Suicide

HISTORY

In ancient China, people committed suicide by eating a pound of salt.

Seven suicides are recorded in the Bible.

In 165AD, the Greek philosopher Peregrinus Proteus committed suicide in flamboyant fashion after giving his own oration then cremating himself on the flames of a funeral pyre at the Olympic Games.

In Ancient Rome, suicide was never a general offense in law, though the whole approach to the question was essentially pragmatic. This is illustrated by the example given by Titus Livy of the colony of Massalia (present day Marseilles) people who wanted to kill themselves applied to the Senate, and if their reasons were judged sufficient they were given free hemlock to do so.

The Death of Seneca (1684), painting by Luca Giordano

When Roman statesman Cato the Younger attempted suicide in secret in 46 BC to avoid capture by Caesar, his sword missed any vital organs, slicing open his stomach. When he awoke to a doctor stitching him up, Cato pushed him away, tore out his intestines with his bare hands, and died on the spot. 

In the early fifth century, St. Augustine wrote the book The City of God, which included Christianity's first blanket condemnation of suicide. His biblical justification for this was the interpretation of the commandment, "thou shalt not kill", as he saw the omission of "thy neighbor", which is included in "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", to mean that the killing of oneself is not allowed either.

Suicide used to be regarded as shocking and blasphemous, and a coroner's verdict of 'felo de se' – literally crime against oneself. In Tudor England those who committed suicide while accused of a crime were forbidden a Christian burial, which was deemed necessary for entry to the Kingdom of God.

For hundreds of years, a suicide usually resulted in the body being buried at a crossroads, with a stake through the heart, and with no religious ceremony.

In Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1774 book The Sorrows of Young Werther, the title character kills himself due to a love triangle involving Charlotte. The novel inspired many copycat suicides in Europe.

Charlotte (pictured at Werther's grave. 

If you attempted to commit suicide in England in the 1800′s, and were unsuccessful, you would face the death penalty.

In 1803, the Igbo people (an ethnic group from present day south Nigeria) managed to take control of their slave ship. They committed mass suicide instead of submitting to slavery in the United States. 

For centuries, India practiced sati, where widows were obliged to commit suicide upon their husband's death, often by self-immolation on their funeral pyre. The British banned it in the 19th century.

During World War I, suicide rates dropped in Europe in those countries involved in the fighting and those that were neutral. Following the armistice, the national rates returned to pre-war levels.

The British Anglican priest Chad Varah established Samaritans as the world's first crisis telephone support to those contemplating suicide. He started the hotline in the crypt of his church in 1953. He was prompted to do so after the first funeral he conducted early in his career was for a 14-year-old girl who took her own life after having no one to talk to when her first period came and believed she’d contracted an STD. The phone line, MAN 9000 (for MANsion House), received its first call on November 2, 1953. 

Varah190 Wikipedia

When Kokichi Tsuburaya Japan "only" won bronze for Japan at the 1964 Olympics, he promptly committed suicide because he felt he had let down his country.

In 1970, Billy Joel wrote a suicide note and attempted to commit suicide by drinking furniture polish, stating it looked "tastier than bleach". He later published his suicide note as a song in his first album, Cold Spring Harbor. The song would be titled, “Tomorrow is Today.”

When famous Japanese pop star Yukiko Okada suddenly committed suicide on April 8, 1986, many of her fans were so devastated that it resulted in numerous copycat suicides, the process has since been dubbed "Yukiko Syndrome."

Dr. Jack Kevorkian used his suicide machine for the first time on June 4, 1990 when Alzheimer's patient Janet Adkins gave herself a fatal injection by pressing a button on the euthanasia proponent's death machine. 

The writer Hunter S. Thompson died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on February 20, 2005. He killed himself while on the phone with his wife. She mistook the cocking of the gun for the sound of his typewriter keys and hung up as he fired.

Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea from 2003 to 2008, killed himself on May 23, 2009 by jumping off a cliff. His left-wing party chose to delay the opening of parliament until the right-wing government of the time accepted responsibility for his suicide.

Following the suicide of a the famous Korean actress Choi Jin-sil on October 2, 2008, the frequency of suicide in Korea increased by 162,2% for three weeks confirming the "Werther effect," that a suicide can cause others to also commit suicide.

Portrait photograph of the South Korean actress, Choi Jin-sil

A restaurant manager at Disneyland Paris killed himself in 2010 and scratched a message on a wall saying "Je ne veux pas retourner chez Mickey" which translates to "I don't want to work for Mickey any more."

The day after Robin Williams's suicide on August 11, 2014, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline fielded the greatest number of calls in its history.

Suicides nationwide increased by 10 percent after Robin Williams’ death; researchers found a convincing parallel between the increase and sensationalized coverage/headlines of his death that violated CDC guidelines, focusing on the method of death.

STATISTICS

A study titled "Where Are They Now?" in 1978 followed up on 515 people who were prevented from attempting suicide using the Golden Gate Bridge from 1937 to 1971.  About 90% were either alive or had died of natural causes, concluding "suicidal behavior is crisis-oriented" rather than inexorable.

As a suicide prevention initiative, the sign below promotes a special telephone available on the Golden Gate Bridge that connects to a crisis hotline

Wikipedia

Several studies have shown a significant decrease in suicides on Japanese railway station platforms after the installation of blue LED lights. The exact percentage reduction varies between studies, but it's generally around 70-80%. The theory behind this is that blue light can help to regulate mood and reduce impulsive behavior. While the specific mechanism isn't fully understood, the positive impact of this simple intervention is clear.

