Ninth annual report to the committee from the medical director : presented 31st December, 1930 / The Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders.

  • Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders (Richmond, England)
Date:
[1931?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ninth annual report to the committee from the medical director : presented 31st December, 1930 / The Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/24 (page 7)
    A clergyman, aged 27, unmarried, suffered from insomnia, occasional alcoholic bouts and terrifying nightmares. Soon after admission to hospital, further symptoms of visual hallucinations were complained of and sometimes preposterous ideas, which he knew to be absurd obsessed him. The uncontrollable mental activities were so vivid and persistent, that he thought he was going mad. He said that the alcoholic bouts were an attempt to escape from the horrible thoughts. The dreams and hallucinations were of a terrifying and disgusting nature, but he knew that they were the result of a sick mind, though he had thought of ending his life to put a stop to the suffering. His life story showed that his sexual desires and activities were not in accordance with the prin¬ ciples of his church or society, and his sense of shame and guilt were considerable. Confession of his misdoings and relation of his horrid mental presentations intensified his distress so much, that con¬ siderable doses of sedatives were given for some days lest he should decide to take any drastic steps. He quietened down and after being very hostile for some time, proceeded with his interviews with the doctor. It appears he was an imaginative boy who indulged in extravagant day-dreams. He read with joy Dante’s “ Inferno,” and the stories by Poe, he also loved to read of murders, ghosts and every¬ thing sensational. His father, a clerg^^man, instructed him in the principles of Christianity and a morbid interest in the Crucifixion, and Resurrection, developed in him. At puberty his sexual feelings became strong and remained so and bothered him, for deviation from normal desires developed along with the normal. His father died and his subsequent grief was unduly protracted. He felt he ought to look after his mother, and it was to please her that he became a clerg5^man. She was too narrow-minded and unimaginative for him, and he came to dislike her and finally to hate her .He had horrid thoughts about and against her and believed he was wicked and currupt in mind and body. Later his morbid and gruesome interests had become tangled up with Christian beliefs. His sexual longings, his sense of guilt and ideas about strange ancient religious rites had become woven in also, and could not be un¬ ravelled. He had become very confused and could hardly distinguish reality from imagination. All these thoughts and practices had been present for many years. He had become a thoroughly unreliable person ; but his public appearances were quite normal. Attempts were made with considerable success to help him to separate facts from fiction and faith from both, and to get ideas about his mother, birth, reproduction and death into better per¬ spective. His symptoms ceased and he took up theological work again. Patient No. 4 was of interest in a negative way. Many physicians had seen her and no one had been able to get a word out of her with regard to her case. She had attacks when she jerked her body and talked to invisible people. These were of no long duration. If one kept conversation on general subjects, she was bright and intelligent though uneducated. She was artistic and clever with her fingers, but the slightest attempt to turn the conversation on to her health made her shut her mouth and refuse to utter a word. Among the patients classified as suffering from psychoneuroses, who did not improve, there is one who committed suicide. This patient, aged 39, did not seem to suffer from anything except phobias. He feared that he might be swept away by a passing train while he was standing on the platform, that he might fall from a window, that he might kill his wife and children. Behind this was a fear of insanity. A sister had been killed by a train and it was doubtful whether this was an