Providentia

Mother Convicted In Munchausen Syndrome Case

A Harris County jury has convicted a Texas woman accused of subjecting her young son to at least two unnecessary surgeries. Laurie Williamson, 44, was convicted Thursday of injury to a child in connection with the surgeries for implantation of a nerve-stimulation device and insertion of a gastric feeding button. She now faces the possibility of a life sentence. The punishment phase of the trial started Thursday and will resume next Tuesday.

State child welfare officials and prosecutors said Williamson has Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a rare disorder in which a person fabricates or induces symptoms in others to gain attention. Prosecutor Mike Trent said Williamson manipulated doctors and her son's condition to get the surgeries. They added that over ten years, Williamson took her three children to at least 500 medical appointments.

Child Protective Services took custody of the children in March 2006. Defense attorney Allen Isbell denied that his client has the syndrome. He said doctors told Williamson that her son needed the procedures.

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The Beast Within

It was in the autumn of 1572, following a rash of animal attacks in the woods near Dole, France, that the local peasants were authorized to seek out the werewolf assumed to be responsible. There were few actual sightings of the animal but the "loup garou" had carried off several small children and attacked horsemen who had driven it away " only with great difficulty and danger to their persons". The peasants were instructed "to assemble with pikes, halberts, arquebuses, and sticks, to chase and to pursue the said were-wolf in every place where they may find or seize him; to tie and to kill, without incurring any pains or penalties". Despite their search, it was only on November 8 of that year that peasants came upon a "monstrous creature" attacking a young girl. The creature was driven off although the girl later died of her injuries. Even in the darkness, some of the peasants thought they recognized the creature as a local hermit named Gilles Garnier.

Garnier was not popular in the region and was arrested after fifty witnesses filed depositions against him. Whatever protests of innocence he had were quickly ended by a session on the rack which "persuaded" him to confess to the charges. Garnier was sentenced to be burned alive at the stake and "that his ashes be then scattered to the winds". He was also ordered to bear all court costs and the sentence was carried out on January 18, 1573.

A similar case was brought to trial in 1603 involving a mentally disturbed (and possibly intellectually challenged) boy named Jean Grenier. Following reports of animal attacks on children in Gascony, France, Grenier confessed to all of the attacks and claimed to have eaten some of the children involved. He also stated that he was part of a werewolf "coven" and transformed himself using a "wolf's skin" given to him by a mysterious stranger. Survivors of the attacks confirmed Grenier's testimony and he was found guilty. In a remarkable move for the time, the court concluded that Grenier was mentally ill (but possessed) and he was sentenced to a Franciscan monastery for the rest of his life. When visited in the monastery years later, he was reported to be "diminutive in stature, very shy, and unwilling to look anyone in the face. His eyes were deep set and restless; his teeth long and protruding; his nails black, and in places worn away; his mind was completely barren; he seemed unable to comprehend the smallest things". Jean Grenier died at the age of 20.

There were an estimated 30,000 cases of lycanthropy reported in Europe between 1520 and 1630 alone. The epidemic of werewolf hysteria that plagued Europe seemed to be linked to the witchcraft mania occurring during the same period. Witches were frequently accused of changing themselves into cats or rabbits and attending demonic Sabbaths to meet Satan. Werewolves, in turn, were accused of transforming themselves with the Devil's aid. Convicted werewolves and witches were often condemned to be burned alive (except in England where they were merely hanged).

The werewolf hysteria seemed to be largely fuelled by lurid stories of wolf attacks (which were more likely to be due to wild dogs) and only subsided when wolves were hunted to virtual extinction across Europe. The growing recognition that testimony obtained through torture was basically unreliable probably played a role as well (waterboarding advocates take note). The last major werewolf panic was in Gevaudan, France following a series of killings by a "wolflike creature" between 1763 and 1767. The killings were never solved.

While clinical lycanthropy (the delusion of changing into an animal) remains a recognized psychiatric condition, actual cases tend to be rare (I've never encountered a case myself, alas, although I remain hopeful). Reports in the forensic literature of clinical lycanthropy patients committing violent acts are even rarer (but they have happened). Modern cases of lycanthropy tend to be part of broader psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Along with the classic werewolf delusion, there have also been reported cases of patients believing that they have been changed into other types of animals including dogs, frogs, and bees. While werefrogs do not evoke the same superstitious terror associated with werewolves, the unusual nature of the psychopathology makes for fascinating case histories in the clinical literature.

Treatment seems to be straightforward as lycanthropic delusions respond well to medication (no burning necessary). Despite the popularity of werewolf movies in the past few years, there has been no evidence of any upsurge of cases and the condition remains rare. Although werewolves live on as a cultural phenomenon, the hysteria that condemned Gilles Garnier to death has mercifully subsided (I hope).