Over one million people die by suicide worldwide each year. 

The global suicide rate is 16 per 100,000 population.

On average, one person dies by suicide every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. 

1.8% of worldwide deaths are suicides.

In the United Kingdom, 5,675, 5,608, and 6,045 people aged 15 and over committed suicide in 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.

The precipitating circumstances for suicide from 16 American states in 2008

Men commit suicides 3.8 times more than women in the West, and 1.8 time more globally.

2.5% of all men in the US commit suicide, it is the 7th leading cause of death for men

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among those aged 15-29 worldwide.

For many doctors, the constant stress of their work can lead to crippling depression. 300 - 400 doctors kill themselves each year, a rate of 28 to 40 per 100,000, more than double that of general population.

1 in every 5 people in Greenland attempts to kill themselves at some point in their lifetimes.

25% of suicides happen on a Wednesday, 11% more than the next highest day. 

The Suicide by Édouard Manet 1877–1881

On average there are 25 attempts at suicide for every single success. The elderly are more successful at 4:1. While for younger folks (aged 15 - 24), the odds are between 100 and 200 to 1 against.

SUICIDE FACTS

If you commit suicide in Japan by jumping onto an oncoming train or killing yourself in an apartment building, the train or building company can/will sue your family for clean up fees, loss of income and negative publicity brought on by your suicide.

There is a "Suicide Forest" in Japan where about 100 suicides occur every year.

Blue LED lights are installed at certain Tokyo railway stations to deter suicides. Research found the presence of blue lights resulted in an 84% decrease in suicides. Although the exact reason is unknown, it is theorized blue light has a positive calming effect on mood. 

In an effort to reduce the high number of suicides on South Korea's Mapo Bridge, it was unofficially renamed the Bridge of Life. It was decorated with positive affirmations and even sympathetic sculptures. Suicides increased sixfold the following year.

The "suicide palm" recently discovered in Madagascar flowers itself to death. The plant grows for decades before exploding with nectar-rich blossoms that deplete the plant's nutrients and cause it to die.

British woman Amy Dallamura was banned from being within 50 meters of the sea after she unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by throwing herself into the ocean fifty times - costing emergency crews over £1m.

Chen Si is a Chinese man who has spent every weekend since December 19, 2003 voluntarily patrolling the world's most popular suicide site. As a result, he has prevented over 400 people from jumping over the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

Don Ritchie (June 9, 1925 – May 13, 2012) was an Australian who talked at least 160 people out of committing suicide at Watson's Bay by offering them a cup of tea and someone to talk to. He was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his efforts.

The irrational feeling of wanting to jump off a high building or to swerve your car into a tree has a name - L'appel du vide (call of the void).

Source Suicide

Schizophrenia

THE CONDITION

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, which generally develops in early adulthood and can lead to profound changes in personality and behaviour. The condition is characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to understand what is real.

Schizophrenia was first described as a distinct syndrome affecting young people by Bénédict Morel in 1853, termed démence précoce (literally 'early dementia').

A painting that explains what a person with schizophrenia experiences.

In 1893 German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin introduced a new distinction in the classification of mental disorders dividing them into two groups, "dementia praecox" (schizophrenia) and "manic - depressive insanity". Kraepelin believed that dementia praecox was primarily a disease of the brain, different from other forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's disease which usually happen later in life.

Although the Nazis sterilized or murdered over three quarters of all schizophrenics in Germany (about 220,000 - 269,000 people), there were no long-term effects on subsequent rates of schizophrenia in the country. In fact, post World War II rates were unexpectedly high.

The Soviet Union created a fake mental disorder (Sluggish Schizophrenia) to arrest anyone who criticized the leadership until the 1970s.

The voices schizophrenics hear are actually their own subvocal speech. This is why it's so common for schizophrenics to believe their minds are being read.

Schizophrenia's voices/hallucinations are shaped by culture. Americans with schizophrenia tend to have more paranoid and harsher voices/hallucinations. In Africa and India people with schizophrenia tend to have more playful and positive voices.

Some people with schizophrenia who were born deaf see visual hallucinations of disembodied hands signing to them, or lips making words, as opposed to "hearing" voices.

There's not a single case of someone who was born blind developing schizophrenia.

People with schizophrenia have the ability to tickle themselves.

Newborns with a vitamin D deficiency have a 44 percent increased risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia as adults compared to those with normal vitamin D levels.

Schizophrenic voices are shaped by local culture. Patients in America hear voices asking them to do violent things whereas in Africa and India the voices they hear are usually of dead relatives or nice voices offering comfort.

The picture below is a cloth embroidered by a person with schizophrenia. This is a written example of a "word salad"; a meaningless mixture of words and phrases demonstrating the disorganized thinking caused by the disorder.

By cometstarmoon - originally posted to Flickr as Embroidered Schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia have the ability to tickle themselves.

People who grow up in cities are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia, even when controlling for drug use and ethnicity.

FAMOUS SCHIZOPHRENICS IN HISTORY

Charles VI of France (1368 – 1422), suffered from bouts of madness, probably schizophrenia. His doctors tried everything from exorcism to trepanning to cure him.

Charles VI  by Master of Boucicaut (1412).

In 1889, after the completion of Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche's health rapidly declined and is said to have tearfully embraced a horse in Turin because it had been beaten by its owner. He was taken back to his room and spent several days in a state of ecstasy writing letters to various friends, signing them Dionysus. He gradually became less coherent and almost entirely uncommunicative. Nietzsche was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and never recovered.

