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Another form of insight in psychiatric diseases

Sem01 (2024-2025) Psychiatry in Literature

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In this course we will discuss a number of novels and movies in which psychiatric questions play an important role.

At the same time the course also gives insight in the history of psychiatry and in the development of the concept of disease in psychiatry, starting in the early 19th century. The course will start and end with two Saturdays in a former psychiatric institution, in Gent and Haarlem. These institutions are now a museum for the history of psychiatry and for art from psychiatric patients.

This is an honours course

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Course details

  • Practical information

    Academic year
    2024-2025

    Semester
    1

    Period
    1 & 2

    Day(s)
    Wednesdays + 2 Saturday afternoons

    Time
    Wednesdays: 18:00-21:00
    Saturdays: 13:00-17:00

    Number of meetings
    11

    Dates
    18, 21 (Saturday*), 25 September;
    9, 16, 30 October;
    6, 20 November;
    4, 7 (Saturday*), 11 December

    *Sat 21 September, 13:00-17:00, Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent 
    *Sat 7 December, 13:00-17:00: Museum het Dolhuys in Haarlem

    Location
    Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam

    Room
    Tbd

    Credits
    6

    Lecturer

    Prof. dr. Arko Oderwald, Department of Family Medicine. Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam

  • Learning objectives

    Psychiatry has always been a very social discipline, in which daily life and human behavior is an important feature. Novelist give another form of insight in psychiatric diseases, sometimes even before a disease has been described by the psychiatrist.

  • Working formats & structure
    • Interactive classes with peer interaction
    • Reading and analyzing novels
    • Visiting two museum for the history of psychiatry and psychiatric art.

  • Assessment methods
    • Attending to and participating in the courses
    • Send in a question or opinion about the book or film every meeting
    • Writing an academic essay of 3000 words

  • Study materials

    Novels to read (obligatory)

    • Georg Büchner: Lenz (1834)
    • Honoré de Balzac: Louis Lambert (1832)
    • Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary (1860)
    • Emile Zola: Therèse Raquin (1867)
    • Joachim Machado de Assis: The psychiatrist (1881)
    • Frederik van Eeden: The deeps of deliverance (1900)
    • Ken Kesey: One flew over the cuckoo's nest (1962)
    • Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jarr (1963)
    • Jonathan Franzen: The corrections (2001)

    Movies (obligatory)

    • A beautiful mind (2001)

    Background literature (obligatory)

    • Roy Porter: Madness, a brief history
    • Arko Oderwald: Unfamiliar knowledge (will be handed out)

    Movies at choice

    • The deep of deliverance (Nouschka van Brakel)
    • One flew over the cuckoo's nest (Milos Forman)