Click here for a recent case history.

Ten Years After Traumatic Brain Injury

A research study published in the March 2008 issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society presents the results of a 10-year study examining the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Previous research investigating long-term has yielded mixed results linking severity of injury, demographic factors, and psychiatric problems. In the present study, a sample of 60 participants who had sustained TBI 10 years previously was used. Participants were tested with the Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOSE) as well as neuropsychological measures of attention, speed of processing, memory and executive function and a measure of anxious affect. Outcome on the GOSE ranged from upper good recovery (32%) to lower severe disability (2%). Factors associated with poorer outcome on the GOSE included duration of posttraumatic amnesia, level of education, poor performance on cognitive measures of information processing speed, attention, memory, and executive function as well as showed higher levels of tested anxiety.

Click here for the abstract.

"Devout Christians" Kill Children as Part of Exorcism

It was on March 29 of this year when residents of Bangwe township in Blantyre, Malawi learned that two local women had allegedly burned two children to death to exorcise them of witchcraft demons. Agnes Kamanga Gadama, and her sister Catherine Kamanga reportedly suspected that Gadama's two children had been possessed by demons because "some neighbors were teaching them witchcraft"

After a week of continuous prayers and fasting with the two children in an enclosed room, 9 year old Yankho and 6 year old Martin Gadama were found dead by police investigating the ritual. The two children had been locked inside the family home along with two other children while Gadama and her sister lit a fire that engulfed the building in smoke to drive away demons.

Both suspects were devoted members of the Namiyango Assemblies of God and had reported the suspected witchcraft incident to the congregation. Representatives of the church group have expressed disbelief that the two women could have killed the children.

When asked to comment on the case, Limbe Police public relations officer Chifundo Chibwezo said the two women are expected to go to Zomba Mental Hospital for examination. “They are now being kept at Chichiri Prison but they are expected to go to the mental hospital to find out if they have mental disorders or not. I cannot comment much since the case is now in the hands of the court. The two women were charged with murder for causing death, contrary to section 209 of the Penal Code,” said Chibwezo.

The two surviving children are staying with their grandparents.

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The Case Against Wilhelm Reich, Part 2

It was on May 26, 1947 when an article by freelance writer Mildred Brady was published in The New Republic. Titled "The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich", Brady's somewhat shrill article was subtitled "The man who blames both neuroses and cancer on unsatisfactory sexual activities has been repudiated by only one scientific journal." The article was filled with innuendoes relating to Reich's sexual theories and the "orgiastic potency" that patients received from his orgone accumulators. She concluded the article by stating that Reich's "cult" was growing and needed to be "dealt with". The Food and Drug Administration launched an investigation that same year to look into Reich's health claims which, in turn, drew in the FBI due to their previous investigation.

The rest of the FBI file covers the results of the investigation and Reich's increasingly irrational denunciations of the FDA and Mildred Brady. He denounced her as a "Communist sniper" who was acting under orders from the Communist party to discredit him with a smear campaign. To ensure that the government was kept informed of his progress, Reich provided the FBI with copies of all of his research papers on orgone energy that were published at his institute in Maine.

While the investigation dragged on, Reich attempted to interest the Atomic Energy Commission in his orgone research for fear of it falling into the hands of foreign agents. After demonstrating his research for representatives of the Commision, they politely informed him that the experiments were "outside the scope of the Atomic Energy Commission". An internal memo included in the file added that scientists who examined Reich's research were of the opinion that "Reich is mentally unsound in his scientific experiments". He also continued with his weather control research and, in 1952, Reich wrote a letter to the Justice Department stating that he would be travelling to other parts of the country to test out his cloudbusting equipment. After proving that he could affect the weather in Rangeley, Maine, he wished to see if he could affect the weather in "desert country" as well. Reich also added that he would be going incognito under the name of Walter Roner as "suspicion and slander on the part of uninformed or sick people has been and is so rampant in my case, in the United States as well as abroad".

After an exhaustive ten-year investigation,the FDA finally concluded that Reich's orgone treatments involved "fraud of the first magnitude". In February 1954, the FDA applied for an injunction against Reich in the Federal Court in Portland, Maine. The injunction asked for a ban on interstate shipping of orgone accumulators as well as on all published literature relating to the devices. Reich refused to appear in court to defend himself as he argued that a court of law should not be used to judge scientific research. The presiding judge, John Clifford, rejected the argument and granted the injunction.

