Providentia

Indian Suicide Epidemic Linked to Farming Crisis

A continuing economic crisis is the presumed cause for a rash of suicides among cotton farmers in  Vidarbha region of India's Maharashtra state.   There have been more than 411 suicides occurring since January 2011 with 44 farmers committing suicide in August alone.   While the link between economic failure and suicide among farmers has been known since the 1990s, the current suicide epidemic has  given Vidarhba the highest suicide rate in all of India.  With a strongly agricultural economy (Vidarbha is best known for orange, soya and cotton crops), the region has been gripped by problems relating to crop failures, crippling debts, and inability to receive adequate compensation for agricultural products.  Plagued by extreme poverty and malnutrition, Vidarbha is the least economically developed region of Maharashtra.  In 2006 alone, the 4,453 farmer suicides accounted for more than one-fourth of all of India's suicides for that year. 

Along with national attention, the rash of suicides in Vidarbha has led to the establishing of a formal office in Maharashtra to address the crisis.  Despite a well-publicized visit to Vidarbha by India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 during which a massive relief package was promised for the region,  financial relief for farmers has been delayed by allegations of corruption which has led to the suspension of more than 400 government workers.      Farmers view themselves as being trapped between government officials and the  moneylenders providing inadequate credit.   Loan sharks have become increasingly active and often prey on the most vulnerable.  With declining prices for crops, typical income for farmers often falls below minimal wage levels to support themselves and their families.   The problem has been aggravated  by declining demand for genetically modified cotton crops and the rapid urbanization of Indian society which has left farmers unprepared for technological and economic changes that place them at a disadvantage.

Vidarbha has been particularly hard-hit due to reduced minimum support prices for cotton and other crops.  In addition to farmer suicides, Vidarbha also faces the problem of dealing with families of farmers committing suicide being left penniless (and often deeply in debt)  and  community support agencies have been strained to the brink providing relief.    In a 2007 report by Green Earth Consulting  examining conditions in Vidarbha,  the promised government relief package failed to provide more than token support for the families of farmers committing suicide.  In particular, families have often faced  bureaucratic hurdles from village elders and other government officials who are reluctant to register the suicide as "genuine" (i.e., eligible for support under the package).   Given the stigma attached to suicide as well as the legal issues involved (suicide is still considered a criminal act under Indian law), compensation is often delayed.   Completion of necessary formalities for compensation also require family members to relive the trauma surrounding the death.   Since creditors often demand immediate fulfillment of loans and refuse to wait for compensation payments,  families of suicide victims are typically subjected to extreme hardship.

While the report made a series of recommendations to ensure a fairer distribution of relief money, the rising number of suicides since 2007 has demonstrated that the basic problems facing Vidarbha farmers have yet to be addressed.    In the meantime, the deaths continue.

For more information.

To download the Green Earth consulting report (PDF).

Wielding a Hatchet

Long before the coming of Prohibition in 1920, there was the temperance movement.

Taking its name from the Greek writer Xenophon's definition of temperance as "moderation from all things healthful; abstinence from all things harmful", temperance groups in Europe and North America actively crusaded for a range of moral causes, including the banning of alcohol.  Linking "demon rum" to numerous social evils, including domestic violence, many temperance activists were also active suffragettes and encouraged women to become more involved in politics.   Although religious figures always regarded alcohol with suspicion due to its perceived role in inspiring immoral behaviour, it was only during the early 19th century that  the formal temperance movement began.    First originating in the United Kingdom and spreading throughout the British Empire (Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand all began temperance crusades at about the same time), the United States quickly jumped on the bandwagon.

In the United States, the largest temperance group was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) .  Formed in 1873, the WCTU crusaded for the passage of legislation to reinforce Christian ideals of sobriety and morality.  Although their greatest victory still lay in the future with the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1920 and the banning of alcohol sales across the United States, the WCTU was  feared by saloon owners and alcohol distilleries alike due to their abstinence crusade.   The temperance movement became especially strong in the decades following the U.S. Civil War and advocates such as Neal Dow, Francis Willard and Matilda Carse became national figures.   The tactics advocated by the WCTU and other temperance groups were relatively peaceful and primarily focused on encouraging legislators to pass stronger anti-alcohol legislation.   Considering the lack of progress and general apathy that temperance workers faced, it isn't surprising that there would be calls for far stonger measures.

Which brings us to Carry Nation...

