Providentia

June is PTSD Awareness Month

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the National Center for PTSD  (NCPTSD) have announced that June is PTSD Awareness Month.  To help promote greater awareness of the complex issues surround posttraumatic stress, the United States Senate has also declared June 27 to be PTSD Awareness Day.    Posttraumatic stress disorder can occur due to exposure to a single traumatic event or series of events and can commonly be found in military veterans, emergency personnel, and survivors of physical or sexual assault.    Statistics suggest that PTSD can affect 3.5 percent of American adults each year and historical accounts of PTSD symptoms go back to ancient times. 

Symptoms of PTSD can include:

• persistent intrusive thoughts and distressing dreams about the trauma
• triggered emotional responses to sights, sounds, and smells that acts as reminders of the traumatic event
• persistent hypervigilance towards any cues suggesting the danger or trauma will reoccur

To promote awareness, the VA and NCPTSD invited professionals and family members to learn more about PTSD through their online resources including this printable PDF and this online video, PTSD Treatment: Know Your Options, which outlines the best treatments.  The VA also provides the About Face webpage which allows visitors to hear veterans and their families describe how PTSD has affected them and how treatment has helped them get their lives back.   Promotional materials are also available for anyone LLL

In recognizing that PTSD can also occur in children, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network is participating in this awareness campaign with their own web site offering ways people can get involved in their own communities.  

More information on PTSD

Where to get promotional materials for PTSD Awareness Month

Where to get help for PTSD

The Case of the Pimlico Poisoner (Part One of Two)

When Adelaide Bartlett discovered the body of her husband in their stylish residence in the heart of London on the morning of January 1, 1886, she immediately dispatched the maid to fetch the doctor.    On hearing the news of  Thomas Edwin Bartlestt's death, Adelaide's father-in-law immediately suspected foul play.  Not only was the dead man only 41 years old, but he had recently passed an insurance examination with flying colours and had been insured for the then-princely sum of four hundred pounds.  Though he had been complaining of fatigue in the final weeks of 1885, there was nothing to suggest any cause of death.  The first thing Edwin Bartlett Senior did when he came to examine the body was to smell his son's breath for see if he could detect any poisons.   The second thing he did was to ask authorities to look into what happened, especially considering his suspicions concerning Adelaide.

In the subsequent autopsy conducted on Thomas Bartlett's body, his stomach was found to contain a lethal quantity of chloroform.   Thomas had been suffering from various chronic illnesses, including rotting teeth, and was reportedly a fan of fad health remedies (such as animal magnetism) which he hoped would cure him once and for all.    Though he had visited his dentist on the day before his death, the question of how such a large dose of chloroform should have been in his stomach immediately raised suspicions.   His doctor, Alfred Leach, had admitted to prescribing chloroform for his patient but only in regulated doses.   Which still raised the question of how he came to be poisoned.   While police weren't prepared to rule out suicide, it was Adelaide's scandalous relationship with her tutor, the Reverend George Dyson, that led to an inquest returning a verdict of wilful murder. Adelaide and Dyson were both promptly arrested.  And so began what would become known as the Pimlico Poisoning Mystery.  

Thomas Bartlett had been a wealthy grocer and part of a very proper and close-knit  English family.  His marriage in 1875 to Adelaide Blanche de la Tremoile, who was both French and considerably younger than he was, caught everyone by surprise.    Adelaide's father, who was never publicly named but rumoured to be an English nobleman,  had arranged the marriage to Thomas, apparently after only a single meeting.   Since Adelaide was illegitimate, her father was desperate to arrange a good marriage for her.   Not only would the marriage provide her with a legitimate name, but is would also ensure a respectable place in English society.  As part of the agreement, the father  gave Thomas a rather sizeable dowry (which was promptly invested in Thomas' grocery business).   The arrangement also had Thomas agree to assume all responsibility for his young wife, including controlling her behaviour, a major concern in Victorian times.

