Regarding an assignment she gives to students in her abnormal-psychology
course, the ever-informative Beth Benoit wrote:
>So I often have them select a character from a book or movie
(preferably
>with an obvious diagnosis, such as Glenn Close's "Fatal Attraction"
>character, who was a borderline, or Sigourney Weaver's
agoraphobic/panic
>disorder character in "Copycat").
And the definitely nonhysterical but still infamous Dr. Nanjo wrote in
response to another post:
>I would speculate that Blanche in "Streetcar" is a pretty good
fictional
>representation of a person with histrionic personality disorder, and
perhaps
>a co-existing depression or bipolar illness.
Let me tell you about my experience of synchronicity! Just after I read
these messages, I saw the following in a book I currently am reading by
Elaine Showalter (1997):
"[A]fter centuries of serving as the wastebasket diagnosis of psychiatry
and medicine, hysteria has now become the wastebasket category of
literary criticism, into which any excitable heroine from Jane Eyre to
Blanche DuBois [yes...Blanche DuBois!] can be tossed. The label has been
applied to stories in which heroines become mute or nervous invalids but
also to stories in which they are merely unhappy, histrionic,
rebellious, or shaky. Critics see George Eliot's sexually repressed
heroines as the paradigmatic nineteenth-century hysterics: the jumpy
Maggy T., the 'incipiently hysterical' Dorothea B., or the frigid
Gwendolen H." (p. 91)
The point being made here is that one could take almost any female
character appearing in a novel, short story, or play (or the movies
based on them) published from 1895 to the present and she probably could
be diagnosed with one or more "hysterical disorders" (especially
histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, one of
several anxiety disorders, and/or one of several somatoform disorders;
and let's not forget the recent favorite: multiple personality
disorder).
This tendency to portray female fictional characters as hysterical could
be used as the starting point for a discussion of possible gender biases
in diagnosis as well as a discussion of criticisms made over the last
several decades regarding gender typing and the pathologizing of
so-called "feminine personality traits."
I have been so frightened by this experience of synchronicity that the
entire right side of my body has become numb and I have become mute
(just temporary, I hope). I have cancelled classes and am sending an
emergency message to my therapist. See you soon.
Jeff
Reference:
Showalter, E. (1997). Hystories: Hysterical epidemics and modern media.
New York: Columbia University Press.
--
Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213
9000 E. Chaparral Rd. FAX Number: (480) 423-6298
Psychology Department [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Scottsdale Community College
Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626
"Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths"
Karl Popper
Listowner: Psychologists Educating Students to Think Skeptically (PESTS)
http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/sbscience/pests/index.html
