Mad, Bad, and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors

by Lisa Appignanesi

  influence in breeding Henry Maudsley, The Pathology of Mind (1895), p. 536

  vicious impulses Ibid., pp. 397–8

  4 Nerves

  railway spine See Allan Young, The Harmony of Illusions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), for a full discussion of nervous shock originating in railway accidents

  to light or noise Joris-Karl Huysmans, A Rebours, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Penguin Books, 1966), p. 18

  ruins the slave S. Weir Mitchell, Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System, Especially in Women, 2nd edn (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea’s Son & Co., 1885), pp. 263–4, 270–1

  careful preservation Handbook for the Instruction of Attendants on the Insane, Prepared by a SubCommittee of the Medico-Psychological Association (London: Baillière & Co., 1884), p. 13

  nervous force George Beard, ‘Neurasthenia or Nervous Exhaustion’, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 80 (29 Apr. 1869), pp. 217–21, quoted in Shorter, From Paralysis to Fatigue, p. 221

  utter incapacitation Janet Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 81

  physiological and the psychological Michael Barfoot, ‘Thomas Laycock’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/

  diseases of excitement Thomas Laycock, Mind and Brain, 2 vols (London: Marshall Simpkin, 1860), vol. 2, p. 317, cited in Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves, p. 187

  coquette by nature Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Boston: Peter Edes, 1792), ch. 3, available at http://www.bartleby.com/144/3.html

  continuity of effort J. S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (London: Longmans, 1869), ch. 3, available at http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/ m/mill/john_stuart/m645s/, facsimile of 4th edn available at http://oll.liberty-fund.org/Home3/ Book.php?recordID=0130

  sexless dystopia Henry Maudsley, ‘Sex in Mind and Education’, Fortnightly Review 15 (1874), pp. 466–83

  obdurate and resistant James Crichton-Browne published many articles on the brain in his journal. See Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves, pp. 188–93. See also Trevor Turner, ‘James Crichton-Browne and the antipsycho-analysts’, in Hugh Freeman and German Berrios (eds), 150 Years of British Psychiatry, vol. II: The Aftermath (London: Athlone Press, 1996), pp. 144–55

  influence of dulness Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, ‘Sex in Mind and Education: A Reply’, Fortnightly Review 17 (1874), p. 590

  never-ending fight Alice James, The Diary of Alice James, ed. Leon Edel (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1964), pp. 149–50

  death of a husband Silas Weir Mitchell, Westways (New York: Century Co., 1913), p. 387

  undesired symptoms Silas Weir Mitchell, Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea’s Son & Co., 1885), 2nd edn, p. 181

  revolutionary influences Ibid., p. 125

  provided passive exercise Ibid., p. 270

  out of bed This story is told by Jean Strouse in her biography Alice James (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1984)

  prevented from writing For a fine analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper, see Showalter, The Female Malady, pp. 140–2

  moral stability Strouse, Alice James, p. 223

  sound health Ibid., pp. 221–5

  unadulterated Jackson Probably the great Boston pioneer of neurology, James Jackson Putnam, who taught at Harvard and worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital and who was known to all the Jameses

  the male sex Quoted in Jean Strouse, Alice James, p. 236

  5 Hysteria

  to the church Quoted in Goldstein, Console and Classify, p. 374

  common type J.M. Charcot, Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System (London: New Sydenham Society, 1881), trans. and ed. George Sigerson (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1962), pp. 2–3

  this kind of seeing SE III, p. 12

  brightly coloured ribbons D.M. Bourneville and P. Regnard, Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière (Paris: Progrès Médical, 1876–80), vol. II, p. 125

  hurting me Ibid., p. 131

  Charcot’s archive Ernest Jones, in his three-volume work Sigmund Freud, Life and Work (New York: Basic Books, 1953–7), talks about Freud’s one extravagance in Paris being the purchase of a complete set of Charcot’s archives (see vol. 1, p. 202). His library also contained a copy of the Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière, though he didn’t take it to London with him

  all my interest On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, SE XIV, pp. 13–14

  people speak Bourneville and Regnard, Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière, vol. III, p. 199

  front of everyone Ibid., p. 188

  her into sleep Ibid., p. 198

  hypnotizing doctors Jacqueline Carroy, Hypnose, Suggestion et Psychologie (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 1991), pp. 72–5

  pain disorder See Mark Micale, Approaching Hysteria (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 4; Steven E. Hyler and Robert Spitzer, ‘Hysteria Split Asunder’, American Journal of Psychiatry 135, no. 12, pp. 1500–4. For DSM, see http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/_misc/complete_tables.htm

  her Hystories Elaine Showalter, Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997)

  young widows William Cullen, Clinical lectures, delivered in the years 1765 and 1766, by William Cullen, M.D…. Taken in shorthand by a gentleman who attended (London: 1797), pp. 265–7. See ‘Eighteenth Century Collections Online’, Gale Group, available at http://www.gale.com/EighteenthCentury/