Thomas' father detested Adelaide from the beginning and often accused her of affairs, including one with Thomas' younger brother.  Which seems ironic considering that Adelaide would later insist that her marriage to Thomas had been "platonic" from the very beginning.    The accusations of infidelity and general animosity Adelaide received from her father-in-law caused her to run away from her home on several occasions  (Edwin would then accuse her of running off with other men).   Thomas eventually forced his father to apologize to Adelaide in writing, something Edwin would later claim he had only done to make peace with his son. 

Though the accusations of infidelity stopped (at least for a while), Adelaide and Edwin continued to despise one another.  When Adelaide became pregnant in 1881 (apparently after repeating begging Thomas for a child),  things became even more nightmarish.   The pregnancy was a difficult one from the beginning, especially since Thomas refused to allow anyone but female midwives to tend to his wife.   Even when one of Adelaide's nurses pleaded with him to allow a male doctor to treat her, Thomas flatly refused to allow any man to "interfere with her."   When the baby was stillborn, Adelaide was devastated.   She would never become pregnant again and they went back to their old "platonic" relationship.

Most of the details surrounding the later married life of Thomas and Adelaide would only come out in open court after his death.   Edwin Bartlett would reluctantly testify that his son once told him that a man should have "two wives, one for companionship and one for work."    Other people who knew Thomas would often hear him say the same thing, albeit more crudely.  Another of Thomas' quirks was his reluctance at allowing Adelaide to have any female friends or acquaintances visiting.  Instead, oddly enough, he insisted on surrounding her with male acquaintances and often encouraging her to become physically intimate with them. 

One particular favourite was Wesleyan minister George Dyson.    Not only was Dyson a frequent visitor to the Bartlett home, but he was also hired to tutor Adelaide and to act as a spiritual counselor to the couple.   Thomas had so much confidence in Dyson that he even asked him to be executor of the new will he had drawn up.  The exact nature of the relationship that Adelaide, George, and Thomas actually had would become the fodder for lurid gossip during the criminal trial.  According to witnesses, George Dyson often arrived as early in the morning after Thomas left for work and would stay for the rest of the day.  He even kept his own coat and slippers at the house.     Thomas also paid for George to accompany them when they went on vacation.

Though Thomas' father had no trouble accusing Adelaide and George of conspiring to poison his son, the testimony Adelaide would provide was much more lurid.  Among other things, she testified that Thomas had openly encouraged George to become intimate with her and even asked them to kiss in his presence.  "He seemed to enjoy it," she said.   George Dyson was much more nervous testifying about his relationship with Adelaide.   He admitted confessing to Thomas about his growing fondness for her.   Thomas, for his part, seemed quite pleased and suggested that George and Adelaide write letters to each other.  The letters themselves were never entered into evidence (assuming they hadn't already been burned) though Thomas did change his will shortly before his death.  

This new will, with George Dyson as executor, was much the same as the previous one except for removing the sticky clause insisting that Adelaide not be allowed to remarry after his death.   But there were far more lurid revelations to come in a murder trial that would have Londoners crowding into the courtroom and eagerly reading their evening paper for the latest details.

Continue to Part Two

 

 

 

 

Love Hurts

The publication of Richard Krafft-Ebbing's masterwork Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886 represented a landmark in thinking about human sexuality and the bizarre forms that it can take. In addition to describing different types of sexual expression that the author regarded as "perverse" (usually any form of sex that didn't lead to procreation), it quickly became one of the most influential books on human sexuality ever written and introduced numerous new terms into common usage. One of these terms, "masochism" which Krafft-Ebbing defined as "the opposite of sadism (which he also coined). While the later is the desire to cause pain and use force, the former is the wish to suffer pain and be subjected to force".    For all that he had given a name to a shadowy sexual practice that had never before been described in the scientific literature, one person in particular who was less than pleased with the new term was the Austrian author, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. K rafft-Ebbing justified naming this new sexual anomaly after the prominent author whom he described as "the poet of Masochism" due to his erotic writings and because of his own eccentric personal life (to which we now turn).

Born in 1836 in what is now the Ukraine (but then part of the Austrian empire), Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was part of a fairly upper-middle class family (his father was a police director).  He studied law, history and mathematics at Graz University and then returned to his home town to begin a quiet academic life.  Sacher-Masoch wrote fiction and non-fiction alike although it was his fiction, often concerning historical themes, that quickly won out. He gave up lecturing to become a full-time author and "man of letters".  While his short stories marked him as a brilliant author known for his humanist and utopian ideas, he largely supported himself as a journalist.

Although Sacher-Masoch was well-regarded in literary circles, it was the sexual themes that came out of his later works that have made him so well-known. His plan for a grandiose short story cycle that he called The Legacy of Cain was never completed but the short stories and novels that he did finish revealed his fascination for being physically dominated and abused by women (especially ones that wore fur).   The short novel for which he is best known, Venus in Furs was published in 1870, and has become an erotic classic in its own right. In this book, the hero Severin asks to be treated as a slave and to be abused by Wanda (the "Venus in furs" of the story). The fact that Sacher-Masoch often acted out these fantasies in real-life with his wives and mistresses was not well-known since he preferred to keep his private life as private as he could.

Sacher-Masoch was, to put it mildly, displeased when Krafft-Ebbing made him an apostle of sexual perversion. He had gone to great lengths to maintain his public persona as a man of letters and he found this new fame humiliating. Doubly galling was the fact that the word "masochism" took on a life of its own and quickly became an established medical term. It may be a coincidence that his health went into a decline shortly after Psychopathia Sexualis came out but by March of 1895, he was delusional and violent.  After attempting to kill his then-wife Hulda, she arranged for him to be discreetly moved to an asylum in Lindheim, Hesse. Although his official obituary states that he died that year, there are claims that Sacher-Masoch lived on as an anonymous asylum inmate and actually died years later.

Despite his name being a byword for kinky sexuality, the full-extent of Sacher-Masoch's private life only became known in 1906 when his first wife, Aurora, published her memoirs (under the pseudonym of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch). The lurid details generated tremendous controversy and kept his books in the public eye. Despite moral outrage and attempts at censorship over the years, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch has attained a not-so-quiet immortality (but perhaps not the kind that he would have wanted).

Can White Noise Help Children with Attention Problems?

Optimal stimulation theory and moderate brain arousal (MBA) model hypothesize that extra-task stimulation (e.g. white noise) could improve cognitive functions of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  A new study published in the journal Behavioral and Brain Functions explores the benefits of white noise on attention and inhibition in children with and without ADHD (7–12 years old), both at behavioral and at neurophysiological levels. Thirty children with and without ADHD performed a visual cued Go/Nogo task in two conditions (white noise or no-noise exposure), in which behavioral and P300 (mean amplitudes) data were analyzed. Spontaneous eye-blink rates were also recorded and participants went through neuropsychological assessment. Two separate analyses were conducted with each child separately assigned into two groups (1) ADHD or typically developing children (TDC), and (2) noise beneficiaries or non-beneficiaries according to the observed performance during the experiment. This latest categorization, based on a new index the researchers called “Noise Benefits Index” (NBI), was proposed to determine a neuropsychological profile positively sensitive to noise. Results showed that noise exposure reduced omission rate in children with ADHD, who were no longer different from TDC. Eye-blink rate was higher in children with ADHD but was not modulated by white noise. NBI indicated a significant relationship between ADHD and noise benefit. Strong correlations were observed between noise benefit and neuropsychological weaknesses in vigilance and inhibition. Participants who benefited from noise had an increased Go P300 in the noise condition.   The improvement of children with ADHD with white noise supports both optimal stimulation theory and MBA model. However, eye-blink rate results question the dopaminergic hypothesis in the latter. The NBI evidenced a profile positively sensitive to noise, related with ADHD, and associated with weaker cognitive control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Malawi Bans Witchdoctors to Stop Albino Killings

For Clement Dayile, the decision to stop giving sermons to his congregation is a matter of simple survival.  

A pastor at the Christ Citadel Church in southern Malawi, Dayile fears that being an albino may make him a target given the rash of brutal albino attacks that have occurred in Malawi in recent years.   "The situation is not conducive for me to be going out to preach. I don't even go out on longer distances, in fear I will be the next victim," said the church leader said.

The popular belief that body parts from albinos can be used in magical remedies ensuring wealth has given rise to a gruesome black market and has left many albinos in fear of their lives across the African nation.   Along with eighteen murder cases in the past two years, kidnappings and attacks on albinos have also increased while three Malawi nationals with albinism are still missing.   At least twenty-eight graveyards across Malawi that contain the bodies of albinos have been reportedly desecrated.

In a recent BBC interview, Malawi president Peter Mutharika admitted to being "ashamed" of the rising number of albino attacks in his country and denounced the superstition behind it all.  "The people who are telling people that it makes people rich are not even rich. They are wearing rags. How can a person like this make your rich if he himself cannot make himself rich?" he said.   Though the same problem is plaguing other African nations, including neighbouring Tanzania, Malawi has been the focus of international outrage.

To stop albino killings,  Malawi's High Court has now banned all witchdoctors from plying their trade anywhere in the country.   In his recent ruling, Judge Dingiswayo Madise ordered all traditional healers, witchdoctors, charm producers, magic users and fortune tellers to stop practicing and also ordered all media outlets from publishing or broadcasting advertisements for these services.   The ruling is the result of a court case in which three residents of northern Malawi sued two witchdoctors whose charms failed to work as advertised.  

Along with accusing the witchdoctors of fraud, the complainants are also accusing them of being the main customers for albino body parts.  One of the complainants, Oswald Phiri, also has an albino relative and filed the complaint as a way to protect his family.    Judge Madise said in his ruling that, "At the request of the three concerned Malawians to ban activities of witchdoctors in order to eliminate albino attacks and killings, this court grants the order." 

Though the court had initially intended the ruling to apply to foreign witchdoctors only, it has since been extended to all magic workers in the country.    President Mutharika also blamed foreign born magic workers fleeing other countries where they face criminal charges over albino killings.   "We have just learned that some witchdoctors who were banned in Tanzania, and others from Mozambique, fled to Malawi and are fueling attacks on people with albinism.  They must be deported."

While it is unclear whether the albino killings will stop now that witchdoctors and other magic workers have been banned in Malawi, albinos such as Clement Dayile are still living in fear.   Only time will tell how safe they will be in future.

Raising Gua (Part Three of Three)

Continued from Part Two

Though the Kelloggs had originally planned for a five-year study,  the research project came to an abrupt end when they realized that Donald was being adversely affected by being raised along with Gua  Not only did he begin giving guttural food barks similar to Gua when asking for food, but he also developed the alarming habit of grunting at his parents the way that his "sister" did.  It was at this point, just nine months after their research began, that the Kelloggs decided that the experiment needed to be terminated.   

As Winthrop Kellogg later wrote:

The situation in which the two lived together as playmates and associates was much like that of the two-child family in which Gua, because of her greater maturity and agility, played the part of the older child. With the added stimulation thus afforded, the younger child in such situations usually learns more rapidly than would otherwise be the case. It was Gua, in fact, who was almost always the aggressor or leader in finding new toys to play with and new methods of play; while the human was inclined to take up the role of the imitator and follower.

Still, by the time the Kelloggs terminated their experiment, Gua had made amazing progress.   She had learned to walk upright and respond to over twenty different commands, including "Shake hands" and "Open the door"  (Donald had only learned three by this point).  Despite her progress however, Winthrop and Luella Kellogg had grave doubts about what  was Gua was actually learning.   As they later commented:

"Let us consider finally the ability of the subjects [apes] in the comprehension of language. We are here faced, as in many earlier instances, with the problem of inner mental processes, for we cannot tell in a strict usage of the term whether the subjects introspectively comprehend what is said about them or not. All we can do is to observe whether they are able to react distinctively and individually to separate words and phrases. This, then, must serve as our criterion of 'comprehension.'

Still, while Donald was outperforming Gua in many other ways, including the spontaneous use of language, Gua's progress could not be doubted.   What she learned while raised as a human would shatter many of the assumptions previously made about the differences between humans and non-humans.

Which still raised the question of how successful Gua could be in becoming readjusted to life among other research chimpanzees after living most of her life separated from other of her own kind.   The Kelloggs did their best  to prepare Gua for her return to living with other chimpanzees at the primate centre in Florida.  However, the transition was likely traumatic considering they were the only real parents Gua ever knew.    I haven't been able to determine anything of Gua's life at the primate centre except that Robert and Ada Yerkes continued to use Gua in their own chimpanzee research.   For whatever reason, Gua didn't live long after the Kelloggs returned to Indiana.  She died of pneumonia on December 21, 1933, less than a year after being separated from her "brother" and the  loving care she received with the Kelloggs.   Her death so soon afterward represents a tragic (and little-mentioned) footnote in what is otherwise hailed as a classic study in human-ape communication.

As for Winthrop and Luella Kellogg, their 1933 book, The Ape and the Child,  became an instant classic.  One reviewer described it as a "well-written, mature, and scholarly piece of psychological literature."   The reviewer went on to say that it should be "required reading in all courses where the problem of heredity and environment is discussed."   Not surprisingly, the Kellogg study generated enormous publicity with stories about Donald and Gua being written in the New York Times and other popular newspapers.   Video clips from their life together are still available online.

It's hard to say how much of an impact the Kellogg study actually had on the eugenics movement (which was already dying out in the United States due to revelations over what was happening in Nazi Germany) as well as the entire heredity vs. environment debate.  Still, what Winthrop and Luella attempted to do inspired other researchers to try similar studies.  During the 1950s, psychologists Keith and Catherine Hayes launched their own experiment in raising a chimpanzee named Viki as a human child.  They even managed to train Viki to speak four English words after extensive speech therapy though the barrier to full human speech seemed impassable.

Of course, the most well-known experiment of its kind was Allen and Beatrix Gardner's work during the 1960s and 1970s teaching American Sign Language (ASL) to a chimpanzee named Washoe.    Not only did Washoe manage to learn hundred of ASL words, she even taught some ASL to her own son, Louis.  Though this work is still controversial, the Gardners' success with Washoe and other chimpanzees helped revive interest in animal communication as well as  the biological roots of language.    Similar work with a gorilla named Koko has reportedly led to her learning as many as one thousand words in a modified version of ASL.  Again, the research results evaluating Koko's progress continues to spark controversy.

As for Winthrop Kellogg, he went on to become one of the pioneers in animal research for much of his long career as a psychologist.  Having moved to Florida State University in 1950, he was instrumental in reshaping the psychology program there and also became part of Florida State's marine research laboratory.   Though his later research would never be as famous as what he had tried to do with Gua, he also became one of the first researchers to study how bottlenose dolphins use sonar to navigate as well as exploring  dolphin communication and problem-solving ability.     This involved inventing a special dolphin pool for use in research as well as becoming a scuba diver himself to explore the research environment from the point of view of the dolphin.    He would later attempt to apply what he had learned about echolocation in dolphins to help blind humans navigate.

Even in retirement, Winthrop Kellogg stayed active n research including directing graduate students looking at cognitive ability in sea lions.  He died in the summer of 1972, ten years after formally retiring from teaching.   His wife Luella died just a few months later and, tragically, their son Donald died in the following year.   

The Kaspar Hauser Mystery (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1

The rumours of Kaspar's true identity began to fly. The most persistent story was that he was actually a son of Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden who had somehow been stolen away as an infant (several people commented on the resemblance). Although Kaspar didn't actually encourage the stories, he began to act more like a prince in exile and adapted quickly to his new social role. Whatever enjoyment Kaspar had in all the attention he received faded as it became apparent that people were becoming less interested in him. He stopped being such a novelty and stories about his being deceitful and manipulating began to spread. This was when the "attempts" on his life started.

On October 17, 1829, Kaspar was found crouching in the cellar of the house where he lived.  He was bleeding from a cut in his forehead which, though slight, kept him bedridden for two days.  He later said that he had been attacked by a man with a black handkerchief across his face who struck him with a knife and told him that he was going to be killed.  Kaspar said that he recognized the man as being the one who had first held him prisoner.  Despite questions over how someone could have entered the house without anyone else noticing, a police investigation found no trace of the mystery attacker. Given the implausible nature of the story and questions about Kaspar's credibility, skeptics accused him of making up the attack.

