Dangerous Ideas in Psychiatry

Catalog description

One day in 19th century France a young man abandons his workplace at a local gas company, wanders off into one general direction without saying goodbye to his loved ones, and winds up on a different continent with little memory of his travels. Soon others follow, not to the same destination but scattered to various foreign lands and cities, enough to cause a short-lived epidemic of compelled vagrancy that would spread from France to Italy, Germany, and Russia before wearing off and leaving the clinical textbooks again. What could it mean for a mental illness to be "real" if it only exists for a time and place? Can things like a particular immigration policy or the popularization of the bicycle contribute to the explanation or even the cause of a diagnosed medical condition? And do people in different societies experience a serious condition like schizophrenia differently? In this class we will study cases in psychiatry that are both politically and scientifically controversial. We will look primarily at culture-bound syndromes which can be specific to certain societies, demographics, countries, and even certain times in history. The class will be centered around individual student projects. You will get to choose a relevant medical phenomenon and explore it from scientific, philosophical, and historical angles throughout the course of the class. I will provide a pool of suitable topics for you to pick from. You are most welcome to suggest a relevant topic that you found yourself. There will be no exams. Instead, there will be a steady and moderate workload in the form of weekly and biweekly assignments pertaining to our readings and your projects so you can receive continuous feedback on how well you apply the general concepts of this class to the individual cases you chose.