  Hippocrates, marriage Philippe Pinel, Nosographie philosophique, vol. 3, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, electronic version based on Paris, J.A.B. Rosson, 1810, pp. 279–85

  the treatment Quoted in Goldstein, Console and Classify, pp. 37f. from ‘Charcot dévoilé’, Revue scientifique des femmes 1 (1888), esp. p. 245

  6 Sleep

  scientized Cf. Ian Hacking, Rewriting the Soul (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995); Sonu Shamdasani’s introduction to Théodore Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994)

  practice in Britain See Janet Oppenheim’s excellent Shattered Nerves for a thorough analysis of ‘depression’ in the Victorian age

  refinement and spirituality Alison Winter, Mesmerized (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 213–17

  please the family From Pierre Janet, ‘The Relation of the Neuroses to the Psychoses’, in Howard Townsend, Bronson Winthrop and R. Horace Gallatin (eds), A Psychiatric Milestone: Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821–1921 (New York: Society of the New York Hospital, 1921), available at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15365

  diverse and transient H.A. Taine, De l’Intelligence (1870), quoted by Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, p. 164

  Switzerland and America Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, pp. 169–70

  of 1885 Stevenson corresponded with Pierre Janet while writing Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Cf. Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, p. 278

  Academy of Sciences Charcot, ‘On the Various Nervous States Determined by Hypnotization in Hysterics’ (1882)

  abolished as well Pierre Janet, L’automatisme psychologique (Paris: Alcan, 1889), pp. 136–7

  especially prone SE XI, pp. 12–13

  been interrupted Janet, L’Automatisme psychologique, pp. 436–49, quoted by H.F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (London: Allen Lane, 1970), pp. 361–4

  day by day SE II, p. 33

  talked away SE II, p. 35

  pathogenic power SE XII, ‘On Psychoanalysis’, p. 207

  the laboratory Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars, ed. and introduced by Sonu Shamdasani, cited in the introduction, p. xiii

  psychic protection Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, pp. 317–18

  and his rationalism C.G. Jung, ‘Flournoy’, in Memories, Dreams and Recollections (New York: Pantheon), 1963

  up to 1900 Deirdre Bair, Jung: A Biography (New York/London: Little, Brown, 2004), pp. 47–52, 62–4. See also H.F. Ellenb
erger’s seminal ‘The Story of Hélène Preiswerk’, in History of Psychiatry, vol. 2, part 1, no. 5 (Mar. 1991)

  ordinary awareness William James and Théodore Flournoy, The Letters of William James and Théodore Flournoy, ed. R. Le Clair (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), pp. 47–8

  strange linguistic structures Mireille Cifali, Appendix in Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars, p. 274

  upon Hélène Ibid., p. 11

  heard or read William James, Principles of Psychology, 1890 edn (London: Macmillan, 1918), p. 601

  Abwehr Psychosen Flournoy, From India to the Planet Mars, p. 207

  agitated her Ibid., quoted and trans. by Sonu Shamdasani, from Waldemar Deonna and C.E. Muller, De la Planète Mars en Terre Sainte (Paris: 1932), which explores Hélène Smith’s life after Flournoy and as a painter-medium

  in constant motion Morton Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality (Cambridge: CUP, 1905), pp. 14–15

  at the time In Studies on Hysteria, Freud is at pains to distinguish between hysteria and anxiety neuroses, since patients with either diagnosis sometimes somatize in the same way–using their bodies to express inner conflicts. Dissociation, however, and certainly the more extreme somnambulistic multiples are categorized as hysteric. Multiples seem to disappear from the diagnostic repertoire for women around the same time as hysterics

  what illness means Prince, The Dissociation of a Personality, pp. 15–17

  the other sex Morton Prince, ‘Sexual Perversion or Vice? A Pathological and Therapeutic Inquiry’ (1898), quoted in Ruth Leys, Trauma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 64–5