Born in 1846 to a family of prosperous slave owners, Carry Amelia Moore (her name was often spelled Carrie) had a difficult childhood.  Along with her various health issues, her family also had  financial problems that forced her parents to move repeatedly during her early life.   There was also a family history of mental illness on her mother's side of the family.  Not only did her maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin suffer from psychiatric problems (possibly dementia) but her mother was prone to intermittent delusions of being Queen Victoria (and eventually spent the last three years of her life in the Missouri State Hospital for the Insane).   Carry's primary refuge during her mother's psychotic episodes was the family slave quarters.  

During the Civil War, Carry's life was disrupted even further as her family was forced to evacuate to Kansas.   In 1865, she married her first husband, Dr. Charles Gloyd, who was a severe alcoholic.  Despite her best efforts, Carry was unable to prevent her husband from eventually drinking himself to death.    Carry eventually managed to recover from this loss and move on but losing a husband to alcohol would have a profound effect on the rest of her life.   After remarrying in 1874 and several failed business ventures later, Carrie and her second husband, David Nation, relocated back to Medicine Lodge in Kansas where she operated a hotel while her husband became a preacher.   Still stung by her experience with her first husband, Carrie founded a local branch of the WCTU and campaigned for a legal ban on the sale of liquor.   

Her protest methods were fairly direct but not nearly as unconventional as they would later become.    Not only did she organize protest marches, she also regularly serenaded saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ and denounced saloon keepers as "destroyers of men's souls".   While the WCTU succeeded in closing down all but one saloon (one stubborn drugstore owner refused to cave in), Carry wasn't satisfied.   Being a devout Christian, she regularly prayed for guidance and, on June 5, 1889, she received what she believed to be her answer.   Inspired by a vision, she grabbed a sledgehammer, marched into the drugstore, and smashed a keg of whiskey.  The terrifed drugstore owner closed up shop and left town.

But Carry Nation wasn't done yet.   As she would later describe in her autobiography,  "the next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic".  Carrie left her family and business and began her crusade in Kiowa, Kansas with a prosperous saloon run by Jasper Dobson.    After gathering rocks, she announced to the saloon's patrons that she had "come to save you from a drunkard's fate".  She then proceeded to smash all of the saloon's stock and went on to do the same at two other nearby saloons.    After a tornado struck eastern Kansas, Carrie took it as a sign of divine approval.   When her husband jokingly suggested that she should have used a hatchet instead, Carrie was inspired.   She bought a hatchet in Medicine Lodge and the Great "Hatchetation Tour" was on. 

And what a tour it was!

Over the course of the next few years, Carry Nation became a familiar sight with her hatchet brigade.  Alone or with many of her followers, Carry would march into saloons bearing her familiar hatchet and smash whatever stock she could find.   She also began a nationwide lecture tour to raise money to cover her legal costs (due to her repeated arrests and the fines that her various "hatchetations" incurred).  Very much into marketing and branding, she took to spelling her name as "Carry A. Nation" (and even applied for a copyright) and sold souvenir hatchets.  Her husband divorced her in 1901 but Carrie continued her crusade.    Despite leaving her life and family behind, she showed not the slightest hesitation that she was following God's will and even described herself as a "bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like".  Public opinion was divided on Carry and her mission and newspaper editorials ran the gamut from critical (one editor described her as being "crazy as a bedbug") to adoring.   Saloons across the country often closed up as she approached rather than let Carry Nation anywhere near their businesses.  The sight of tall, husky Carry waving her trademark hatchet terrified many a saloon keeper and signs with the slogan "All nations welcome but Carrie" became common in many bars.

Perhaps inevitably, her crusade began to flag as Carry ran out of money to keep it going.  Despite some financial support from prominent temperance supporters and her regular lecture tours, the costs of the various fines that she incurred began to add up.    She even joined the vaudeville circuit and toured music halls across the United States and Great Britain.  Her proselytizing didn't go over so well with her audiences and she wasn't able to raise enough money to keep going  When someone in the audience threw an egg at her at a lecture in 1909, Carry returned home.  After eventaully settling in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (and a new house she titled Hatchet Hall),  Carry Nation's failing health didn't stop her from crusading whenever she could.  After collapsing during a speech, she was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas where she died on June 9, 1911.    The WCTU later erected a marker on her grave in Belton, Missouri and her old Medicine Lodge home was declared a National Landmark in 1976. 

