Literature and medicine
1996; Elsevier BV; Volume: 348; Issue: 9031 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1016/s0140-6736(05)64766-6
ISSN1474-547X
AutoresFemi Oyebode, Christina Pourgourides,
Tópico(s)Mental Health and Psychiatry
ResumoWe were interested in the comments of McLellan and Jones (July 13, p 109) 1 McLellan MF Jones AH Why Literature and Medicine?. Lancet. 1996; 348: 109-111 Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (73) Google Scholar about the relation between literature and medicine, which is particularly close in psychiatry. Great literature is a source of information about the nature and origin of human emotions and behaviour, and the works of gifted writers with psychiatric disorders are perhaps the richest source of knowledge about mental illness. This is simply because the capacity of these writers to describe their experiences, and to draw on their insights into the subjective quality of these experiences, is better than that of the average person. For example, Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar2 Plath S The bell jar. Heinemann Ltd, London1963 Google Scholar and Janet Frame's autobiographical novel Faces in the Water3 Frame J Faces in the water. The Women's Press, London1980 Google Scholar enrich our understanding of the subjective experience of mental illness. If we accept autobiography as part of the family of literary texts then the account of melancholia by William Styron in Darkness Visible, 4 Styron W Darkness visible. Jonathan Cape, London1990 Google Scholar and Sarah Ferguson's A Guard Within, 5 Ferguson S A guard within. Chatto and Windus, London1973 Google Scholar which narrates the inner anguish characteristic of profound personal loss, are certainly as valuable to the psychiatrist as any clinical text.
Referência(s)