The Scarlet Letter of Mental Illness: De-stigmatizing Bipolar Disorder

2012 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Jasko
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter

Pearl: 1850–1955

PMLA ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 72 (4-Part-1) ◽  
pp. 689-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Garlitz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Order ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Past ◽  
Natural Goodness ◽  
Natural Beauty ◽  
Moral Indifference ◽  
The One ◽  
Good And Evil

Pearl would seem to be the most enigmatic child in literature. Soon after The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850 Pearl was called both “an imbodied angel from the skies” and “a void little demon,” and time produced no unanimity of opinion. In the past hundred years she has been variously described as “most artificial and unchildlike,” and as possessing “the natural bloom… of childhood,” as a creature “of moral indifference, as one not born into the moral order,” and as an illustration of “that law which visits the sins of the fathers upon the children.” For some critics she performs the function of “a symbolized conscience,” but for others she is simply “a darksome fairy” or “the one touch of color in a sombre picture.” To one writer she typifies “a disordered nature torn by a malignant conflict between the forces of good and evil,” but to another she is an example of Rousseauian natural goodness. In the past five years Pearl has been found a symbol both of “unnatural isolation” from society and of the organicism of nature as opposed to the mechanism of society, a symbol both of the id and of “man's hopeful future.” Several critics have called Pearl a child of nature, but to one she is a symbol of wild uncivilized nature outside the realm of grace, to another an example of prelapsarian innocence, and to a third “an object of natural beauty, a flower,” and like nature, amoral, “not good or bad, because… not responsible.” Criticism of Pearl almost forces one to conclude that her character is an unfathomable maze, or of such an involved richness that it can become all things to all men.

Recovery and its correlates among patients with bipolar disorder: A study from a tertiary care centre in North India

2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (8) ◽  
pp. 726-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandeep Grover ◽  
Nandita Hazari ◽  
Jitender Aneja ◽  
Subho Chakrabarti ◽  
Sunil Sharma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Rating Scale ◽  
Tertiary Care ◽  
North India ◽  
Personal Recovery ◽  
Tertiary Care Centre ◽  
Young Mania ◽  
Level Of Functioning

Background and Aim: The goal of treatment in mental illness has evolved from a symptom-based approach to a personal recovery–based approach. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictors of personal recovery among patients with bipolar disorder. Methodology: A total of 185 patients with bipolar disorder, currently in remission, were evaluated on Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS), Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Scale (ISMIS), Brief Religious coping scale (RCOPE), Duke University Religiosity Index (DUREL), Religiousness Measures Scale, Hamilton depression rating scale (HDRS), Young Mania rating scale (YMRS) and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale. Results: The mean age of the sample was 40.5 (standard deviation (SD), 11.26) years. Majority of the participants were male, married, working, Hindu by religion and belonged to extended/joint families of urban background. In the regression analysis, RAS scores were predicted significantly by discrimination experience, stereotype endorsement and alienation domains of ISMIS, level of functioning as assessed by GAF, residual depressive symptoms as assessed by HDRS and occupational status. The level of variance explained for total RAS score and various RAS domains ranged from 36.2% to 46.9%. Conclusion: This study suggests that personal recovery among patients with bipolar disorder is affected by stigma, level of functioning, residual depressive symptoms and employment status of patients with bipolar disorder.

scholarly journals STAGE PERSONA, STAND-UP COMEDY AND MENTAL HEALTH: ‘PUTTING YOURSELF OUT THERE’

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-82
Author(s):  
MATT HARGRAVE
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

This article addresses the subject of stand-up and mental health through the prism of comic persona, generating new, non-diagnostic discourses around mental illness. The article focuses on British and Australian comedians whose material addresses conditions such as bipolar disorder (John Scott), depression and anxiety (Seymour Mace; Lauren Pattison; Felicity Ward), or feigns the staging of mental collapse (Stewart Lee). Based on the analysis of live events and one-on-one interviews, the essay considers the role that persona plays in mediating the relationship between the comedian and their material, arguing that shaping persona is key to developing practices framed within a poetics of vulnerability.

scholarly journals The Unavoidable Suffering in Selected Literary Texts: Poems and Novels

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amal Nasser Frag
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Allen Ginsberg ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Modern Psychology ◽  
Main Reflection ◽  
To Come ◽  
Almost All

The unavoidable suffering is an outstanding theme which has its impact to almost all literary texts. Typically, unavoidable suffering is the supreme touchstone in life and literature. Poets used its presence incessantly. They are always conscious of its inevitability. Investigation of this theme gives the reader a panoramic view of vital issues that are unusually linked to some extent with suffering; such as religion, God, nature, love and immortality. In the poems discussed in this study, unavoidable suffering reflects the effect of modern psychology has had upon both literature and literary criticism. The main reflection of suffering which is implied in the characters presented reveal the very contradictions, absurdities and complexities of our life. The poets and novelists chosen in this paper portray suffering, as “an abstract force, in an attempt to come to terms with it as well as to fathom it.” (Gurra, 2019, p.5) In the inexorable quest to comprehend it, poets do not offer a final view of suffering because it remains for them the great unknown mystery. This paper, however, is an attempt to meticulously examine and critically analyze the images of suffering in minor characters presented in selected poems. The selected poems are of Robinson Jeffers, Allen Ginsberg, and Maya Angelou. The characters selected from different novels are minor ones. Characters like: Roger Chiilingworth from The Scarlet Letter (1850), Walter Morel from Sons and Lovers (1913), Zeena Frome from Ethan Frome (1911), and Rezia Warren Smith from Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Different kinds of suffering are disscussed in order to gain a better understanding of the writers’ perception of unavoidable suffering as well as to understand the western philosophy of it.

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