Despite her very public campaigning on behalf of temperance, there is little evidence that Carry's  Nation was particularly effective in promoting the cause.   The WCTU never officially sanctioned Carry's hatchetations and their quiet campaigning seemed far more preferable to Carry's vandalism.  There was also the question of her mental status.   Although she was frequently dismissed as insane by her critics, there seems little evidence that the divine inspiration that she claimed, complete with hearing voices, was anything more than good showmanship on her part.    Although he never examined her himself,  psychiatrist Karl Menninger considered her to be perfectly sane and viewed her antics as being a reasoned response to a real social problem. 

Whatever her motivation, Carry Nation remains controversial and the WCTU that she helped foster still continues today.  Although losing much of its appeal with the abolition of Prohibition in 1933, the WCTU maintains its opposition to a range of perceived social evils (including abortion and same-sex marriage).  

Carry Nation would be proud.

 

 

When a Clinician Commits Suicide

Psychologist practitioners are not immune to certain mental health problems, including suicidality, for which they provide services.  In a recent issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, an overview is presented of recent initiatives in dealing with therapist suicide.  In the aftermath of two recent psychologist suicides, the American Psychological Association's Advisory Committee on Colleague Assistance (ACCA) initiated the formation of a conjoint ad hoc committee consisting of members from ACCA, the American Psychological Association (APA) Practice Directorate, and the Section on Clinical Emergencies and Crises (Section VII of APA's Division 12) to investigate the incidence of psychologist suicide and its impact on colleagues, students or interns, patients or clients, and the profession. The committee reviewed the extant empirical literature on suicide rates for psychologists, evaluated unpublished data on psychologist suicide provided by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), interviewed colleague survivors, reviewed published case reports of the impact of therapist suicides, and linked their findings to the literature on professional distress, impairment, and self-care. The committee concluded that there is evidence suggestive of an elevated risk of suicide for psychologists in past decades. It further concluded that there is a need for further research to confirm if there is a heightened risk of suicide for psychologists in the present day and to determine factors that might contribute to such risk. Accounts from colleague-survivors suggest that the impact of a psychologist's suicide can affect many people including family, colleagues, students, and patients or clients.  The paper offers suggestions for possible preventive approaches, for intervention with potentially at-risk colleagues, and for postvention efforts in the wake of a colleague suicide.

For the abstract.

When a Patient Dies

Over one-quarter of psychologists and psychiatrists will lose a client to suicide, and the impact of suicide on therapists is profound. Therapists report both personal (e.g., emotional) and professional (e.g., fears of litigation, doubts about competency) reactions to client suicide, and these reactions are thought to be especially pronounced for therapists-in-training. However, little is known about the effect of nonsuicidal client deaths on therapists, especially how the experience of a client suicide might compare with other forms of unanticipated client death, such as accidental injuries (e.g., car accidents) or deaths of undetermined intent. An article published in a recent issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice reviews family members' bereavement responses based on differential death classification, as well as therapist reactions to suicidal deaths. A case study of undetermined death is also described in light of the extant literature on therapists' coping responses to suicide, including reflections on emotional and professional implications to a nonsuicidal death. A recent social psychological model of adaptation to emotional experiences (Wilson & Gilbert, 2008) was used as a theoretical framework to discuss how death by suicide may be construed in comparison to undifferentiated and/or accidental deaths, with a focus on informing sorely needed future research in this area.

For more information.

 

Is Anthony Sowell Fit to be Executed?

On July 22, 2011, Anthony Edward Sowell was found guilty of all but two of the 85 charges of murder, rape, and kidnapping that were initially laid against him.  The charges include the murders of the eleven women whose bodies were found in his Cleveland, Ohio duplex in 2009.  While Sowell had initially pleaded "not guilty by reason of insanity" this was later changed to simply "not guilty".    Having been found guilty, the only question real question was whether he would face the death penalty.   The sentencing phase led to a standoff between expert witnesses arguing whether Sowell can be considered mentally fit for execution or if he is psychotic.

Born in 1959, Anthony Sowell joined the U.S. Marine Corps at the age of nineteen and served for seven years prior to receiving an honourable discharge in 1985.    In addition to being promoted to Corporal, he earned numerous commendations including a Good Conduct medal and two letters of appreciation.  After leaving the military, Sowell's life went downhill and he spent fifteen years in prison for attempted rape following a violent incident in 1989.   

