'My insanity in the year 1783', by C.S. Andresen (1801). Issue 4 (December 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Schioldann, Johan; Berrios, German E
• Is Part Of: History of psychiatry. Volume 31:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 495
• Page End: 510
• Publication Date: 2020-12
• Subjects: Madness -- manic-depressive illness -- psychiatry -- retrospective diagnosis -- self-reports; Psychiatry -- History -- Periodicals; Mental illness -- History -- Periodicals; 616.89009
• DOI: 10.1177/0957154X20933848
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0957-154X

Abstract

The literature of the past has included self-reports by the mentally ill since before Roy Porter reminded us that their views and experiences constitute an important document for historians of psychiatry. The value of these self-reports can be enhanced if their potential biases and informational power are duly determined. This Classic Text concerns a self-report of a form of periodic madness written by an eighteenth-century Danish vicar. It shows how the same document can be presented in a more or less neutral fashion by a medical historian (Maar) or used as 'evidence' for some 'ontological' view of madness by a clinician (Rasmussen).