A history of delusions : the glass king, a substitute husband and a walking corpse / Victoria Shepherd.
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780861540914
- 0861540913
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
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Main Library | NonFiction | 616.89 S548 | Available | 33111010867550 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The extraordinary ways the brain can misfire
A curious history of the strange, wonderful and sometimes terrifying worlds created by our minds.
'An utterly engrossing book.' ZOE WILLIAMS
For centuries we've dismissed delusions as something for doctors to sort out behind locked doors. But delusions are more than just bizarre quirks - they hold the key to collective anxieties and traumas.
In this groundbreaking history, Victoria Shepherd uncovers stories of delusions from medieval times to the present day and implores us to identify reason in apparent madness.
Discover how the King of France - thinking he was made of glass - was terrified he might shatter... and he wasn't alone... Uncover the peculiar case of the dozens of Victorian women who tried to convince their physicians that they were, in fact, dead. And learn how after the Emperor met his end at the Battle of Waterloo, an epidemic of 'Napoleons' piled into France's asylums.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-312) and index.
'Madame M' and 'The Illusion of Doubles' -- A paranoid conspiracy: James Tilly Matthews and the 'Air Loom Gang' -- The melancholic delusions of Robert Burton -- Francis Spira and the 'Delusion of Despair' -- The glass delusion of King Charles VI of France -- Margaret Nicholson, descended from Boudicca and rightful Queen of England -- The clockmaker who lost his head -- Napoleon and 'Delusions of Grandeur' -- 'Madame X', professor Cotard and 'Walking Corpse Syndrome' -- 'Léa-Anna B' and the king: grand passions and 'Erotomania'.
Why would someone wake up and claim they're Napoleon? Or believe they have been turned into a wolf and demand to be fed raw meat? For centuries, we've dismissed delusions as a problem for the shrinks to sort out in distant asylums. But delusions are more than just bizarre case studies - they tell stories of collective anxieties and traumas. In this groundbreaking history, Victoria Shepherd explores delusions from ancient times to present and implores us to identify reason in apparent madness. Isn't it perfectly understandable to believe you've got the wrong head when the guillotine takes the heads of hundreds every day? Who cannot sympathize with the man who believes he is already dead, when all his comrades died in the battlefields? We all have it in us to become delusional. In understanding delusions, we come closer to understanding ourselves.