Daniel Paul Schreber (July 25, 1842 – April 14, 1911) was a German judge who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Schreber believed he was receiving cosmic rays through his anal glands by God in order to transform him into a woman so that he could herald and breed a new race. He described his mental illness in his book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, an account which served as Sigmund's Freud's primary source to understand the condition.

Albert Einstein's second son Eduard was born in 1908. Eduard was a talented student but suffered from schizophrenia, and his mental health issues became apparent during his late teenage years. His condition worsened over time, leading to his institutionalization. Eduard spent much of his life in psychiatric clinics, including the Burghölzli Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich, Switzerland where he died aged 55 in 1965.

Buddy Bolden (September 6, 1877 – November 4, 1931), the African-American cornetist credited with creating the musical innovations that would lead to the birth of Jazz, Bolden had acute schizophrenia and was permanently committed to a mental institution at age 30.

Irish novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett was in the same circle of artists as renowned Irish writer James Joyce. However, Beckett's close relationship with Joyce and his family cooled, when he rejected the advances of Joyce's daughter Lucia owing to her progressing schizophrenia.

The novelist Scott F Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, was a schizophrenic. She was confined to an expensive asylum in North Carolina from 1936 to her death in 1948 in a fire at her asylum. Scott was loyal, not divorcing Zelda and visiting her in hospital.

Zelda Fitzgerald self-portrait, watercolor, probably painted in the early 1940s

David Bowie's schizophrenic half-brother Terry killed himself in 1985 when he escaped the grounds of the mental hospital where he was staying and put his head in the way of an oncoming train.. His 1993 song "Jump They Say" deals with Bowie's feelings about his brother and the factors that lead to his mental illness.

There are very few (if any) documented cases of congenital blindness (blindness from birth) co-occurring with schizophrenia. This observation has intrigued neuroscientists and psychiatrists alike.

Nerves

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates prescribed celery as a nerve soother.

The Native Americans believed the cranberry had special powers to calm the nerves.

Frederick the Great was in the habit of having his veins opened in battle as it soothed his nerves.

William Gladstone used laudanum to settle his nerves before parliamentary speeches and once glugged down so much he was forced to go to the spa at Baden Baden to recuperate.

Sigmund Freud's 1895 Studies In Hysteria with Josef Breuer was a landmark in the history of Psychology as it revealed the existence of the unconscious mind, (the root of nervous illness.)

Britain's first escalator was installed in Harrods' London store in 1898. Bill Lancaster in The Department Store: a Social History noted, "customers unnerved by the experience were revived by shopmen dispensing free smelling salts and cognac."

The title of Tennessee William's play Cat On a Hot Tin Roof comes from the American expression "as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof". The "cat" is Maggie, Brick's wife, who had frayed nerves.

During the scandal when Monica Lewinsky was accused of having sexual relations with Bill Clinton, the young White House intern learned to knit to calm her nerves

Mental Illness

Ancient civilizations described and treated a number of mental disorders. The Greeks coined terms for melancholy, hysteria and phobia and developed the humorism theory.

Mental disorders were described, and treatments developed, in Persia, Arabia and in the medieval Islamic world. The first psychiatric hospitals were was built by the Muslims including ones in Baghdad in 700AD, Cairo in 800 AD and in Damascus in 1270 AD. The physicians of the Islamic world invented and used a variety of treatments, including occupational therapy, music therapy, as well as medication.

In the Middles Ages, upper class people suffering from psychiatric disorders caused them to fear that they were made of glass and were likely to shatter into pieces. One famous sufferer was King Charles VI of France, who wore reinforced clothing to protect himself from "shattering."

In medieval Europe a mentally ill person was considered to be suffering from demonic possession. Treatments include exorcism, flogging, or torture to drive the evil spirits from the body.

By the end of the 17th century and into the Enlightenment, madness was increasingly seen as an organic physical phenomenon with no connection to the soul or moral responsibility.

In the 18th century in the western world the mentally ill were split into two categories: maniacs and melancholics.

The maniacs were referred to as "lunatics" from the adjective word "lunar" meaning,"to do with the moon." The belief was that insanity was caused by a full moon at the time of a baby's birth or a baby sleeping under the light of a full moon. Arising from this they were possessed by the devil, so they needed to be removed from society and locked away in specialist institutions. A number of asylums, such as St Luke's Hospital in London, were built to cater for these unfortunates.

The melancholics it was believed suffered from a continual depression of spirits due to an excess of black bile. The treatment for this was to cleanse and purify the downcast individual. This was done by immersing the unfortunate patient in an ice bath until he lost consciousness. Other methods included inducing vomiting and the infamous "bleeding" practice.

1857 lithograph by Armand Gautier, showing personifications of dementia, megalomania, acute mania, melancholia, idiocy, hallucination, erotomania and paralysis in the gardens of the Hospice de la Salpêtrière

Placed in charge of a Parisian insane asylum by the revolutionary government in 1793, the forward-thinking French physician Philippe Pinel treated the inmates as people sick in mind, to be treated with the same humane consideration as the sick in body rather than with cruelty and violence. Consequently he released the insane from their chains and maintained well-documented case studies of mental ailments.

The term psychiatry was coined in 1808, though medical superintendents were still known as alienists.

German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (February 15, 1856 – October 7, 1926) was a pioneer in the psychological study of serious mental diseases. After studying patterns of symptoms among hospitalized patients and classifying them into separate disorders, he divided them into two groups, "dementia praecox" (schizophrenia) and "manic-depressive insanity". He first published his findings in 1883 in Compendium der Psychiatrie (Compendium of Psychiatry).

