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Psychopathologies of time: Defining mental illness in early 20th-century psychiatry

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Fryxell, Allegra RP 

Abstract

jats:pThis article examines the role of time as a methodological tool and pathological focus of clinical psychiatry and psychology in the first half of the 20th century. Contextualizing ‘psychopathologies of time’ developed by practitioners in Europe and North America with reference to the temporal theories implicit in Freudian psychoanalysis and Henri Bergson’s philosophy of durée, it illuminates how depression, schizophrenia, and other mental disorders such as obsessive-compulsive behaviours and aphasia were understood to be symptomatic of an altered or disturbed ‘time-sense’. Drawing upon a model of temporal synthesis whereby in healthy individuals, a subjective temporal sense ( Ichzeit, durée, or personal lifetime) was perceived and understood in relation to objective time frameworks ( Weltzeit, clock-time, or quantitative time models like historical chronology), clinicians argued that mentally ill patients were unable to synthesize Ichzeit and Weltzeit, using variations in this disturbance to define specific pathological conditions.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

44 Human Society, 50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields, 5003 Philosophy, 4410 Sociology, Brain Disorders, Mental Health, Mental health, 3 Good Health and Well Being

Journal Title

History of the Human Sciences

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0952-6951
1461-720X

Volume Title

32

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge