Posted by Estella on August 22, 2006, at 22:39:48
In reply to Re: historic CSA *trigger*, posted by Racer on August 21, 2006, at 9:50:28
Hey. Yeah I'd heard about shamen (and witches and so forth) as people who were 'mad' before the concept of 'madness' became medicalised. Some people think that that is how mental illness expressed itself, others think that mental illness has nothing to do with it. I'm not sure what I think, I haven't read around the issue very much. Truth probably lies somewhere in the middle etc.
I guess one thing it is important to bear in mind is that while to many people schizophrenia = madness it isn't that simple. Schizophrenia is a particular type of 'madness' (though i'm not particularly fond of the term madness). One could hold that there was madness before the 1800's while still maintaining that schizophrenia didn't exist before the 1800's. Apparantly depression and bi-polar have a long history of documentation...
What the anthro guy was saying is... Very controversial. I mean, it is a major theory, yes. Like maintaining that witches were hysterics or epileptics. But there are other major theories too.
> He said, "These cultures had a job for the mentally ill,"... that person had a position of prestige in the society which included having other people provide food, shelter, and the other needs of survival.
Then it can't be schizophrenia because it doesn't even meet DSM criteria for a mental illness. Remember the blurb in the DSM about how in order to have mental illness one must be socially etc impaired. These people don't seem impared in their functioning so much as superior.
One could view it as a pre-cursor to schizophrenia.
poster:Estella
thread:629255
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060808/msgs/679194.html