Psych Books - Humanities

[drwatson]

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Hello Everyone,

I just browsed through the Books-Sticky but most of those books were "practical" and "academic", most likely helping with things like "patient care".

I was wondering if anyone had read anything on the humanities and psych. Things like psychoanalysis of literature characters or famous people from history. A look at artists work and their related psychopathology. Painting, poetry, sculpture, etc.

Any thoughts/recommendations on this topic?

 

[whopper]

Dorian Grey-character from the Victorian era and the namesake for Dorian Grey syndrome.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered one of the all time greatest works of literature.

IMHO the occult & the supernatural has significance in psychiatry. Many psychosis have some religious/occult/supernatural basis. Religion is important too for the same reason.

Understanding an individual's subculture also helps. Playing video games if you're dealing with kids, understanding punk/goth music for those goth cutter types etc.

Erik Erickson wrote Young Man Luther, a psychoanalysis of the historical character.

Nixon by Oliver Stone too offers a type of psychoanalytic approach to understand the former President.

 

[PsychMD2100]

The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas is a literary case-history of Lisa Erdman, a patient of Freud

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, who herself spent time admitted to McLean Hospital, writes about the mental illness of Esther Greenwood

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen chronicles her own time as an inpatient at McLean; it was later adapted into a screenplay with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie.

 

[Doc Samson]

Temporal lobe epilepsy and the associated perceptual disturbances/character traits seen with Lewis Carroll, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Vincent Van Gogh.

 

[Caetano-MD]

And of course, there's no more intimate portrait of a psychoanalysis patient that Anais Nin herself in her "Diaries of Anais Nin" (by Anais Nin).

Nin, a European based, American-born writer, lived in Paris during the 30's, 40's and 50's and was one of the very first patients to document her treatment of psychoanalysis with Otto Rank, one of its early disciples.

Her diaries are world famous for a Love Triangle she had with Henry Miller and his wife, June. (Hence the Hollywood movie "Henry and June", starring Uma Thurman, adapted from Nin's diaries).

But the most shocking, and perhaps psychoanalytically relevant part of her diaries came from her incestuous relationship AS AN ADULT with her father. "Incest" chronicles her several-year affair with her father (AND, incidentally, another affair with Otto Rank, her therapist). The most surprising thing to me about "Incest" was that she was "romantically in love" with her father--as an adult. And to read a very literate, highly intelligent and articulate woman detail her love affair with her father is--simply put--a monolithic bearing of witness that every therapist should read.

Draw your own conclusions. "Incest" by Anais Nin.

Enjoy!