Posted by Squiggles on October 8, 2006, at 6:53:03
In reply to Re: Depression-Anxiety-Panic-I can't leave my hous » getinwl72, posted by Racer on October 8, 2006, at 1:51:58
I've been reading Robert Whitaker's book
"Mad in America" (a real test for
my drug), and have got to the point where
he criticizes Kraepelin in his categorization
of mental illness, by pointing to an
'epidemic' lasting about 20 years of
a condition called 'encephalitis lethargica'.This condition leads to organic brain
disease (a term i don't understand-- is
it different from inorganic brain disease for
example;). Anyway, this condition was around
Kraepelin's time and Whitaker's point is that
many of the patients Kraepelin studied were
not infact manics or schizophrenics, but
could have had this brain virus.As much as I appreciate his historical
description of mental health in America,
this point I think is dubious; and once again
Kraepelin did not distinguish schizophrenia
as unique from manic depression.
He thought schizophrenia was a species of paranoia
or extreme anxiety. I don't know who made
that distinction, but it was not him-- perhaps
it preceded him; maybe it was Freud.Squiggles
poster:Squiggles
thread:691873
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061003/msgs/692924.html