Emil Kraepelin in his later years

Nelly Bly, America’s first investigative journalist, faked being crazy and was sent to an asylum, where she experienced misdiagnosis, abuse, and harassment. In 1887 her book Ten Days in a Mad-House was published. It created a sensation and a grand jury investigation soon forced New York City to allocate more money for the mentally ill.

Clifford Whittingham Beers (March 30, 1876 – July 9, 1943) was the founder of the American mental hygiene movement. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, he trained as a scientist at Yale and suffered severe episodes of depression. Beers was maltreated and abused during his confinement at various private and state mental institutions. As a result of indignities and violence Beers experienced, he determined to reform the mental health system. His autobiographic book, The Mind That Found Itself, created a sensation, calling for a true therapeutic approach to mental illness instead of just custodial care.

Title page of "A Mind That Found Itself", 

Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalysis method aimed to bring to the surface the conflicts of the unconscious mind to help find the reason for their disturbance. Patients revealed their unconscious conflict through communicating. The Austrian psychoanalyst's work changed the whole approach to mental illness, as for the first time symptoms had meaning and the mentally unwell were seen as sick rather than strange.

Freud by Max Halberstadt, 1921

The actor Alan Alda's upbringing was difficult, as his mother had paranoid schizophrenia. The first line of his autobiography reads: "My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six."

The parents of Brazilian author Paulo Coelho were so concerned about his stated dream of being a writer that they put him in a mental institution three times. He wrote a book about it, Veronika Decides To Die, 35 years later.

A study found that rates of mental illness in New Orleans doubled after Hurricane Katrina, largely due to PTSD.

World Mental Health Day is observed on October 10 every year,  It is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. The day was celebrated for the first time on October 10, 1992 at the initiative of World Federation for Mental Health Deputy Secretary General Richard Hunter. 

You have a greater risk of mental illness if you are highly intelligent. A survey of the top 2% of Mensa members showed that their rates of depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and seasonal affective disorder were all higher than the national average. Scientists suspect that a highly active brain might also be high sensitive.

13.6 million Americans live with a serious mental illness.

Mental Hospital

The first hospital for the mentally ill was built by the Muslims in Baghdad in 705 AD, under the leadership of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik.  While mental health patients were being condemned, punished, and even burned in Europe, 8th and 9th century mental health patients in the Middle East were given more proper hospitalization and treatment.

London's Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, was founded in 1247, during the reign of Henry III, as the Priory of the New Order of St Mary of Bethlem. By 1377, the priory had become one of the institutions in Europe to look after the mentally ill, or, as they are referred to at the time, "the distracted".

Plan of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, an early public asylum for the mentally ill.

The Dissolution of the monasteries was an event that happened in England from 1536 to 1540, when King Henry VIII took away the land and money that the nuns and monks of the Roman Catholic church owned  Bethlem Royal Hospital was closed down as a priory and secularized, coming under the control of the city of London exclusively as an asylum for the insane.

Bethlem Royal Hospital became a tourist attraction, where sightseers paying an entrance fee of twopence each, could amuse themselves at the patients' antics. Often the patients were teased and provoked by the general public into a raving frenzy.

From the fourteenth century, Bethlem had been referred to colloquially as "Bedlam." The word "bedlam", meaning uproar and confusion, is derived from the hospital's nickname. Although the Bethlem Royal Hospital became a modern psychiatric facility, historically it was representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform.

By the mid eighteenth century a number specialist institutions to cater for the mentally ill were built. In London for instance St Luke's Hospital opened in London in 1751, making it at that time the only large public lunatic asylum apart from Bedlam.

America's first mental asylum opened for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' on October 12, 1773. Eastern State Hospital, located in Williamsburg, Virginia, was the first public facility in the United States constructed solely for the care and treatment of the mentally ill.

The Hospital's rebuilt original 1773 building as it stands today in Williamsburg, Virginia

A Quaker tea and coffee merchant William Tuke founded in York in 1796 the York Retreat, which was a home for the insane. He pioneered new methods of treatment and care for the mentally ill and utilized "moral therapy" concentrating on the mind. The York Retreat was the first of its kind in England.

The York Retreat (c. 1796) was built by William Tuke, a pioneer of moral treatment for the insane

The Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason was the first private mental asylum in America. It opened in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 15, 1817 and is now known as Friends Hospital. Founded in 1813 by Quakers, its original mission statement was: "To provide for the suitable accommodation of persons who are or may be deprived of the use of their reason, and the maintenance of an asylum for their reception, which is intended to furnish, besides requisite medical aid, such tender, sympathetic attention as may soothe their agitated minds, and under the Divine Blessing, facilitate their recovery."

Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, PA

Industrialization and population growth led to a massive expansion of the number and size of insane asylums in every Western country in the 19th century.

In Victorian England hospitals to house the mentally unsound were built with long curved driveways. This was because it was desired at the time that mental homes would remain hidden from the general public by long drives with bends. From this practice came the phrase "to go round the bend" meaning somebody who is mentally ill.

Hypnosis

Around 1770 an Austrian physician Franz Mesmer (May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815) took up an idea that a power existed, which he referred to as "animal magnetism" and a person became ill when their "animal magnetism" was out of balance. Mesmer claimed to use it as a medical treatment to heal certain nervous ailments.