Released in 2005, Sowell worked in a factory for two years before collecting unemployment benefits.    Living at his Mount Pleasant duplex with his stepmother following his release, neighbours found nothing remarkable about him aside from his reclusive nature and the unpleasant odour emanating from his home.   After his stepmother was sent to a nursing home in 2007, Sowell lived in the house alone and the first of the homicides was later believed to have occurred that year.   Despite complaints about the odour (which caused at least one tenant of the duplex to move), Sowell insisted that it came from a nearby sausage shop.  Everything changed following an incident in September, 2009 when a woman complained to police that Sowell had choked and raped her in his home.   When police arrived at his home with a warrant for his arrest, Sowell was not at home and police launched a search of the house.  When the first search revealed two bodies on the floor of his living room, a citywide search was launched.   Sowell was located and arrested for murder two days later.  When asked about the bodies, his only response was "Oh, those".  He acknowledged meeting women and bringing them to his home but refused to admit to the murders.

A careful forensic search of the house turned up evidence of eight more bodies, buried in the basement or concealed in crawl spaces in the house.  Several of the bodies were found in pieces and carefully wrapped in plastic.  The skull of an eleventh victim was found wrapped in plastic in a red bucket. Of the eleven victims, only eight have been identified through DNA evidence while police are still investigating missing persons reports dating back to Sowell's 2005 release for clues to the identities of the remaining bodies.    All of the known victims were African American women who had gone missing from the Cleveland area and who were either transient or had a history of drug abuse.  In some cases, relatives of the victims did not report them missing until publicity surrounding the discovery of the bodies began.  In those cases where cause of death could be determined, death was believed to be due to strangulation.  East Cleveland police have also investigated cold cases dating back to the 1980s and the FBI has also been investigating unsolved murders of women in cities where Sowell once lived. 

Many of the sixty-two prosecution witnesses who testified against Sowell included women who had been assaulted but managed to escape.  In the final summation, the prosecution described Sowell as a "vile and disgusting" serial killer and the defense was primarily limited to criticism of the police handling of the case.  Sowell appeared indifferent as the verdict was read against him although relatives of the victims wept openly.    Although the question of guilt was settled, the issue that followed during the sentencing hearing was whether Anthony Sowell merited the death penalty for his crimes.  During the two-month sentencing hearing,  Sowell presented a brief statement apologizing for his actions although jurors later indicated that the statement had no impact on them and that it sounded rehearsed.  While defense lawyer, John Parker, presented evidence from at least one defense expert arguing that Sowell was psychotic and the victim of a difficult childhood, this was countered by prosecution experts who disputed any psychiatric diagnosis.  For his final summation, Prosecutor Pinkey Carr argued that Sowell was "evil" and deserved the death penalty.

In a verdict read on Wednesday, August 10, the jury recommended the death penalty for Anthony Sowell.  Family members of the victims greeted the decision with tears and hugging at the back of the courtroom and Judge Ambrose upheld the death penalty decision on Friday, August 12.  Sowell ignored the judge when the death penalty decision was handed down and again when asked to sign a legal document.  Since the death penalty decision will be automatically appealed to Illinois' Supreme Court, the process will likely take ten years or more.   During the appeal process, Sowell will be held on Ohio' s Death Row at Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Ohio    As of 2008, there were an estimated 3,263 prisoners awaiting execution in the United States with many prisoners waiting decades before execution.  In the meantime,  widespread anger over how the Sowell case was handled and the problematic relationship between poor neighbourhoods and the police will likely linger for a long time to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Sisters Kill (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

Literally meaning "psychosis of two", folie a deux was first identified by Charles Lasegue and Jean-Pierre Falret in a paper published in Annales Medico-psychologiques in 1877.  Although previous clinicians had described "psychic infection" involving mental illness being shared between two or more patients, Lasegue and Falret's now-classic paper described a series of case studies involving women living in close association who manifested identical symptoms (including delusions and hallucinations).   They then argued that:

In "folie a deux", one individual is the active element; being more intelligent that the other, he creates the delusion and gradually imposes it upon the second or passive one; little by little the latter resists the pressure of his associate, continuously reacting to correct, modify and coordinate the delusional material.  The delusion soon becomes their common cause to be repeated to all in almost identical fashion.

