Benign Stupors: A Study of a New "Manic-Depressive" Bipolar Reaction Type

“AUGUST HOCH recognized the confusion arising out of the classification of certain functional psychoses as Manic-Depressive Insanity; he therefore set out to show that the elation and depression (from which the name has been derived) are of no more theoretical importance than other moods which characterize the group. The volume before us, edited by Dr. J. MacCurdy after the death of Hoch, is designed to show that the symptom-complex associated with apathy is as distinct as that of mania, and the book introduces the functional psychoses characterized by benign stupor.” -Nature International Weekly Journal of Science

TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE EDITOR'S PREFACE I. INTRODUCTION AND TYPICAL CASES OF DEEP STUPOR II. THE PARTIAL STUPOR REACTIONS III. SUICIDAL CASES IV. THE INTERFERENCES WITH THE INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES V. THE IDEATIONAL CONTENT OF THE STUPOR VI. AFFECT VII. INACTIVITY, NEGATIVISM AND CATALEPSY VIII. SPECIAL CASES: RELATIONSHIP OF STUPOR TO OTHER REACTIONS IX. THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF STUPOR X. PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE STUPOR REACTION XI. MALIGNANT STUPORS XII. DIAGNOSIS OF STUPOR XIII. TREATMENT OF STUPOR XIV. SUMMARY OF THE STUPOR REACTION XV. THE LITERATURE OF STUPOR

"Clinical psychiatry has been content with the dime-novel type of character delineation. This is all the more disappointing, inasmuch as the study of insanity should contribute largely to our knowledge of everyday life. This defect can only be remedied by looking on every case as a problem in which the origin of each symptom is to be studied and its relation traced to all other symptoms and to the personality as a whole. This is an ambitious task and we do not pretend to any great achievement, merely to a beginning."