During a typical session his patients held hands in a room containing a tub containing magnetized rods in fluid whilst Mesmer clad in lilac silk waved an iron wand. He believed some sort of magnetism was transferred from him to his clients, and that it redistributed their body fluids. As this precursor of hypnotism claimed the attention of scientists Mesmer's name became renowned through the coining of the term's "mesmerism" and "mesmerise".

Hounded out of Vienna on charges of practicing magic, Mesmer moved to Paris where he made his name curing diseases at seances.

In 1785 a royal commission, which included the American ambassador Benjamin Franklin concluded that Mesmer's "cures" were solely due to his patient's imaginations.

The Scottish doctor James Braid first saw a demonstration of animal magnetism, when he attended a public performance by the travelling Swiss magnetic demonstrator Charles Lafontaine at the Manchester Athenæum, on November 13, 1841

Braid was convinced of the veracity of some of Lafontaine's effects and phenomena, which led to his study of the subject.

Braid coined the term hypnosis, from the Greek "hypnos" meaning sleep. The new name was more acceptable than mesmerism, with its implications of fraud, and it soon replaced the older term.

Session of Hypnosis, Richard Berg

Émile Coué (1857 – 1926) was a French pharmacist who became interested in hypnotism and developed a health treatment based on autosuggestion. He opened a clinic and there he told his patients that their health would improve dramatically if twice a day they repeat the phrase "Every day and in every way, I am becoming better and better."

Émile Coué's book Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion was published in Britain in 1920 and in the United States two years later. Although Coué’s teachings were, during his lifetime, more popular in Europe than in the United States, many Americans who adopted his ideas and methods, such as Norman Vincent Peale and Robert H. Schuller, became famous in their own right by spreading his ideas.

Sigmund Freud

EARLY LIFE

Sigmund Freud was born to Jewish Galician parents on May 6, 1856 in the Moravian town of Příbor, now part of the Czech Republic. He was the eldest of three brothers and five sisters.

His father, Jakob Freud (1815–1896) was a wool merchant. A remote and authoritarian figure, he had two sons from his first marriage. Freud did not get on with his dad.

Freud's mother, Amalia (née Nathansohn), an assertive and good looking woman, was 20 years her husband's junior. (Jakob was 41 Amalia 21 when he was born.)

Sigmund's two half-brothers, Emmanuel and Philipp, were almost the same age as his mother.

His parents were struggling financially and living in a crowded rented room, in a locksmith's house at Schlossergasse 117 when Sigmund was born.

Freud's birthplace, a rented room in a locksmith's house

The Freud family was forced to flee to Leipzig when Sigmund was 3-years-old, due to riots that characterized the strong anti-Semitic feeling that prevailed within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After a year there his family moved again to Vienna, where discriminating laws against the Jews had been cancelled during 1850s and 1860s.

Four of Freud’s five sisters died in Nazi concentration camps.

He was originally called Sigismund Freud. His first name was used in anti-Semitic jokes and could be translated as "Leading mouth". So in 1875 he shortened it to Sigmund.

Sigmund grew up a bookworm with no interest in more energetic activities. When only eight years old, he was reading the works of Shakespeare.In recognition of his brilliance, his parents privileged Sigmund over his siblings by giving him a room to himself, to study in peace.

In 1865, the nine-year-old Sigmund entered the Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium, a prominent high school. Located at 24 Taborstrasse, Vienna. He was ranked first in his class in 6 of 8 years of his schooling.

In 1873 Sigmund graduated from the  high school with honors. Apparently inspired by a public reading of an essay by Goethe on nature, he turned to medicine as a career.

Freud at 16 with his mother

He entered Vienna University to study medicine but was sidetracked by his growing interest in physiology and other diversions, which weren't part of the course. It took Freud eight, rather than the usual five years, to qualify as a Doctor.

CAREER

Freud originally thought of being a lawyer. Then in the mid 1870s he seemed destined for a career as a research zoologist.

In 1876 Freud spent four weeks at Claus's zoological research station in Trieste, dissecting 400 mature eels in an inconclusive search for their male reproductive organ. He had to concede failure in his first major published research paper.

In 1882 Freud entered the General Hospital in Vienna as an assistant chief physician to train with the psychiatrist Theodor Meynert and the professor of internal medicine Hermann Nothnagel.

Freud studied under Professor Charcotat at Salpêtrière Neurogical Hospital, Paris for 19 weeks in 1885-86. There the hypnotic treatment of women, who suffered from a medical state called "hysteria", led Freud to take an interest in psychiatry.

Once he had set up in private practice in his Vienna home in 1886, Freud began using hypnosis in his clinical work.

Following the Nazi occupation of Austria, Freud fled to London. When he left Vienna for England he had no money. The Nazis had taken it all.

In England Freud charged his patients between £75 and £100 an hour. .

IDEAS

Freud made arguments about the importance of the unconscious mind in understanding conscious thought and behavior. He called dreams the "royal road to the knowledge of the unconscious in mental life".

Having watched a colleague battle with morphine addiction, Freud confidently prescribed injections of cocaine as a cure and then had to watch helplessly from the sidelines as Dr Von Fieschl descended into a drug hell, creating Europe's first cocaine addict..

His Psychoanalysis method aimed to bring to the surface the conflicts of the unconscious mind to help  find the reason for disturbance. Patients revealed their unconscious conflict through talking. He was able to teach his patients to stand on their feet by lying on couches. Freud's work changed the whole approach to mental illness, for the first time symptoms had meaning and they were seen as sick people rather than weirdos.

The Austrian founding father of psychoanalysis was given his famous couch by a client.