Kaspar was placed under police observation and was watched by two officers on a regular basis whenever he left the house. Professor Daumer asked that Kaspar be sent somewhere else to live.  Not only was Daumer tired of the scrutiny, he had come to believe that Kaspar was a compulsive liar.  In one letter, Daumer stated that "Kaspar Hauser's nature had lost much of its original purity and that a highly regrettable tendency to untruthfulness and dissimulation had manifested itself".  He also added that he and Kaspar had quarreled on the same day of his supposed attack due to Kaspar neglecting his studies.  After leaving the Daumers, Kaspar became the official ward of Baron von Tucher and was placed in the home of a Nuremberg trader named Biberbach.

His stay with the Biberbachs didn't last long since they became even more disgusted by Kaspar's lies and laziness than the Daumers were.  On April 30, 1830, after a particularly nasty quarrel with the Biberbachs, police guarding the house were startled by the sound of a gunshot.  Kaspar was found bleeding from a wound on the right side of his head.  Although he passed it off as an accident, the circumstances seemed implausible and the Biberbachs asked for him to be removed from their house.  He was returned to the von Tucher household where he lived for another eighteen months.  von Tucher became increasingly disenchanted with Kaspar whom he felt had been "morally corrupted" by the attention he had received when he first discovered.  

It was also around this time that Kaspar's case began attracting international attention.  A series of pamphlets about "the remarkable Nuremberg foundling" were published, some skeptical of his claims while others speculated on his origins. An English nobleman, Lord Stanhope took a formal interest in Kaspar and arranged to meet him in 1831.  Despite Stanhope's own skepticism about some of the inconsistencies in Kaspar's story, they became friends and Stanhope even posted a reward for information on whoever had imprisoned Kaspar (it was never claimed).  In 1832, legal scholar Paul Johann Feuerbach published History of a Crime against a Human Soul in which he eloquently described the tragedy of Kaspar Hauser's story. Feuerbach became a fervent supporter and later, one of Kaspar's guardians.

Stanhope followed up every lead and even took Kaspar to Hungary based on his vague memory of a few Hungarian words.  Kaspar enjoyed the attention and von Tucher wrote a letter to Stanhope complaining that  his ward was becoming more vain and conceited than ever.  The burghers of Nuremberg cancelled Kaspar's annual pension and hinted that Stanhope should take charge of him instead.  They were certainly delighted when Lord Stanhope agreed to make Kaspar his ward and placed him in the care of a schoolmaster named Meyer.  While Kaspar enjoyed this new status, whatever hopes he had of Stanhope taking him to England were short-lived.  Stanhope returned home alone.

The search for Kaspar's birth family continued and he began claiming that he was the son of a Hungarian countess.  When Stanhope returned to Nuremberg, he launched a new investigation and sent agents to Hungary but, like before, no proof was found that Kaspar had ever been there.  Stanhope also became exasperated by reports from Professor Meyer that Kaspar wasn't studying properly as well as new complaints of lying.  He eventually made arrangements to have Kaspar become a clerk since he didn't seem capable of any other profession.  On December 9, 1833, Kaspar had a terrible argument with Meyer and openly dreaded what Stanhope would say when he arrived a few days later.  

Five days later, Kaspar rushed into the room where Meyer and his wife were sitting.  He was out of breath and pointed to a wound in his chest where someone had stabbed him.  He dragged Meyer to the nearby public gardens and gasped out, "went-Hofgarten-man-had knife-gave bag-stabbed-ran as hard as could".  Meyer took him back home to be treated.  Although doctors initially believed the wound to be shallow, his condition worsened drastically. Police questioned him and he told them that he had been lured to the Hofgarten with a fake message and stabbed. Aside from an odd note found in a silk bag near where Kaspar was found, no other clues to the attack were ever found.  Kaspar Hauser died on December 17, 1833. 

