Resource Tag: PHOBIAS

The author presents abstracts of the stories of 75 individuals who, after having been neurotic, psychotic or even insane, wrote up their experiences. The stories of a few people who had a breakdown because of alcoholism or “a bit too much religion” are also included.

Overlapping, or rather orderly alternation, of the depressive and suicidal states, each apparently being rooted in a distinct neurophysiological substrate, is discussed around the pivotal phenomenon of agoraphobia (or “heteropseudophobia). The latter seems to herald usually a clinical depression in females, whereas in males it might well be triggering suicidal impulses.