Freud's critics would say that his psychoanalysis techniques resulted in the creation of a blameless man, by tracing his failings back to his childhood, when he was morally innocent. Thanks to his ideas, many adults claim to have a plausible reason to avoid responsibility for their actions.

In 1925,  Freud turned down $100,000 from movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn — who called him "the greatest love specialist in the world" — to advise on a film about Antony and Cleopatra.

PUBLISHED WORKS

Freud had a considerable talent for writing seldom seen in scientists.

Freud's 1895 Studies In Hysteria with Josef Breuer was a landmark in the history of Psychology as it revealed the existence of the unconscious mind, (the root of nervous illness.)

His 1896 paper The Aetiology of Hysteria used for the first time the term "psycho-analysis."

Sigmund Freud published Interpretation Of Dreams on November 4, 1899 in which he argued that understanding dreams can give an insight into our personality. It was slow to take off, the first edition selling only 351 copies in its first six years. However, in time it became the book that gave Freud worldwide recognition.

In 1905 Freud published Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, in which he referred to the essence of comedy as "the awakening of the infantile." He did not believe that there was such a thing as a joke, it being just stuff from the unconscious and he felt laughter was just a way of dealing with fear.

Freud's 1913 Totem and Taboo explored how culture and society are rooted in the prohibition against incest, an assertion contrary to the development of Carl Jung's studies

PERSONAL LIFE

Freud first met Martha Bernays (1861-1951), his sister's sister in law in 1882, but they couldn't afford to get married until 1886.

The daughter of a prominent Jewish family, Martha's ancestors included a chief rabbi of Hamburg and Heinrich Heine.

Martha was a devoted maternal wife to him and was famed for the care she took of her husband. She even put the toothpaste on his toothbrush.

Martha's more intellectual sister Minna lived with her and Sigmund for 42 years.

They had six children - Mathilde (1887-1978), Jean Martin (1889-1967), Oliver (1891-1969), Ernst (1892-1970), Sophie (1893-1920), Anna (1895-1982). Anna became a distinguished child psychoanalyst in her own right. whilst Oliver was named after Oliver Cromwell.

A grandson Lucien (1922-2011 ) became a renowned painter. Other ancestors include the politician and writer Clement Freud,  the TV presenter and journalist Emma Freud and fashion designer Bella Freud.

Freud was a friend and colleague of the Swiss adherent of psychoanalysis, Carl Gustav Jung, until they split over their different takes on mystical experiences.

In 1918 Freud lost his entire fortune which was tied up in Austrian State Bonds.

A chronic migraine and sinusitis sufferer, Freud took cocaine to alleviate his sinusitis but found it did little for his headaches. One cause of Freud’s migraines was an Alpine wind called the Föhn, which dramatically changes the atmospheric pressure and temperature.

From 1891 until 1938, Freud and his family lived in an apartment at Berggasse 19 near the Innere Stadt or historical quarter of Vienna

Following the Nazi occupation of Austria and already a victim of their anti-Semitic policies, Sigmund Freud fled to London.

When Freud left Austria he was required to sign a document testifying that he had had every opportunity "to live and work in full freedom" and had "not the slightest reason for any complaint". He signed it, adding a remark of his own: "I can most highly recommend the Gestapo to anyone."

En route to London, Freud was met by a group of admirers in Paris. They asked him "What did they do to you?" " They inhibited me" replied the refugee with a smile.

Freud initially took digs at 39 Elsworthy Road, Primrose Hill, then sets up home at 20 Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead. It cost £6,500. His daughter, Anna, came with him.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

Sigmund Freud was totally disinterested in all music apart from opera. He felt that a "turn of mind in me rebels against being moved by a thing without knowing why I am thus affected."

Freud had a vast collection of Greek painted vases.

He was a keen zoologist as a youngster and was fond of dogs. Freud once had an orange chow called Jo-Fi who attended his analysis sessions sitting under his desk then came out at the end of his patient's session.

Freud was a great admirer of the works of William Shakespeare, which he read in English. Some think the plays influenced his ideas.

In his old age Freud read Kipling's Jungle Book many times. He said it was one of those books that affect a persons 'weltanschauung' (Way of looking at the world).

French writer Honoré de Balzac's 1831 novel La Peau de Chagrin was the last book read by Sigmund Freud before he committed suicide.

Freud never learned how to read a railway timetable and was almost always accompanied on journeys in case he got lost. Often it was his sister-in-law Minna accompanying him as Martha disliked travelling.

BELIEFS 

Freud was of Jewish descent but an agnostic himself. He was influenced by the anti Christian writings of Feuerbach. Freud claimed “At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted Father” and the devil is a “primitive feudal father”.

Freud believed knowledge came through the sciences and also argued that religious beliefs can be “cured” by psychotherapy. He claimed, “when a man is freed of religion he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life.”

Freud's childhood nursemaid was a devout Catholic and despite his lack of faith, he maintained a deep interest in Biblical history and religion, possibly influenced by her. Freud put it on record that he began his study of human nature with the Scriptures. He recognized the Bible to be an honest book about human nature.

Towards the end of his life, Freud wrote Moses and Monotheism, in which he took up the idea that Moses got his monotheism from Egypt. Moses was an amalgam of two men, one an Egyptian who taught the Hebrews the monotheistic religion of Akhnaten and was murdered by the Hebrews, and the other a Midianite who taught the Hebrews to serve Yahweh, a volcano-god whose abode was Mount Sinai in western Arabia.