  Miss Beauchamp Leys, Trauma, p. 79fn

  of Morton Prince Ibid., p. 42

  senseless taboos G. Stanley Hall, American Journal of Psychology 29 (1918), pp. 144–58; see p. 154

  PART 3

  7 Sex

  Celia Brandon For reasons of confidentiality, the patient’s name and family details have been changed. I am grateful to Lothian Health Services Archive, Edinburgh University Library, for their help here

  Textbook of Insanity Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Textbook of Insanity Based on Clinical Observations, trans. Charles Gilbert Chaddock (Philadelphia: 1904), p. 81. See also Arnold I. Goldman, ‘Sex and the Emergence of Sexuality’, Critical Inquiry vol. 14, no. 1 (Fall 1987)

  altogether satisfactorily Richard von Krafft-Ebing, ‘Neuropathis sexualis feminarum’, in W. Zulzer, Klinisches Handbuch der Harn-und Sexualorgane (Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1894), pp. 88–91

  of their wives Ibid., p. 93

  hierarchy of value Otto Weininger, Sex and Character (New York: Putnam, 1907)

  unmarried motherhood Ivan Bloch, The Sexual Life of Our Times in Its Relation to Modern Civilization (London: Rebman, 1910), p. 276 and passim

  committed to Bethlem I am indebted for this information to Dr Cyril Cannon who has done extraordinary research on the British in China

  have to meet See Emil Kraepelin, Lectures on Clinical Psychiatry, ed. Thomas Johnstone (New York: Hofner Publishing Co., 1968)

  on others ‘Civilized Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness’, SE IX, p. 192

  Holmes of the Mind For the early reception of Freud in Britain, see Dean Rapp, ‘The Early Discovery of Freud by the British General Educated Public, 1912–1919’, Society for the Social History of Medicine 1990, pp. 217–43. See also W. Brown, ‘Dreams: The Latest Views of Science’, Strand Magazine, Jan. 1913, pp. 83–8; E.S. Grew, ‘The Factory of Dreams: How and Why We Have Them’, Pall Mall Magazine, Sept. 1913, pp. 358–65; Saturday Review, 11 July 1914, p. 51

  their medical treatment SE XIX, ‘A Short Account of Psychoanalysis’(1924)

  of the neurosis SE III, p. 149

  gruesome trick on us Cited in Hannah Decker, Freud in Germany (New York: International Universities Press, 1977), p. 102

  the more capable FJ, Freud to Jones, 28 Apr. 1938

  8 Schizophrenia

  outburst of laughter Emil Kraepelin, Dementia Praecox and Paraphrenia, trans. R.M. Barclay (Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone, 1919)

  suicidal drive Eugen Bleuler, Dementia Praecox or The Group of Schizophrenias, trans. Joseph Zinkin (New York: International Universities Press, 1955), p. 489

  creating neologisms Ibid., pp. 294, 295

  a meaning and a causation ‘A Short Account of Psychoanalysis’, SE XIX, pp. 191–212

  sign of loathing Jung, ‘The Freudian Theory of Hysteria’ (1908), CW IV, pp. 20–1

  marked sexual excitement John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), pp. 112–13, citing Jung, ‘The Psychology of Dementia Praecox’, CW III 46

  I naturally concur Zvi Lothane, ‘In Defense of Sabina Spielrein’, International Forum of PsychoAnalysis 5 (1996), pp. 203–17. I am indebted to Zvi Lothane’s excellent article for the Burghölzli admission records

  a great deal Sabina Spielrein ‘Secret symmetry’, diary, 11 Sept. 1910, in Aldo Cartenuto (ed.), A Secret Symmetry (London: RKP, 1984), p. 11

  of the anima See Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method, pp. 506–7, and Lothane, ‘In Defense of Sabina Spielrein’

  Hélène Preiswerk H.F. Ellenberger, ‘The Story of Hélène Preiswerk’, History of Psychiatry, vol. 2, part 1, no. 5 (Mar. 1991), p. 52

  interested her husband Cartenuto, A Secret Symmetry, SS to Freud, 13 June 1909, pp. 101–2

  your saucy letters Quoted in Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method, p. 196 ff.