An autopsy raised questions about Kaspar's attack and his own version of events.  The medical experts who examined the evidence were split on whether Kaspar's wound was self-inflicted or whether he had been killed by an unknown assailant.  Although some supporters suggested that Kaspar had been assassinated to prevent him from proving his royal origins, skeptics countered that Kaspar had actually stabbed himself to stir up public interest in his story (while misjudging the depth of the knife wound).  The knife was never found (and may have been thrown into a nearby brook).  A formal investigation concluded that no murder had taken place and that Kaspar had stabbed himself.  Lord Stanhope later wrote that he agreed with the findings and stated that "I may be the only man that ever wrote a book to prove himself in the wrong".  

The controversy dragged on with supporters insisting that Kaspar had been assassinated to prevent him from discovering his true origins.  Pamphlets were  published denouncing Stanhope and accusing various people in Kaspar's life of covering up the murder.  Years later, Professor Daumer wrote a book in which he insisted that Stanhope had masterminded Kaspar's assassination himself.   Stanhope's daughter, Catherine Powlett Cleveland published a book on the case in 1893 which is still available online.  Long after his death, Kaspar Hauser's story continued to inspire movies, books, and plays based on his life and questions about his origins and the strange circumstances of his death are still being raised.

But what can we say about Kaspar Hauser?  Even though certain aspects of his story can be dismissed as exaggeration (he learned to talk and walk suspiciously quickly given his claims of growing up in a cell), there is little question that he suffered from abuse and neglect in his early childhood.  The scars on his body and the psychosocial dwarfism he experienced (which is still known as the "Kaspar Hauser syndrome") seems testimony enough for that.  DNA studies have since ruled out his being part of the Baden royal family although questions remain about his true identity.  This continuing mystery may be a fitting legacy for a   strange foundling who enjoyed attention.

 

"Barefoot Therapists" Bringing Mental Health Care For Depressed Mothers in Pakistan

Perinatal depression is a public health problem in low and middle income countries. Although effective psychosocial interventions exist, a major limitation to their scale up is the scarcity of mental health professionals. A new study published in the International Journal of Mental Health Systems explores the use of peer volunteers (PVs)—volunteer lay women from the community with shared socio-demographic and life experiences with the target population—as delivery agents of a psychosocial intervention for perinatal depression in a rural area of Pakistan. This qualitative study was embedded in the pilot phase of a larger peer-delivered mental health programme. Forty nine participants were included: depressed mothers (n = 21), PVs (n = 8), primary health care staff (n = 5), husbands (n = 5) and mothers-in-law (n = 10). Data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus groups and analysed using the Framework Analysis approach. Results showed that the PVs were accepted as delivery agents by all key stakeholders. Facilitators included the PVs’ personal attributes such as being local, trustworthy, empathetic, and having similar experiences of motherhood. The perceived usefulness and cultural appropriateness of the intervention and linkages with the primary health care (PHC) system was vital to their legitimacy and credibility. The PVs’ motivation was important, and factors influencing this were: appropriate selection; effective training and supervision; community endorsement of their role, and appropriate incentivisation. Barriers included women’s lack of autonomy, certain cultural beliefs, stigma associated with depression, lack of some mothers’ engagement and resistance from some families.  PVs are a potential human resource for the delivery of a psychosocial intervention for perinatal depression in this rural area of Pakistan.  The use of such delivery agents could be considered for other under-resourced settings globally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

For the abstract

Children, Cities ,and Psychosis

Are children who grow up in cities more vulnerable to developing mental illness later in life?   A new research study by a team of British and American researchers suggests a strong link between urban living and schizophrenia.

The study, which has recently published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin provides evidence that children growing up in urban settings are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as adults than children raised in rural settings.  According to the neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia, problems in early development, including during pregnancy, can lead to psychotic symptoms occurring during adolescence or young adulthood because of brain pathology.   Positive psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations and delusions, are also surprisingly common in children.   Even though these symptoms are usually temporary, they can suggest later problems such as substance abuse, depression, PTSD, and suicide. 

To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.