In his analysis of the roots of anti-Jewish feeling, Freud wrote that Jews bear the reproach of other peoples as having killed God: "They will not admit that they killed God, whereas we do and are cleansed from the guilt of it."

DEATH AND LEGACY

Freud began smoking tobacco at age 24, believing that it enhanced his capacity to work and that he could exercise self-control in moderating it. Initially a cigarette smoker, he later became a cigar smoker.

In 1923 the first signs of Freud’s cancer of the jaw were detected. By the end of the year he was undergoing surgery whereby part of his jaw and palate was removed surgically and an uncomfortable metal roof was fitted to his mouth. From then on speech was very difficult for him and he had to endure over thirty surgical procedures; pain and discomfort marked the rest of his life.

Freud continued smoking his 20 cigars a day even after he developed the oral cancer for seven years until a heart attack forced him to give them up.

Freud, late 1930s. By David Webb from Alicante, Spain - Wikipedia

By mid-September 1939, Freud's cancer of the jaw was causing him increasingly severe pain and had been declared to be inoperable. His doctor, friend and fellow refugee, Max Schur, administered fatal doses of morphine on 21 and 22 September . Freud died in his study at 20 Maresfield Gardens on September 23, 1939.

After cremation Freud's ashes were placed in one of  his Greek vases and deposited in the crematorium at Golders Green in London.

Freud's major academic regret was that he did not get the Nobel Prize which he had long coveted. The psychiatric community remained hostile to his 'sexual' theories and even Albert Einstein refused to support Freud's candidacy.

The term “Freudian slip” to indicate a mistake that may reveal a subconscious intention was first recorded in English in 1959.

Sources Encyclopedia of Britannica, Daily Mail

Depression

The use of the word blue for a downcast feeling dates back to the 15th century. Its origin probably lies in the blue tinge of flesh when blood circulation or oxygenation is poor.

The Medieval Norwegian King Sigurd I suffered from severe depression and PTSD after leading the Norwegian crusade for four years. The 12th century scholars writing about the monarch showed a sensitivity and awareness of mental illness that is surprising considering the era.

King Henry VI of England suffered from a depression so grim that at times he couldn't speak.
When he had one of his attacks doctors were unable to stir him despite using such treatments as pulling his nose and hair and blistering him with hot irons. The rival houses of York and Lancaster seized their chance and began the Wars of the Roses.

Martin Luther suffered from fits of depression. One day his wife came to him wearing a black veil and a black gown, saying “I am mourning the death of God for by the way you are behaving God must surely be dead.”

During his twenties Benjamin Disraeli suffered from depression and was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which was described by his doctor as a chronic inflammation of the membranes of the brain. For a four-year period he lived the life of a recluse, then for many years after that he was frequently bed-ridden through psychosomatic illness and crippling headaches.

The manic-depressive Sigmund Freud was unable to concentrate on his work when on one of his uppers or downers.

Winston Churchill suffered from cyclothymia, a chronic disorder consisting of repetitive periods of mild depression followed by periods of normal or slightly elevated mood. So bad were his periods of depression, (he referred to them as his "black dog"), that he did not allow himself to stand at the edge of railway platforms or ship decks in case he decided to jump.

The writer Ernest Hemingway suffered from bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression, and was treated with electroshock therapy at the Menninger Clinic. The therapy, he claimed, had destroyed his memory, which was essential to a writer.

The "Dementors" which were first introduced in Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban represented JK Rowling's severe depression.

The actor Hugh Laurie struggles with severe clinical depression. He first became aware of it when he saw two vehicles collide and explode in a demolition derby and felt bored rather than excited or frightened. As he said: "boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars."

The Japanese had a negative view of antidepressants until 1999 when pharmaceutical companies initiated educational campaigns. They coined the catchphrase 'kokoro no kaze', which literally means "a cold of the soul", as a marketing ploy. As a result, antidepressant sales increased six fold within a space of eight years.

According to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of ill health today, affecting some 300 million people worldwide.

The third Monday in January is considered to be ‘Blue Monday’, the most depressing day of the year. Factors contributing to this theory include: debt, miserable weather, post-Christmas blues, failing New Year’s resolutions and low motivation.

Depression is the most common disability in women - About 25% of all women will experience severe depression at some point in their lives.

New York City offers so-called Friendship Benches, a program first used in Zimbabwe, where peers offer an ear to people who are suffering from depression but are not in a position to seek professional therapy.

Research suggests people with depression tend to use language differently, particularly concerning first-person singular pronouns. Numerous studies and analyses, including those using computational linguistic methods, have found that individuals experiencing depression use significantly more first-person singular pronouns like "I," "me," and "myself" compared to those who are not depressed. Researchers have reported that pronouns are actually more reliable in identifying depression than negative emotion words.

People with depression are more likely to use absolutist words e.g: "always" "never" "completely."

Dogs, like humans, experience varying levels of depression.

Gus (1965-2013) a polar bear in New York Zoo was the first zoo animal in history to be treated with Prozac

Autism

Autism is a severe infant disorder of communication and behavior that develops before the age of three. The term has been used to describe many types of mental disorders, but was originally named in 1943 by Leo Kanner (1894–1981) of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Autism is one of a group of disorders called autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Asperger syndrome, atypical autism and childhood autism are kinds of autism spectrum disorders.

Autism is a lifelong condition that can range from mild to severe and affects 1–2 per 1,000 people. 

Autistic males outnumber females by 4 to 1.

Most adults with autism spectrum disorder are unaware they have it until tested. Being diagnosed can lead to treatment and becoming a more socially comfortable person.

