{"id":60549,"date":"2016-11-07T14:04:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=60549"},"modified":"2016-11-07T14:04:32","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:04:32","slug":"pathography-and-autopathography-the-case-of-nikolai-gogol-1809-1852-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/11\/07\/pathography-and-autopathography-the-case-of-nikolai-gogol-1809-1852-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pathography and autopathography: The case of Nikolai Gogol (1809\u20131852)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Dr. Rami Bou Khalil \u00a0 and\u00a0Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge\u00a0<\/b><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
Born in the Ukraine, Gogol published his sardonic tale \u2018Diary of a Madman\u2019 in 1834, in which he described the inner psychic conflict of the person named Axenty Poprishchin. It has been speculated that this short story contains one of the earliest descriptions of schizophrenia.1 In 1842, he wrote about pathologic hoarding in Plyushkin, a fictional Russian hoarder who appeared in his novel \u2018Dead Souls\u2019. At school, Gogol himself was called \u2018mysterious dwarf\u2019 by his peers and he lacked the ability to build and maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with them. Many authors considered that he suffered from a mood disorder.2,3 In the latter part of his life, Gogol presented a religious delusion and his delusional thinking had a great social and professional impact. According to an eyewitness, Gogol experienced hallucinations and often reacted violently. He became paranoid and burned all his manuscripts, including the second part of \u2018Dead Souls\u2019. In his final days, he refused his meals and starved himself to death, leaving numerous novels and short stories that had great impact on Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.<\/div>\n
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A pathography can be defined as \u2018the study of the effects of an illness on the writer\u2019s (or other artist\u2019s) life or art, or the effects of an artist\u2019s life and personality development on his creative work\u2019.4 Many pathographists in the history of art and literature can be included in this category including Ernest Hemingway, Vincent Van Gogh and Francis Scott Fitzgerald. However, the concept of autopathography is a more recent conceptualization of literary and artistic works in which autopathographists describe their own suffering from a serious, chronic or incurable medical condition with the aim of (1) destigmatizing the illness, (2) helping other patients to accept their situation, (3) earning money and gaining empathy, and (4) educating and criticizing carers and society.5,6 Accordingly, Nikolai Gogol is a pathographist who wrote many stories while being affected by a severe mental disorder. However, at the same time, he might be considered as one of the first autopathographists in history since, on one hand, many similarities can be found between Gogol\u2019s biography and pathography and, on the other hand, Gogol\u2019s mental disorder might have prevented him from acquiring insight into his own psychiatric symptoms and therefore he might have written of his own suffering without meaning to do so.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0References and notes<\/b><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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  1. \u21b5Altschuler\u00a0EL<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0One of the oldest cases of schizophrenia in Gogol\u2019s Diary of a Madman.\u00a0BMJ<\/abbr>\u00a02001;\u00a0323:\u00a01475\u20131477.\n
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  2. \u21b5Janka \u00a0ZArtistic creativity and bipolar mood disorder.\u00a0Orvosi Hetilap<\/abbr>\u00a02004;145:\u00a01709\u20131718.<\/a>\n
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  3. \u21b5Upthegrove\u00a0R<\/a>\u00a0On Nikolai Gogol\u2019s Diary of a Madman \u2013 reflection.\u00a0British Journal of Psychiatry<\/abbr>\u00a02014;\u00a0204:\u00a0156\u2013156.\n
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  4. \u21b5Campbell\u00a0RJ<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Campbell\u2019s psychiatric dictionary,\u00a06th ed.\u00a0Oxford:\u00a0Oxford University Press,\u00a01989.\n
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  5. \u21b5Aronson\u00a0JK<\/a>\u00a0Autopathography: the patient\u2019s tale.\u00a0BMJ<\/abbr>\u00a02000;\u00a0321:\u00a01599\u20131602\n
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  6. \u21b5Moran\u00a0ST<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Autopathography and depression: describing the \u2018despair beyond despair\u2019.\u00a0Journal of Medical Humanities<\/abbr>\u00a02006;\u00a027:\u00a079\u201391\n
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    Dr. Rami Bou Khalil\u00a0<\/b><\/div>\n
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    Rami Bou Khalil born in Kfarhouneh, Lebanon, in 1980. Graduated from medical school at Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, in 2006. Graduated in general psychiatry from Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, in 2011. Holder of a partial specialization degrees in general psychiatry from Paris-Diderot University, France, in 2009 and from Louvain\u2019s Catholic University, Belgium, in 2011. Holder of several university degrees in cognitive behavioral therapy (Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, in 2008), psycho-oncology (Paris-Descartes University, France, in 2009), organic and psychiatric comorbidities (Pierre and Marie Curie University, France, in 2009) and addiction (Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, in 2010). First year of master in biomedical sciences from Saint Joseph Unievrsity. First year of Euro-mediterranean interuniversity master in biotechnology and neurosciences. Psychiatrist at the department of psychiatry at Saint Joseph University and at the Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, Lebanon. Author of several book publications in English and in French in the domains of clinical psychiatry, neurosciences and psychopharmacology.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    By\u00a0Dr. Rami Bou Khalil \u00a0 and\u00a0Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge\u00a0 Born in the Ukraine, Gogol published his sardonic tale \u2018Diary of a Madman\u2019 in 1834, in which he described the inner psychic conflict of the person named Axenty Poprishchin. It has been speculated that this short story contains one of the earliest descriptions of schizophrenia.1 In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-ruwan-m-jayatunge-m-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}