Reich appealed the decision and turned over documents to the FBI as proof of a "red fascist instigated plot" against the Orgone Institute and the United States. His personal assistant (and son-in-law) William Moise attempted to arrange a meeting with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to present the evidence in person. After being told that a meeting would not be possible and that the FBI had no jurisdiction in the case, Moise was sent away. The Bureau also received a telegram dated March 23, 1954 from Reich informing them that a snow storm had struck Rangeley, Maine as he had previously predicted. Reich also announced that he would be flooding the East Coast with rain to prove the value of his experiments (the FBI was not impressed).

Federal authorities seized and destroyed all of Reich's orgone accumulators as well as several tons of his publications. In May, 1956, Reich was arrested for violating the injunction after some of his orgone equipment was moved out of Maine. Once again refusing to appear in court, Reich was charged with contempt and forced to appear. After a spirited trial in which he defended himself, Reich was sentenced to two years in prison. Despite an anguished note to J. Edgar Hoover requesting a personal meeting, Reich was sent to Danbury Federal Prison in Maine where a psychiatrist diagnosed him as "paranoid and delusional".

Wilhelm Reich died in his sleep on November 3, 1957 in his cell in the Federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania where he had been transferred. The cause of death was given as severe aortic stenosis and myocardial scarring although his supporters claimed that a conspiracy was at work to silence him before he could apply for parole. The FBI file includes the results of an autopsy that the family had requested (they had specifically asked that his stomach contents be tested for poisoning) which confirmed the initial diagnosis.

Reich is buried in Orgonon and a replica of his cloudbuster invention stands next to his grave. The  William Reich Museum occupies the same building that used to house his laboratory and medical treatment clinic. There is still considerable controversy over Wilhelm Reich. Skeptics regard him as a quack but his early psychodynamic writings have marked Reich as an influential pioneer in psychotherapy. Even long after his death, the Wilhelm Reich Museum and Trust guards his memory and sponsors original orgone research .

Persecuted genius or eccentric? You make the call.

The Children of War

A study focusing on the psychosocial effects chronic warfare among refugee children in Southern Darfur is presented in a recent issue of Omega. A sample of 331 children (aged 6-17) from three refugee camps were selected to be part of the study. Of those in the sample, 43 percent were girls and 57 per cent were boys with an average age of twelve years. All of the children in the study were interviewed and tested with measures of traumatic stress, depression, and grief.The study results indicate that there were no significant differences between genders in terms of exposure to traumatic experiences, including rape, but older children (13-17 years) experienced a larger number of traumatic exposures than younger children (6-12 years). Seventy-five percent of the children met the DSM-IV criteria for PTSD, and 38 per cent exhibited clinical symptoms of depression. Twenty per cent of the children sampled also reported significant levels of grief symptoms.

The authors found that increased exposure to war experiences led to higher levels of: (1) traumatic reactions; (2) depression; and (3) grief symptoms. Of the different war experiences examined, abduction, hiding to protect oneself, being raped, and being forced to kill or hurt family members were most predictive of traumatic reactions. Factors most likely to predict depressive symptoms included: being raped, seeing others raped, the death of a parent, being forced to fight, and having to hide to protect oneself. Similar findings were reported for grief reactions. While trauma, depression, and grief often occur together, the mechanisms and ways in which they interact are less understood. This is the first study examining the psychosocial effects of war experiences among refugee children currently living in Sudan's war-zone areas. The authors recognize the need for further research into war-related atrocities and their varying impact on the children's psychological well-being and overall adjustment. Implications for planning mental health interventions are also discussed.

Click here for the abstract.

"Supernatural Hybrid" Arrested In Sexual Assault Case

A 19-year old Pennsylvania man who convinced a 15-year old girl that he was a vampire/werewolf hybrid has been arrested for corruption of a minor. Kristian Allen Carl turned himself in to Schuylkill County authorities after admitting to having consensual sex with an underage female. He had originally been charged with statutory sexual assault but pled guilty to the lesser charge to avoid a jail sentence. The girl's family reportedly agreed to the plea bargain.

Asked by a reporter if he had believed that he was a hybrid, Carl lowered his head and whispered, ''Yes. I watched a lot of movies" but has since retracted the claim. Police reported that Carl had previously shown them his canine teeth as proof of his lineage and also told them that he had a guardian dragon that protected him from evildoers.

He denied knowing that the victim, whom he had been seeing for a year, was underage and believed that she was over 16. A bench warrant had been issued for him after he missed a January 29 preliminary hearing.

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The Case Against Wilhelm Reich, Part 1

Wilhelm Reich always had a problem with authority figures as the lengthy FBI file on him tends to demonstrate. It was in 2000 when the FBI released 789 pages of the extensive file that had been built up on Reich over the years. The file covers the period from 1940 to a year following his death in 1957 and makes for fascinating (albeit long) reading.