Later clinicians expanded on Lasegue and Falret's original definition and argued three necessary preconditions for folie a deux to occur: 

•  Definite evidence that the partners were intimately associated,
• The content and motif of the delusional idea must be identical in both partners, and
• Unequivocal evidence that the partners accept, share, and support each other's delusions.  

  Also known as a "shared paranoid disorder", cases involving shared delusions between three, four, and as many as twelve related individuals have been reported in the clinical literature (folie a quatre, folie a sept, folie a douze, etc.).    In all reported cases, the typical pattern involves a dominant partner in the relationship "transmitting" the delusion to the submissive partner.   Although the dominant partner is usually psychotic, the actual diagnosis tends to vary,  The psychiatric status of the submissive partner is more problematic, however.   While Lasegue and Falret argued that the submissive partner in a folie a deux relationship was "not really insane but suffering from temporary moral pressure",  later clinicians argued that submissives could also be considered psychotic given their willing adoption of the dominant partner's delusional system which, in turn, shaped their behaviour.  

In the case of Christine and Lea Papin, a definite diagnosis can't really be made.  Although Christine Papin's paranoia concerning Madame Lancellin and her daughter seemed clear enough, there seemed little evidence that Lea shared her sister's delusion.  Although they were both charged with murder, it became apparent to the Le Mans court that Lea was little more than a passive participant who simply obeyed her older sister.  Medical experts also determined that Lea had intellectual deficits which made her completely dependent on the more intelligent Christine.    Once the final statements were given by both prosecution and defense,  the jury only deliberated for a few minutes before finding both sisters guilty.   Lea Papin was sentenced to ten years hard labour while Christine Papin was sentenced to death by guillotine.   Although Christine refused to appeal the sentence, this was later commuted to life imprisonment and both sisters were sent to a prison in Rennes (they were housed separately). 

Christine Papin did poorly in prison and her mental state steadily deteriorated.  She became increasingly despondent and wasted away from a refusal to eat.  Even when she was brought face to face with Lea, she would claim not to know her (and reportedly stated that "She is very nice, but she is not my sister").    By early 1937, her condition had worsened further and she was transferred to the public asylum at Rennes where she eventually died on May 18.  While the official cause of death was lung disease, this was likely linked to her self-induced malnutrition.   All clinical records relating to Christine Papin's final years were destroyed in the 1944 bombing of the city.  As for Lea Papin, her model behaviour as an inmate earned her a partial remission of her sentence and she was released in 1943.  Banned from ever returning to Le Mans, she moved to the city of Nantes where she lived with her mother.  Changing her name to "Marie", Lea lived as anonymously as she could given that troublesome reporters continued to seek her out and the notoriety surrounding the case never completely died down.  She supported herself as a chambermaid and cleaning woman and she was widely believed to have died in 1982.   

Despite being overshadowed by World War II and the Nazi Occupation, public interest in the case  remained relatively strong over the years with a series of books, films, and plays inspired by the Papin case.  The most famous version of the Papin sisters' story was Jean Genet's classic play The Maids which was first released in 1947.  It was later made into a film and an opera.    Although interest eventually subsided,  the year 2000 saw a  remarkable renaissance of interest in the Papin case.  Two films were released in that same year, one a dramatization of the Lancellin murders and the second being a documentary on the trial and its aftermath.   At about the same time, several new books on the case were also released.

It was the documentary directed by Claude Ventura which stirred up the most controversy however.  In the film, Ventura describes his search for Lea Papin including interviews with many of her Nantes neigbours.   Although these neighbours appeared unaware of her true identity (despite the fact that she never changed her name), they described her as "delightful little old lady" who enjoyed looking after children and watching her favourite television shows.    In a final scene, the documentary concluded at the hospice where Lea Papin had recently been taken following a brain hemorrhage which left her unable to speak or care for herself.   The sight of Lea Papin, completely bedridden and apparently unaware that she was being filmed, made for uncomfortable viewing and led to considerable criticism for Claude Ventura and the producers of the documentary (especially since they were unable to prove that the patient shown was actually the Lea Papin involved in the 1933 case).  Whatever her true identity, the death  of this "Lea Papin" in 2001 marked an apparent end to the saga.

As for the house where the 1933 murders took place,  Rene Lancellin continued to live there with a housekeeper until his death in the 1950s (he was never able to sell it after the deaths).   Having changed hands several times since M. Lancellin's death, the house at Rue 6 Bruyere  is still standing although visitors with a morbid interest in the case might have some trouble finding it.  It is apparently the only house on the street without a number.

