“Have I already told you what madness is? Madness is the exact repetition of the same action over and over again in the hope of a change. This is madness. The first time I heard it, I don't remember who told it to me, I - boom - killed him. The point is, okay? - He was right. And then I began to see it everywhere, everywhere you look, these blockheads ... Everywhere you look, they do exactly the same thing. Again and again and again and again and again, and they think - now everything will change. No no no no, please, now everything will be different. I'm sorry, I don't like the way you look at me! OK? Are you having problems with your head? You think I'm hanging noodles on your ears?! You went! OK? Let's go! On the***! It's all right... I'll calm down, brother, calm down. The point is... Okay, the point is I killed you. Already. And it's not that I - ** nut, truncated? Phew... It's like water under a bridge... Have I already told you what madness is...?(c) Vaas Montenegro. In the game Far Cry 3, quite a lot of attention is paid to "madness", as well as various hallucinogenic substances. So, for example, on the island, in an estate on a high hill, Dr. Earnhardt lives. You wouldn't want to be at his reception: Doc gathers mushrooms in a cave under his house and makes drugs out of them, which he sells to pirates (that's why they are all such psychos too). He himself is often applied to them. Jason also has to visit this cave to find one special mushroom. Along the way, he inhales the spores of mushrooms, after which hallucinations begin. Doc also sponsors Jason's friends with wheels while they are in a grotto nearby. After taking the pill, you will find yourself in Jason's memories, of which there are exactly three, and find out how a group of friends ended up on this cursed island.

In addition to the dock, the pirates themselves also grow "grass" on the island, on Hoyt's orders. For export, and possibly for domestic use. Generally speaking, it is difficult to determine which of the characters in the game is of sound mind. Citra, the leader of the aboriginal Rakiyat, every time Jason visits her temple, gives him some new rubbish, almost lethal poisons, from which simply monstrous, life-threatening hallucinations begin. One must think that she treats all the Rakiyats with these dope. So the characters are on the side of the chapters. the hero is also far from sane. And in general, all of them here, if you think about it, look like they are constantly high, but most likely they are.

It's safe to say that the developers drew inspiration from Lewis Carroll's famous book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Between some missions, quotes from the book are even shown, a full list can be found in the section

Since ancient times, people have faced the manifestation of madness. Someone considered it an incurable disease, someone, on the contrary, a divine gift. What is madness? What are its reasons? Is it treatable? And if so, in what ways?

What does the word insanity mean?

Until the end of the 19th century, the word insanity was used to describe a whole range of human mental disorders. This included hallucinations, delusions, epilepsy, convulsions, suicide attempts, depression - in general, any behavior that went beyond the normal and habitual.

Currently, madness is an outdated concept, which, however, people still actively use in colloquial speech. Now each specific mental disorder is assigned its own diagnosis. Madness is a generalized concept, which can be called any deviation in

Forms of insanity

There are many different classifications of insanity. From the point of view of influence on others, useful and dangerous madness is distinguished. The first type includes the magical gift of foresight, poetic and other types of inspiration, as well as delight and ecstasy. Dangerous insanity is rage, mania, hysteria and other manifestations of insanity, during which the patient can injure others.

According to the nature of the manifestation, madness is divided into melancholy and mania or hysteria. The first form of mental deviations is expressed in depression, complete apathy to everything that happens. People suffering from this disease experience mental anguish and anguish, for a long time they are in a depressed state.

Hysteria and mania are the exact opposite of melancholy. They are manifested by the patient's aggression, his excited state and ferocity. Such a person may commit impulsively thoughtless actions, which often have dire consequences.

Insanity can also be classified by severity (mild, severe, and acute). With a mild mental disorder, people experience unwanted symptoms quite rarely, or they appear in a mild form. Serious insanity is one that a person is unable to cope with on their own. Symptoms become more frequent and more powerful. Acute insanity is characterized by severe mental disorders that are permanent.

Reasons for insanity

Due to the fact that the forms and varieties of insanity are very diverse, it is very difficult to identify common factors that can lead to insanity. A distinction is usually made between supernatural and physical causes of insanity.

In ancient times, madness was often associated with divine punishment for sins. Higher powers, making a person crazy, thus punished him. As for useful madness, on the contrary, it was considered a divine gift. Another supernatural cause of this condition was believed to be possession by demons. As a rule, in this case, the patient's behavior was accompanied by uncontrolled actions.

Very often, moral and spiritual problems can cause insanity. It is the repetition of trouble from day to day, great grief, intense rage or anger. All of these conditions can drive a person's mind out of control. The physical causes of insanity also include injuries, as a result of which the human brain is damaged. It leads to insanity and a violation of the neurotransmitter balance.

Symptoms of insanity

Due to the variety of forms and varieties of insanity, it is impossible to identify single symptoms that characterize this condition. The only common feature of any madness is deviant behavior.