  crude transference FJ, Jung to Freud, 12 June 1907, p. 63

  reflected on abstinence Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method, p. 297

  for the schizophrenic Sabina Spielrein, A Case of Schizophrenia, quoted in ibid., p. 298

  representative in Vienna Quoted and trans. in Lothane, ‘In Defense of Sabina Spielrein’

  differs from paranoia SE XII, pp. 76–7, ‘On an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia’ (Schreber case), 1911

  drink and dissipation Quoted in F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night, preface by Malcolm Cowley (London: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 13

  1930 came breakdown Zelda’s life is fully portrayed in Nancy Milford’s dazzling biography, Zelda (New York: Avon, 1970)

  few incoherent ones Ibid., p. 197

  factor against me Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks (eds), Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda (London: Bloomsbury, 2002), pp. 81–2 (Letter number 53, Summer 1930)

  into total insanity Matthew J. Bruccoli and Margaret M. Duggan (eds), Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 254 (Paris, 1 December 1930)

  play in your own backyard Bryer and Barks (eds), p. 87 (Letter number 57, June 1930)

  arrived here Ibid., p. 83 (Letter number 54, Summer 1930)

  popular songs Matthew J. Bruccoli (ed.), Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writings (London: Abacus, 1991), p. 429 (From ‘1931’ in ‘Show Mr. and Mrs. F to Number—’)

  slight tendency to schitzophrenie Byer and Barks (eds), p. 104 (Letter number 72, Spring/Summer 1931)

  person is schizophrenic Ibid., Milford, letter of 9 March 1966, p. 473

  Carol Loeb Shloss Carol Loeb Shloss, Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake (London: Bloomsbury, 2004)

  analogy for schizophrenia C.G. Jung, ‘Ulysses: A Monologue’, The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), pp. 112–17

  schizophrenia as psychogenic Shorter, A History of Psychiatry, pp. 91–3, 109–12 and passim

  pages of an album Scott Fitzgerald to Mildred Squires, 8 Mar. 1932, quoted in Milford, Zelda, p. 261

  and a feueté Bruccoli and Duggan (eds), pp. 283–4 (after February 1932). This appears in Zelda’s phonic spelling and is evidently fouetté, though the eds have strangely changed it to finité which has no link to any ballet step

  adept at self-concealment R.D. Laing, The Divided Self (London: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 37

  the present time Milford, Zelda, p. 315; see also 315ff. for reviews

  many of my experiences Ibid., p. 342

  Lond
on Psychoanalytical Society I am grateful to John Forrester for the information on Wright, some of which is also noted on I.M. Ingram’s highly useful website on Virginia Woolf’s psychiatric history, available at http://www.malcolmingram.com/vwframe.htm

  certainly discussed dreams Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf (London: Chatto & Windus, 1996), pp. 197–8

  laid it to rest Quoted in Jeanne Schulkind (ed.), Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), pp. 80–1. See a similar account that includes both parents and written just a year after To the Lighthouse (1927) in Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, p. 135 (entry dated 28 Nov. 1928)

  been infinitely worse Virginia Woolf, The Diaries, vol. V, 1936–41 (London: Hogarth Press, 1977–84), p. 202

  stopped the creativeness too Alix Strachey, ‘Recollections of Virginia Woolf’(1972) in Joan Russell Noble (ed.), Recollections of Virginia Woolf (London: Cardinal, 1989), pp. 172–3; quoted in Robert Hinshelwood, ‘Virginia Woolf and Psychoanalysis’, International Revue of PsychoAnalysis 17 (1990), p. 367 (letter)

  hoots of laughter http://www.malcolmingram.com/vwframe.htm

  clearing up of amnesias Maurice Craig, Nerve Exhaustion (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1922), pp. 122–6

  sense of proportion Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (London: Penguin Books, 1964), pp 109–10

  the only way out Craig, Nerve Exhaustion, p. 356

  structural principle in the male See also Lisa Appignanesi and John Forrester, Freud’s Women (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992), pp. 434–5

  theory of anxiety F. Fromm-Reichmann, ‘Psychoanalytic and General Dynamic Conceptions of Theory and of Therapy–Differences and Similarities’, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 2 (1954), pp. 711–21; see pp. 716–17

  hand against God Nathan G. Hale Jr, The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States (New York/Oxford: OUP, 1995), pp. 175–6

  attribute of self-esteem Freud had defined a more complex version of this ‘self-regard’ which he deals with in his paper ‘On Narcissism’, SE XIV