Driven out of Nazi Germany in 1933, he fled to Scandinavia and eventually immigrated to the United States in 1939. Reich settled in New York City and began teaching courses at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. Despite his early prominence as part of Sigmund Freud's Vienna Circle, it was Reich's prior involvement in European Communist movements that drew the FBI's attention. After concerns were raised by the State Department over Reich being linked with the Medical Advisory board of the American Communist Party, a formal investigation was launched. Details of his past that were highlighted in the reports prepared on him by the FBI include his membership in the German Communist Party and his later expulsion from the Norwegian Communist party for "not adhering closely enough to the party line". The fact that his ex-wife had also been involved in "Communistic activities" did not escape notice either.

Despite his work visa being in order, Reich was detained at Ellis Island in 1941 and his home was searched. Colleagues and staff were questioned and some of his books on leftist political theory were confiscated. In addition to details surrounding his detention, the FBI files made note of Reich's announcement in 1939 of the discovery of "a new form of biological energy which he states comes from the body's organs and that his work has been solely involved in experimenting with this energy which he claims that he is able to control in such a way as to cure cancer". Interviews with fellow psychoanalysts determined that Reich's reputation was "not high professionally because he has gone off on a tangent to develop some new theories relating to sex psychosis and his work is looked down upon generally by the best psychoanalysts in the country". Following a hearing, Reich was released in early 1942 after providing assurance that, while his beliefs were liberal in nature, they were not "Communistic".

In addition to teaching and maintaining a private clinical practice, Reich also began publishing extensively in English. His involvement with the FBI seems to dovetail with a notable change in his writings during this same period. While he had been an ardent Communist before coming to the United States, he then broke ranks with the Communist party completely. He also became increasingly paranoid and denounced Communism as "Red Fascism". Reich often accused leftists of conspiring against him and trying to discredit his theories. His research into orgone energy also took a decidedly bizarre turn. He began a series of experiments showing how orgone energy could be accumulated and used to treat various illnesses. Reich even developed a "cloudbuster" machine designed to manipulate weather patterns by suppressing "negative" orgone energy in the atmosphere. While he contacted Albert Einstein at Princeton and attempted to interest him in the potential value of the orgone devices, the great physicist was not convinced.

By 1942, Reich had permanently relocated to an old farm near Rangeley, Maine which he named "Orgonon". It was there that he continued his research into orgone energy and began using it to treat an extensive range of illnesses including cancer and mental illness. He began manufacturing "orgone accumulators" and also worked with assistants on a motor powered by orgone energy. With dreams of creating an inexhaustible energy source, Reich solicited loans and contributions from interested parties and made ambitious plans to expand his activities further.

And then...

How Families of Organ Donors Deal with Grief

A study published in the February 2008 issue of Clinical Transplantation examines the effect of the organ donation process on families dealing with grief. Using the British Columbia Transplant Society (BCTS) database, the authors mailed test packages to families of deceased organ donors. Each package contained three standardized, validated questionnaires (including scales of depression, post-traumatic stress, and bereavement). Seventy-three completed packages were received (an overall response rate of 46%) and the responses were analyzed. The results of the study showed that grief varied in terms of age of the deceased and length of time since donation. Donor families reporting negative aspects about the donation process were also more likely to experience post-traumatic stress. Based on their findings, the authors concluded that organ donation can have a beneficial effect on the grief process providing that donor families receive proper counseling and support before and after donation.

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Cave Sect Leader Hospitalized With Head Wounds

A leader of a doomsday sect who had inspired his followers to hide in a cave for five months as they waited for the end of the world has been hospitalized with serious head wounds, Penza government officials said today. Self-styled prophet Pyotr Kuznetsov is described as being in serious condition in a hospital in the town of Bekovo, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of Moscow. Eleven of Kuznetsov's followers are still occupying the cave nearby.

Although the government representative and the hospital declined to say what caused his injuries, he had been undergoing court-ordered psychiatric treatment. Penza Deputy Governor Oleg Melnichenko had stated earlier in televised comments that Kuznetsov was hospitalized with a self-inflicted open head wound. Melnichenko further added that Kuznetsov had laid his head on a tree stump and hit himself repeatedly on the head with a piece of wood. This contradicts an eariler statement that had been made alleging that cult members had beaten Kuznetsov during an argument. There was no explanation for the discrepancy.

While thirty-five of Kuznetsov's followers had originally barricaded themselves in the cave last October in anticipation of the end of the world, all but eleven have since come out due to deteriorating conditions caused by rainfall.

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