Posts in Category: english

Sigmund Freud Theories

Topic: Major theories of Sigmund Freud .

1) Structure of the psyche or mind: Conscious, Preconscious and Unconscious.

2) Later created a second scheme psychical: It, Ego and Super-ego.

3) Theory of instincts : Freud initially claimed that exist, the sexual instinct and aggressive instinct. Then Freud talked of the Thanatos (destructive force) and the Eros (life force).

4) Oedipus complex: the child experienced a kind of “love” to her mother and considered, at that time, the father as a rival in the affection and attention of the mother.

The same situation occurs in reverse in girls.

5) The Libido: force that represents the sexual instinct, understood not in genital sense, but in a broader sense.

The development of the libido from birth to adulthood comprises the following phases:

  • Oral , until the end of the first year in which libidinal energy is focused in the mouth.
  • Anal, until three years or so.
  • Phallic , in which the libido moves the phallus and lasts up to five years or less.
  • Phase Latency , which seems to be a decrease in libidinal interests.
  • Genital libido focuses on the genitals. This last stage lasts from early adolescence to adulthood.

Besides the above, Freud studied the meanning of the dreams, hysterical neurosis, obsessional neurosis, anxiety, phobias, etc.

 

(Edited by María Moya Guirao, M.D.)

 

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Adolf Meyer Biography

Adolf Meyer

Who is Adolf Meyer ?

Adolf Meyer was a swiss psychiatrist founder of a school of thought called: Psychobiology. That concept has had a notable influence on psychiatric development. Meyer brought the term “Psychobiology” into the foreground of the Psychiatry.

He was director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, director of the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic and professor of Psychiatry at the John Hopkins Medical School.

Adolf Meyer developed a dynamic system, and emphasized the pathological evolution of the symptoms of the psychiatric disorders in term of the presenting facts. This psychiatrist created a unique attitude toward the individual as a totality and the concept of integration with the total individual as a unit.

Adolf Meyer formulated through the subsequent years the reaction type of behavior and his concepts of “Social Adjustment“. He also brought “Social Work” into Psychiatry.

Some publications of Meyer are:

”Objective Psychology or Psychobiology with subordination of Medically Useless Contrast of Mental and Physical”, publised in JAMA, and “Thirty-five years of Psychiatry in the United States and our present outlook”, edited by The American Psychiatric Association.

(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)

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Heinz Hartmann and the Ego

Heinz Hartman

Did you now that…..

Heinz Hartmann (1894-19729), the American psychiatrist, defines the EGO as the substratum of the personality ?

Hartmann defines the Ego in terms of its function, especially the control of the apparatus of motility and perception (internal and external), the contact with reality, and the inhibition of primary instinctual drives.

Heinz Hartmann

This definition of Hartmann implies, besides the genetic, the adaptive point of view-namely, the mediating function of the ego between present reality and needs of other psychic systems.

(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)

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The physician’s role and the patient compliance

Topic : The physician’s role and the patient compliance.

Making a correct diagnosis and establishing a good treatment marks the beginning of all therapeutic process. In this process it is essential a good communication between patient and the physician.
Medical guidelines should be clear and precise. The physician should consider the circumstances of each patient.
The physician should discuss with the patient about possible drugs adverse effects of the prescribed medication. If those drugs adverse effects appeared, the patient must not stop taking the medication, and he should visit his doctor.
Inappropriate termination of the therapeutic regime may be prevented if the physician explain the delay associated with the onset of apparent benefit characteristics of some drugs.

The belief that education improves compliance is not supported by hard evidence. Dealing specifically with patient factors that underline noncompliance is far more effective. Trust, in the personal physician, in the prescribed therapy or perhaps in medical science in general, appears most crucial to patient compliance.

(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)

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Schizophrenia

Topic: Schizophrenia

Schizophrenic disorders are a type of mental disorder that is characterized by its tendency to chronicity, the deterioration of the individual’s functioning and psychotic symptoms associated with disturbances of thinking, feeling and behavior. Other characteristics of schizophrenia are the existence of strange ideas, dissociation of thought and emotion, and social withdrawal.

From the 17th to 19th century psychiatrists attempted to differentiate what today we call schizophrenia, from Melancholia, dementia in the elderly, and brain damage occurring in the wars. Those early clinicians tried to make a modern psychiatric classification by using criteria of symptomatology, in the course of the disease, and the outcome.

What nowadays we know as Schizophrenia received many other names over the centuries: Stupidity, Vesania, Idiocy, Insanity of puberty, Monomania, Paranoia, etc.

The concept of Dementia Praecox was developed in 1896, based on the early onset of the tendency towards a deterioration course. But it was not until 1908 that the name of Schizophrenia was coined, referring to the disconnection or splitting of the psychic functions believed to be an outstanding symptom of that disease.

(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)

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Havelock Ellis and Human Sexuality

Who was Havelock Ellis ?

Havelock Ellis was a British physician (1859-1939) . He was pioneered  the study of human sexuality, and the results of his researchs were published in a series of volumes entitled: “Studies in the Psychology of Sex” in 1896.

In this treatise on sexology, Havelock Ellis said that human sexuality begin long before puberty. He also claimed that male impotence and female frigidity is due to psychological problems, and that masturbation is frequent in both sexes. He affirmed that women also have sexual desire, and not men only.
Havelock Ellis said that homosexuality and heterosexuality are present in a simultaneous in both sexes.

Around the same time Sigmund Freud came to similar results. The freudian theories were a scandal at that time.

Havelock Ellis in his autobiography “My Life” (1939), among other things, called for equal rights for women and sex education for children.

(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)

Havelock Ellis

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Heroin and Hypodermic Needle

Did you know that…..

the invention of the hypodermic needle played an important role in the story of addiction to drugs ?

In 1853 an Scottish physician, Alexander Woods, invented the hypodermic needle. At the time of hypodermic’s discovery doctor thought that the use of hypodermic needle would prevent addiction to  drug. The explanation for that if the drug did not reach the stomach, the person would not develop a “hunger” for them.

The first narcotic drug administrated by hypodermic needle was Morphine. The second one was Heroin, which was isolated from opium in 1898.

hypodermic needle

hypodermic needles

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