Lunacy, Frenzy, Non Compos Mentis: Schizophrenia and Cognitive Dissonance in Early Modern England

这项拟议中的研究探讨了16和17世纪对精神障碍的看法，重点关注与精神分裂症相关的典型症状：精神错乱、狂乱和躁狂。它将使用法律的和医疗记录来识别这些症状的当代描述。它还将研究在多大程度上同时代人认为，这些症状，目前被确定为精神分裂症的病理学的一部分，是连接和不同于其他形式的认知失调。借鉴医学，哲学和宗教文本，我将研究当代的理解的性质和原因，这些症状。我也将检视那些试图“治愈”或照顾那些患有“精神错乱”、“狂乱”和“躁狂”的人，揭示了早期现代对精神异常、失调和痛苦的概念。

The proposed research explores 16th and 17th century perceptions of mental disturbance, focussing on the symptoms typically associated with schizophrenia: lunacy, frenzy and mania. It will use legal and medical records to identify contemporary descriptions of these symptoms. It will also examine how far contemporaries believed that these symptoms, which are currently identified as being part of the pathology of schizophrenia, were connected and were distinct from other forms of cognitive dissonance. Drawing on medical, philosophical and religious texts, I will examine contemporary understandings of the nature and causes of these symptoms. I will also examine what attempts to 'cure' or care for those suffering from 'lunacy', 'frenzy' and 'mania' reveals about early modern conceptions of mental abnormality, disorder and suffering.