American child psychologist Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital first used autism in its modern sense in English when he introduced the label early infantile autism in a 1943 report of 11 children with striking behavioral similarities. 

A young boy with autism who has arranged his toys in a row. Andwhatsnext 

American Donald Gray Triplett (September 8, 1933 – June 15, 2023) was the first person diagnosed with autism,  He was first diagnosed by Leo Kanner in 1943 and was labeled as "Case 1". Triplett was noted for his savant abilities and became a banker.

The autistic spectrum and the distinction between "high functioning" and "low functioning" autism was discovered by Austrian medical professor Hans Asperger in an attempt to save children in his clinic from the Gestapo during World War II, who killed disabled children in preparation for the Holocaust. 

In 1944 Hans Asperger studied a group of children who did not repeat words and they had no speech problems like Kanner's did. However, the children seemed to be clumsier than other children. They also had a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, and intense absorption in a special interest. Arising from this, Hans Asperger described a "milder" form of autism; his discovery is now called Asperger syndrome.

Hans Asperger once said, "It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential. The necessary ingredient may be an ability to turn away from the everyday world, to rethink a subject with originality so as to create in new untrodden ways.".

In the 1950s and 1960s, in the absence of any biomedical explanation of autism's cause after the telltale symptoms were first described by scientists, some championed the notion that autism was caused by a lack of maternal warmth. It was known as the Refrigerator Mother Theory.

Julia, a Muppet introduced in April of 2015 on Sesame Street as the first to have Autism. Every year since she has been featured in the April show, as that is Autism Awareness month. She is played by Stacey Gordon, who's son is on the spectrum and named after her daughter. 

Toys R Us started the initiative of a 'quiet hour' in all its stores in the UK in Christmas 2016. The initiative involved temporarily dimming the lights and switching off music and announcements, in order to help the autistic children shop for Christmas.

In 2008, The United Nations General Assembly unanimously declared April 2 as World Autism Awareness Day.

The Maori language of New Zealand has a word for autism, 'takiwatanga'. It means “In their own time and space.”

Although many celebrities are suspected to have Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dan Ackroyd, Daryl Hannah, and Satoshi Tajiri have openly confirmed that they are on the spectrum and have autism.

There are virtually no differences in brain anatomy between people with autism and those without.

People with autism are less likely to catch yawns. The more severe their condition, the less common the behavior gets.

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease, a pre-senile dementia, was given its first full public clinical and pathological description, by a German neurologist Dr. Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer (see below) on November 3, 1906, at the Tubingen meeting of the Southwest German Psychiatrists.

The symptoms of the disease were first identified by his colleague Emil Kraepelin on July 15, 1910 in his book Clinical Psychiatry, while Alzheimer observed its characteristic neuropathology. Because of the significance Kraepelin attached to finding the neuropathological basis of psychiatric ailments, Kraepelin granted Alzheimer the privilege of the disease bearing his name.

A German female named Auguste Deter was admitted to a mental institution, the Institution for the Mentally Ill and for Epileptics (Irrenschloss) in Frankfurt, Germany on November 25, 1901. There, she was examined by Dr. Alois Alzheimer and became the first woman diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. When examined by Alzheimer, Deter could not recite her own name. She instead would just repeat "I have lost myself" ("Ich hab mich verloren") .

Auguste Deter

In 1980, the movie star Rita Hayworth was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The public disclosure and discussion of her illness drew attention to Alzheimer's, which was largely unknown by most people at the time, and helped to increase public and private funding for Alzheimer's research.

US Grid Iron players are three to four times more likely to contract Alzheimer’s (among other things) as the average American.

On November 5, 1994, former President Ronald Reagan published a letter to the American people announcing his diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. It is not known how many of his infamous verbal mishaps when he was president were early signs of the condition.

Ronald Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's, would clean his swimming pool for hours without knowing his agents were replenishing the leaves in the pool.

Despite being studied since its discovery in 1906, scientists have yet to rule out a germ origin for Alzheimer's disease. The infectious hypothesis could explain why neurosurgeons are twice and a half more likely to die from it than the general population.

10% of all people over the age of 60 have Alzheimer's disease, and as many as 50% of people over 85 have it. The number of people with the disease doubles every 5 years beyond age 65.

Alzheimer's can't be "officially" diagnosed until after death. They have to confirm diagnosis with autopsy, so until then essentially they say a person has "dementia." The proteins involved still can't be detected without the autopsy. Today new methods can diagnose it with a 90% accuracy rate though.

We know you can catch Alzheimer's disease, but only if the sick person's brain matter comes in contact with your brain matter.

Memories of music cannot be lost to Alzheimer's. The part of your brain responsible for ASMR catalogs music, and appears to be a stronghold against Alzheimer's.

"Terminal lucidity" is a phenomenon that has been reported in some patients who are near death and who have suffered from severe psychiatric or neurologic disorders, such Alzheimer's. It is characterized by a sudden improvement in mental clarity and memory, and it can be accompanied by an increase in alertness and ability to communicate. 

The phenomenon of terminal lucidity is not well understood and has not been extensively studied, so it is not known how common it is or what might cause it to occur. Some scientists believe that it may be related to changes in brain function that occur as the body is shutting down, while others think that it may be due to some other factor, such as a change in the levels of certain chemicals in the brain.

Humans are the only animals whose brains shrink and become subject to cognitive dysfunctions like Alzheimer’s disease. Not even close relatives like chimpanzees experience this shrinkage.

Here's a list of some songs about Alzheimer's disease.