturally constructed, often to the detriment of marginalised or disenfranchised groups, is a major fascination of mine. Mental illness and masculinity was the topic of my Honours thesis.

One of the figures I examined in that- and one of my favourite historical figures generally- the Anglo-Indian prince, parliamentarian, and (alleged?) lunatic David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre is sometimes speculated to have been the victim of the sort of cultural dissonance outlined in this article- with the superstitions stigmatised as evidence of delusion being quite reasonable in the Indian context in which he was raised and suchlike.

Another way you could allohistorically play with mental illness would be changing around prominent historical figures who suffered from it. George III came at a rather important time in the emergence and coalescence of pyschiatry as a profession, and the rise of the asylum system as the central location at which the mentally ill were to be cared for.

Your Honours thesis sounds fascinating, as is that tale about Sombre!

The asylum system is as a whole very interesting, and of course ties into things like lobotomies and the general treatment of mental health in that period as a societal ill to be dealt with rather than a public health issue to be cured. Unfortuantely, it's not something I'm too knowledgable about as I'm merely a social psychologist, but I'd love to give it a look, as you say it's the kind of thing that wasn't set in stone as an outcome.

 

[Alex Richards]

I think asylums are interesting in that they relate to a very specific period of the professionalisation of health care. They can't exist in a world where medical care is either done at home or at a monastic hospital if the monks believe it to be warranted. They also can't exist in a post-WWII 'we should not be just locking people up because we think they're a bit strange' environment. They're entirely a function of the time between

 

[Talwar]

This was an interesting article on something I'd not really considered in my own writing, so thanks for that.

 

[RyanF]

A provocative first article, one that has application in writing fiction beyond alternate history if you want to portray any culture different from your own, whether real or fantastical.

 

[Charles EP M.]

The asylum system is as a whole very interesting, and of course ties into things like lobotomies and the general treatment of mental health in that period as a societal ill to be dealt with rather than a public health issue

Bethlem has an art museum on its grounds that does cover how displays of patient's art (and IIRC open days in general) was historically "look at these unfortunates and their illness"*, and now it's on use of art therapy, expression, and getting a better understanding of people's lived conditions. This big change in emphasis and assumption of what the place should be doing. (Of course, in both cases it's to increase awareness of the hospital's methods and hoping to boost support)

* On sale is an essay by a former curator, on the popular perception that artist Louis Wain lost the ability to draw a coherent cat picture and is an example of 'schizophrenic art'. The basic argument is very AH, which is "someone put random Wain pictures in order of least to most abstract and assumed this was chronological (we don't know when most were done), if he hadn't done that we wouldn't have this view and we might think something different"

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Excellent article, @Lilitou!

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Great article.

Reminded me of the standard colonial complaint- which you see in Ukraine today- of subaltern nationalisms not being ‘logical.’

Or, for that matter, of the later Soviets using psychiatric treatment as a way of getting dissidents off the street.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Great article.
BTW, between 2015 and its end on 21 January 2021, I followed the Criminal Case game. In the fourth season Mysteries of the Past, set in the late 19th century, one of the districts Grim Chapel had a plot partially revolving around the Gryphon Sanctuary, an asylum. Part of the plot was historically inaccurate as lobotomies did not exist in the late 19th century, though the game moved a number of early 20th century inventions back in time. However, another part of the plot was around nurse Sylvia May using her position to commit people on false grounds. She did so for rich people who wanted to lock up bothersome people in exchange for money. How realistic was such a thing and wrong commitals in general in the late 19th century?

 

[Max Sinister]

Quite. Buddhism also assumes the existence of at least three genders, with the Pali Canon saying there are four.

Which ones?

 

[Jared]

Which ones?

There's a summary here.

 

[Max Sinister]

There's a summary here.

Thankee.

 

[IanBertram]

Great article.

Reminded me of the standard colonial complaint- which you see in Ukraine today- of subaltern nationalisms not being ‘logical.’

Or, for that matter, of the later Soviets using psychiatric treatment as a way of getting dissidents off the street.

It's a long time since I read him, and to be honest, I'm not convinced I was old enough to be sure of understanding him, but does this tie in with R D Laing and the idea that at least some forms of mental illness are culturally determined?

 

[SenatorChickpea]

It's a long time since I read him, and to be honest, I'm not convinced I was old enough to be sure of understanding him, but does this tie in with R D Laing and the idea that at least some forms of mental illness are culturally determined?

I haven’t read Laing, but that seems true to the thrust of @Lilitou’s point.

I think, though, that there is an interesting corollary: just as mental illness, or ‘madness’, or the absence of reason can be culturally determined, so can it be that logic and reason are, in part, culturally determined.

 

[OwenM]

Another example that occurs would be xenophobia, which was originally coined as an explanation for things like the Boxer War and rebellions in colonies - they must just have an irrational hatred of us for being foreign, they can't be angry because of how we've treated them.