Very often, insanity is a complete loss of control over oneself and one's actions. It manifests itself in the form of aggression, fear, anger. At the same time, human actions are meaningless or aimed at satisfying instinctive needs. Self-control and awareness of their actions are completely absent. In some cases, insanity is the exact repetition of mindless and useless actions.

Symptoms of melancholic madness are depression, apathy, detachment from the outside world. A person withdraws into himself, reacts poorly to external stimuli, does not make contact with others.

Often insanity is characterized by such symptoms as loss of sense of reality and time, mixing of objectively existing and fictional. In this state, a person may become delirious, say strange things and see hallucinations.

Madness in culture

In the history of human culture, madness has not always been considered a disease. In some times, people considered madness a gift from the Gods, a source of inspiration. In the era of humanism, for example, the cult of melancholy flourished. This form of madness served as a means of self-expression for many poets and artists.

In painting, there are a number of paintings with images of crazy people. Patients are shown in ridiculous poses, with squinting eyes and terrible grimaces. Very often their facial expressions do not correspond to the situation depicted in the picture. It's just crazy to see, for example, a laughing person at a funeral.

Literary works also quite often describe people with mental disorders. They can play the role of soothsayers and sorcerers or people with mental illness. The theme of madness is touched upon both in classical and modern literature.

Insanity treatment

Throughout the history of human development, there have been various methods of treating insanity. In ancient times, they tried to get rid of this disease with the help of magic and sorcery. They tried to expel a demon from a person, cast spells over him and read prayers. There are cases when holes were made in the skull of the patient, allegedly helping the demon to leave the head of the unfortunate.

In the Middle Ages, madness was considered the punishment of people for sins, so it was not treated. As a rule, at all times people treated the blessed with apprehension and contempt. They tried to isolate them from society, expel them from the city or lock them away from the rest. Even in the modern world, madmen are placed in clinics and treated, having previously been protected from the rest of the world. Today, there are several ways to cure insanity. The word "psychotherapy" is used more and more often and includes various types and methods of getting rid of insanity.

MADNESS

MADNESS

Mental and sincere, behavior opposite to rationality. There are two main approaches to the analysis of B.: medical and philosophical. According to the first, B. is a disease; according to the second, it is spiritual (moral, religious). The dispute between the supporters of these t.zr. is rooted in . Stoics, representatives of philosophy. approach, they believed that mental disorders come from an excess of passions and an inability to take moral responsibility. Plato called poets obsessed. There was a close semantic relationship between the ideas of B. and suicide. The opposite perspective also spread, one of its most famous representatives was Hippocrates, who considered the mental traits of a person to be derived from physical causes.
With the advent of the Middle Ages, the medical approach disappears for a long time. B. is considered a sacred category: they see in it the possession of demons, until the 15th century. lunatics were equated with heretics and sorcerers. They exerted, however, some influence on societies through prophecy, foolishness, and so on. The medical approach reappeared in the 15th and 16th centuries: the sick were isolated and placed in insane asylums. Up to the 18th century. B., however, was not considered a disease equal to others (for example, the sick were poorly fed, chained).
One of the founders of modern psychiatry Fr. doctor F. Pinel (1745-1826) developed the idea of ​​"moral treatment" of B. On the one hand, he considered it as a disease of an organic nature, on the other hand, he believed that it was impossible to understand B. without turning to the knowledge of spiritual life. Within the framework of the medical approach, the term "B." came to be considered pejorative and was gradually replaced by the term "mental illness". In the 18-19 centuries. the medical approach to mental illness gradually prevailed, displacing philosophy. to B. The concept of "B." split into various medical ones, depending on the t.zr. on the pathogenesis of mental illness. In the 19th century in connection with the development of criminal law develops criteria for insanity. The medical approach reaches its peak, psychiatry becomes a positivist oriented science based on physiology.
A radical turn in the approach to B. was carried out by Z. Freud. Psychoanalysis moves on to the study of mental functioning in its formation, shifting the emphasis from the nosology of the disease to its psychological origins and, further, from the disease to the patient. Considering neuroses and even some caused by upbringing, mental (moral) conflicts of childhood, Freud practically reanimated philosophy. approach, translating it into the mainstream of the study of the social determinism of B. In the 20th century. in psychiatry, “soft” methods of psychotherapy (conversations, group therapy, games, etc.) have become widespread, which reflects the further line of considering mental deviations started by psychoanalysis as having psychological (inorganic) causes. Unlike the antique philosophic variant. approach in characteristic is the search for not moral, but caused by the external environment (upbringing, culture) causes of mental illness.
One of the most prominent representatives of the philosophy of protest against the dominance of the medical approach is M. Foucault, who considers it a vivid demonstration of the refusal to consider the specific "anthropological" reality of B. Philos. symptoms of mental deviations allows us to explore the specific features not only of themselves, but also of what is considered the mind, and to put on the validity of the superiority of the latter.
Similar views are also held by some other modern philosophers and psychiatrists, in particular, the ideologist of the “anti-psychiatry” movement R.D. Laing, who writes that compared to the world of a mentally ill healthy person is poorer, and draws a connection between B. and transcendental (religious) experience.

Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

Synonyms:

Antonyms:

See what "MADNESS" is in other dictionaries:

Madness, insanity, mania. See stupidity... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M .: Russian dictionaries, 1999. insanity, insanity, insanity, insanity, psychosis, insanity, darkening of the mind, ... ... Synonym dictionary

A concept that acquires its own philosophical and cultural dimension in the context of the publication of Foucault's book The History of Madness in the Classical Age (1961). Comprehending the genesis of modern European man, Foucault analyzes the formation of ... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia

MADNESS, madness cf. lack, lack, poverty of the mind; dementia, madness, insanity; stupidity, stupidity; folly, shawl, foolishness; recklessness, recklessness. Crazy, sib. insane, half-witted, mad; insane…… Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

See disease... Brockhaus Bible Encyclopedia

MADNESS, madness, pl. no, cf. 1. Recklessness, reckless act. It was madness of him to accept such conditions. Dote. 2. Madness (obsolete). Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

MADNESS, me, cf. 1. Same as madness (obsolete). 2. Recklessness, complete loss of rationality in actions, in behavior. Love to the point of madness (very much). Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

- "MADNESS", USSR, Tallinnfilm, 1968, b/w, 79 min. Dramatic story. End of World War II. In a country house for the insane, SS men are preparing for an operation to exterminate patients. But the head physician, knowing about the approach of Soviet troops, ... ... Cinema Encyclopedia

madness- naked (Andreev) Epithets of literary Russian speech. M: The supplier of the court of His Majesty, the partnership of the printing press A. A. Levenson. A. L. Zelenetsky. 1913 ... Dictionary of epithets

MADNESS- MADNESS, a term of pre-revolutionary legislation, meaning a mental illness that is congenital or marked from infancy, in contrast to madness, embracing all other forms of mental disorder. For the first time, the expression B. occurs ... ... Big Medical Encyclopedia

Reading time: 2 min

Insanity is an obsolete name for insanity, which is a severe, potentially incurable mental pathology. Until the end of the nineteenth century, insanity was the name given to behavior or mental functioning that transgressed the boundaries of the accepted norm in a certain society. For example, convulsions, suicide attempts were classified as varieties of insanity. Also, epileptic seizures, the consequences of brain injuries and concussion were considered signs of insanity. So what does the word insanity mean? This term means loss of mind. A madman is an individual who has lost his mind or gone insane. Since historically the concept of "madness" was applied to many different ailments of the psyche, today it is used extremely rarely in modern medical and psychotherapeutic practice, although colloquial speech is also popular.

Reasons for insanity

Madness in life is a severe mental illness characterized by a distorted perception of reality. Scientists argue that mild insanity is due to a violation occurring in the unity of the human soul and body. It is believed that the main factor provoking the onset of insanity is the lack of the possibility of correcting and accepting reality. That is, madness in simple words occurs when reality ceases to meet the stereotypes formed by the brain. Due to the fact that the varieties and forms of insanity are very diverse, today it is rather difficult to identify common causes that can lead an individual to the loss of reason.

Most medieval psychiatrists, wondering what madness is, referred to this concept such manifestations as banal deceit, lack of patriotism, as well as everything that made individuals different from the bulk of people. They were ready to recognize the great artists, who are in a fit of creativity and inspiration on the verge of insanity, mentally ill.

In ancient times, two categories of causes of insanity were distinguished: supernatural and physical. Our ancestors often associated insanity with divine punishment for transgressions. In other words, by making a person insane, higher powers thus tried to punish him. However, often the divine madness gave knowledge, and therefore carried a positive content.

Demon possession was also considered in those days to be a common cause of a supernatural nature, causing the condition described.

Often, problems of a moral and spiritual nature can cause symptoms of insanity. For example, the loss of reason can be provoked by the daily repetition of troubles, great grief, anger, strong rage. Physical factors that cause insanity include head injuries.

The medicine of ancient Greece, based on the research of Hippocrates, explained insanity as an excess of "black bile", the vapors of which settled in the brain, corroding it, which caused insanity. An excess of "yellow bile" led to an increase in activity, that is, choleric madness, mania and epilepsy. During the reign of the Renaissance and humanism, the described concept gained a second life.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the theory of positivism was firmly established, which said that the soul is just a puppet of the brain, so all the symptoms of insanity are physical and completely curable. Due to the influence of this concept, the word “mentally ill” has gone out of use, since it meant that the human subject has a soul that has the ability to “sick”. In everyday life, the definition of "madman" was finally established.

