book: A History of Delusions, Victoria Shepherd
as a person who experiences psychosis/delusions & general dpdr malaise , I'm always wary to pick up literature on said experiences. after all, psychotics are frequently demonized, dehumanized, etc, to say the least.
I picked up this book as it focuses on humanizing famous psychotic people , people known only for their psychosis and their psychiatrists/psychologists and nothing else. clinical anonymization means these people, e.g. âMadame Mâ of Capgrasâ delusion (which I've experienced) , 'Madame Xâ of Cotardâs, are known as diagnoses rather than people. & the diagnoses, well, they "belong" to their doctors, possessive apostrophe-S. all of 'Madame X' belongs to Cotard, 'Madame M' to Capgras, repeat ad infinitum in the cases where the diagnosis-names aren't simply detached descriptions of symptoms.
Shepherd spends a lot of time digging to contextualize these people, to discuss the world they lived in. the book adopts the hypothesis that delusions are just another way of the brain attempting to keep-on-going in the face of unacceptable circumstances like the traumas of war, disease, & death. therefore it takes on a two-pronged goal of both humanizing these âpatientsâ into people as well as showing how the world-context / lived experiences of these people leads to their delusions being âtellingâ . I found a lot of Shepherdâs context-driven speculation around delusions I've experienced to⊠idk, hit pretty close to home, like when song lyrics strike something in your soul.
I'm not sure if I entirely vibe w/ Shepherdâs tendency to say things along the lines of , now that [the reader] has seen the context, then it will be easier for them to see how the delusions Make Sense and relate to [person experiencing delusion]. I don't think delusions need to be decoded or related to , unless a person has requested assistance in doing so for their own delusions. Nevertheless, it has been an interesting angle to apply to my own experience of psychosis.
generally, though, a good read. it was refreshing to read something on psychosis that isn't demonizing, fetishizing, and so forth. Shepherdâs tone is very much âthis just is something that some people experienceâ which is rare in psychosis discussions.
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