 

 

 

Traumatic Brain Injury and Facial Recognition

Difficulties in communication and social relationships present a formidable challenge for many people after traumatic brain injury (TBI). These difficulties are likely to be partially attributable to problems with emotion perception. Mounting evidence shows facial affect recognition to be particularly difficult after TBI. However, no attempt has been made to systematically estimate the magnitude of this problem or the frequency with which it occurs. A recent meta-analysis published in Neuropsychology examined the magnitude of facial affect recognition difficulties after TBI. From this, the frequency of these impairments in the TBI population is estimated. Effect sizes were calculated from 13 studies that compared adults with moderate to severe TBI to matched healthy controls on static measures of facial affect recognition. The studies collectively presented data from 296 adults with TBI and 296 matched controls and results showed that the overall weighted mean effect size for the 13 studies was −1.11, indicating people with TBI on average perform about 1.1 SD below healthy peers on measures of facial affect recognition. Based on estimation of the TBI population standard deviation and modeling of likely distribution shape, it is estimated that between 13% and 39% of people with moderate to severe TBI may have significant difficulties with facial affect recognition, depending on the cut-off criterion used.  The authors conclude that this is clearly an area that warrants attention, particularly examining techniques for the rehabilitation of these deficits.

For the abstract.

When Sisters Kill (Part 1)

Rene Lancelin had no idea what he would find when he returned home on February 2, 1933. 

The retired solicitor had been waiting for his wife and daughter, Genevieve, to join him for dinner at his brother-in-law's house.   Being concerned at their delay, he and and his brother-in-law went to their home at Rue 6 Bruyere in Le Mans, France and found that the doors were locked from the inside.    Although they could see candlelight coming from the bedroom shared by the two family maids, Christine and Lea Papin, nobody came to the door despite their attempts to attract attention.    After two frantic hours, the two men became worried enough to go to the local police, one of whom finally got into the house by climbing the back wall and forcing a parlour door.  Once inside, the police found that the electric lights weren't working and they began exploring the house using a flashlight.

What they discovered would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Both Madame Lancellin and her daughter had been brutally beaten to death and were virtually unrecognizable.   Blood stained the carpet and one of the women's eyes lay on the floor nearby. An autopsy would later determine that both women had their eyes gouged out while they were still alive and and then physically assaulted using a hammer, a kitchen knife, and  a pewter pot.    When police searched the house, they found that Christine and Lea Papin's attic bedroom was locked from the inside.  After getting a locksmith to open the door, the police discovered the two women in their bed, wearing only kimonos and in each other's arms.   Despite being the obvious culprits, they had made no attempt to escape and immediately admitted committing the crime.    In her confession to the police, Christine Papin stated that the fuses had blown while she was ironing which somehow led to an argument with Madame Lancelin.  She insisted that the killings had been done in self-defense and that she believed that the sisters' lives had been in danger.

It's hard to imagine two less likely suspects for such a brutal murder.  Twenty-eight year old Christine Papin and her twenty-two year old sister Lea were both local women, having been born in a village just outside Le Mans.  Their father, Gustave Papin, and their mother, Clemence Duree, had a reportedly loveless marriage that ended in divorce in 1913 soon after Lea's birth.   While Clemence had claimed that Gustave had sexually molested their older sister, Emilie, no charges were ever laid.    Christine and Emilie were placed in a local orphanage while Lea went to live with an uncle.    After Emilie entered a convent, Christine attempted to do the same but this was opposed by her mother.   Instead,  Christine was sent to work as a maid beginning at the age of fifteen.   Four years later, Lea also became a maid and they became inseparable.   They had been working for the Lancelins since 1927 and, prior to that fatal night, had been known as steady workers with scarcely any problems with their employers.    Christine and Lea were completely devoted to each other although Christine tended to predominate her submissive, younger sister.   Aside from their being regular churchgoers, there was little else known about them.  They had almost no contact with their parents or older sister.