Today, all the symptoms previously summarized by the term insanity are referred to as a mental disorder. After all, what does the word insanity mean? It means without reason, that is, a complete loss of reason in behavior. The actions of the insane become unpredictable, as in a number of pathologies of the psyche.

Modern psychiatry is convinced that mental ailments occur as a result of neurotransmitter imbalance, in other words: the structural and functional elements of the nervous system - neurons are not connected to each other, the distance between them is called the synaptic cleft, in which there are neurotransmitters that transmit impulses between neurons. come precisely because of the violation of the above-described balance.

Signs of insanity

Since the forms of insanity are quite diverse, it is rather problematic to single out common signs. Separate criteria can serve as behavioral deviations from generally accepted norms, for example, pathological hyperactivity and catatonic.

The onset of insanity is signaled by the following signs:

Lack of self-criticism;

Conversation with oneself as if with another person;

Sudden mood swings that are unreasonable.

The diagnosis of madness in terms of the impact on the social environment distinguish between dangerous madness and useful. Dangerous insanity includes rage, mania and other symptoms of dementia, during which a suffering individual can cause moral harm or injury to others.

Useful madness includes the gift of foresight, creative inspiration, delight and ecstasy. Many famous geniuses were on the verge of insanity and created masterpieces.

According to the nature of the symptoms, madness in life is divided into melancholy, mania and hysteria. Melancholy manifests itself in dejection, complete, lethargy, lack of interest in what is happening. Individuals suffering from this deviation experience torment and mental anguish, stay in a depressed state for a long time. Mania and hysteria are the exact opposite of melancholy. These deviations are expressed by the patient, the excited state and rage. Individuals subject to mania or hysteria may impulsively commit rash acts, which often have negative consequences.

The severity of insanity is classified into mild (mild insanity), severe and acute. A mild disorder is characterized by manifestations of clinical symptoms or they are expressed in a mild form. Serious insanity is a disorder of consciousness with which the subject is not able to cope on his own.

The symptoms of severe insanity are characterized by increasing intensity and frequency of occurrence. Acute insanity is manifested by severe deviations in the functioning of the psyche, which are permanent.

Insanity treatment

In the Dark Ages, insanity was often cured with the help of magic and the casting of various spells. After all, what is madness for medieval people? This is an obsession, a demonic possession. In Catholicism, masses, prayers and pilgrimages served as means of healing, in evangelism an additional reading of the Bible was used over the mentally ill.

In the Stone Age, according to numerous excavations, a procedure such as craniotomy was used for treatment. Medieval psychiatrists believed that it was possible to release the demon in the head and give him the way to freedom with the help of a hole in the skull. And although the diagnosis of madness is hardly possible to cure in this way, it suggests that already in the medieval era, madness was associated with the presence of pathologies in the brain.

The ignorance of psychiatrists and the underdevelopment of psychiatry as a science gave rise to its dark sides in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was then that they began to use such savage surgical methods of treatment, which had no theoretical basis, such as hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), female circumcision (removal of the female genitalia: clitoris, lips), lobotomy (excision or separation of one lobe of the brain from other areas), and also shock therapy.

The physician and philanthropist F. Pinel, heading an institution for the insane in Paris, introduced humanitarian methods of therapy and classified them according to the form of the disease and the severity of the course. He divided all categories of patients into zones in which the development of individual forms of the disease can be compared and directly studied. Pinel outlined all the acquired experience in a monograph, which became the basis for the scientific classification of insanity.

Dr. G. Cotton was convinced that the main causes of insanity were localized infections. He is considered the founder of the "surgical bacteriology" method, which began to be widely used on the mentally ill who are being treated at the hospital in Trenton.

Cotton, together with his team, performed many operations on mentally ill people, often without their consent. First, they removed the sick tonsils and teeth, if a cure was not achieved, then they removed the internal organs, which, in their opinion, gave rise to problems. Cotton believed fanatically in his own methods, as a result of which he removed his own teeth, and also performed a similar operation on his wife and two sons.

Cotton was convinced that the method he invented gave a high degree of effectiveness in curing patients. Although in reality this statement is far from the truth. He justified the death of forty-nine colectomy patients (gut removal) on the grounds that they allegedly had "end-stage psychosis" prior to the operation. After Cotton's death, his methods faded into obscurity.

Modern medicine treats mental illness in a complex way, including drug therapy and psychotherapeutic techniques.

Shock therapy is still used, but in a modern variation (under anesthesia). She has successfully established herself in the treatment of bipolar disorders.

In addition, to this day, "mentally ill" individuals are isolated from society. But modern clinics, fortunately, have nothing to do with the houses where the mentally ill were kept until the end of the nineteenth century.

Doctor of the Medical and Psychological Center "PsychoMed"