The Papin sisters were arrested and charged with murder.  Still wearing their kimonos, they were taken directly to the police station despite the frigid February weather.  Problems immediately developed when the sisters were separated and placed in separate cells.  Christine was especially devastated and spent much of the eight months awaiting trial crying for her younger sister.    She was prone to repeated psychotic episodes in which she rolled on the cell floor and apparently experienced visual and auditory hallucinations as well.  During one of these episodes, she needed to be forcibly restrained after attempting to gouge out one of her eyes.    When a magistrate investigated, she told him that she had experienced an episode similar to the one that had led to her killing the Lancellins.   When the sisters were briefly reunited,  Christine enthusiastically removed her blouse and cried "Tell me, yes"  (some journalists claimed that she made even more sexually explicit remarks but this was never confirmed).  The sisters were kept separated afterward and Christine gave up her attempts at being reunited with Lea.

For such a murder to happen in  the relatively peaceful town of Le Mans was disturbing enough, bu the trial and the revelation that the Papin sisters had an apparently incestuous relationship was even more shocking.  Newspapers across France carried details of the story, already being described as the "crime of the century".  Given the polarized nature of French society at the time, the story aroused considerable political controversy.  On one side were the conservatives who denounced the Papin sisters as "les diaboliques" and insisted that they be executed for their brutal crime.  On the other side were the left-wing political commentators who viewed the murder as being the result of a class struggle between the bourgeois Lancelins and the protelarian maids.  Much was made of the distant relationship between Madame Lancelin and the Papins (although they often referred to her as "Maman" in private) and domestic workers across France were suspected of plotting against their employers. 

During the trial, Christine Papin insisted that Madame Lancelin had thrown herself at them under the cover of darkness brought on by the blown fuse.   In her testimony, Christine stated that

"seeing that Mme Lancelin was going to rush at me, I flung myself in her face and tore her eyes out with my fingers.  When I say that I flung myself at Mme Lancelin, that is wrong.  I flung myself at Mlle Genevieve Lancelin and tore out her eyes.  While this was going on, my sister Lea leapt at Mme Lancelin and tore her eyes out". 

After describing how she and Lea slashed and mutilated the two women, she concluded that "the victims began howling but I don't remember their actually saying anything".      Lea confirmed her sister's testimony but she tended to leave all of the testifying to Christine and even went so far as to refer to herself as "deaf and dumb".    It was fairly obvious to the court that Lea had simply been following Christine's lead in the killings. 

The bizarre sexual overtones of the case, including the strange relationship between the defendants and Genevieve Lancelin's body being undressed after the murder, made for provocative headlines across France.    Angry crowds gathered outside the courtroom calling for the death penalty (despite the fact that no woman had been executed in France since the 19th century).   While there was speculation concerning the Papin sisters' mental state, three official psychiatric experts argued that they were not mentally ill.   There was also the question of whether Lea was as guilty as Christine in the killings.    One defense psychiatrist, Dr. Logre, described them as "the extraordinary moral duo formed by the two sisters, in which the younger one's personality was completely annihiliated by the older one's".    Although the sexual relationship between Christine and Lea was carefully edited out of the court record, Dr. Logre had no hesitation in talking about the case in his numerous interviews with the press after the trial was over.    While he had never actually interviewed the sisters (unlike the official court experts who had declared them to be sane), Dr. Logre diagnosed the Papin sisters as suffering from folie a deux.

Continue to part 2

 

 

 

 

 

Sex Differences in Retirement

Although prior research points to the role of gender in influencing work careers and private routines, surprisingly few studies have explored the influence of gender on the sources of psychological well-being in retirement. Drawing on resource theories and theories on the gendered division of labor, a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology examines how preretirement resources relate to retirees' psychological well-being by using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study.  In the study, the researchers hypothesized that possessing key resources prior to retirement as well as losing or gainingesources in the transition to retirement influence retirees' well-being and that these effects are partially conditioned by gender. Results indicated that preretirement physical health, tenacity in goal pursuit, and flexibility in goal adjustment are beneficial for men's and women's well-being alike. By contrast, financial assets and job dissatisfaction are more strongly related to men's psychological well-being in retirement and preretirement social contacts to that of women. Thus, the study underscores the importance of considering gendered resources in retirement research.

For the abstract.

Off to Washington,D.C.

Just to let you know that I will be going to Washington, D.C. for the first time next week.  I will be attending the annual convention of the American Psychological Association from August 4 to August 7 and I also hope to find time to see some of the sights while I'm there (I hear tell they have some nice museums there).    I'll try to post about some of the convention highlights as well.

If any of my readers happen to be around, give me a shout on Facebook or Twitter.