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Biomedical subjects

U H Peters

Publications and source records attributed to U H Peters.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

[Introduction of shock therapy and psychiatric emigration].

The introduction and general acceptance of shock treatment was intimately connected with the emigration of psychiatrists from the German speaking countries in 1933-1938. In 1934 Manfred Sakel began in Vienna, possibly already in 1933 in Berlin, with insulin shock treatment, and later emigrated to the US. From 1936 Max Müller in Münsingen, Switzerland, practised and propagated the same treatment. Many psychiatric emigrants, on their way to their new countries, visited Münsingen to learn the methods and take them to their future countries of residence (e.g. Lucie Jessner, Gertrude May-Gross, Martin Gross, Ruth Wilmanns, Arthur Kronfeld, Justin Hans Adler and Jacob Peter Frostig). In 1934 Ladislas von Meduna, who emigrated to Chicago in 1939, using campher and Cardiazol also introduced the convulsion treatment. After Cerletti and Bini in Rome had changed the method of provoking convulsions by using electric current, other psychiatric emigrants (Lothar Kalinowsky, Fritz Kant, William Karlinger, Lilly Ottenheimer, Max Rinkel, among others) introduced this method to many countries. In addition, Wagner-Jauregg's best known collaborators for the well-introduced malaria therapy, also had to emigrate. Among these are Helene Deutsch, Josef Gerstmann, Bernhard Dattner and Martha Brünner-Ornstein. The review of life and work of the psychiatrists concerned, before and after emigration, has been complemented by unpublished material.

Convulsive Therapy↗
PubMed1991

[The Stasi persecution syndrome].

For many years western psychiatrists only out of their clinical experience have known about a syndrome for which the name Stasi-persecution-syndrome will be used here. Stasi was the all powerful secret police of what was the East German Democratic Republic. The syndrome concerns an hitherto unknown number of the aprox. 50,000 survivors. It is a sequel of a form of persecution now more generally named torture. The characteristics of the persecution include arrestion, interrogations, degradation, humiliation, maltreatment, assault, mass detention in tiny rooms, hunger, cold, discrimination, defamation, disgrace, outlaw, social degradation, absence of rights, uncertainty of future, life threatening, and stigmatizing. The sequels resemble in many aspects of what is known by the psychiatry of the persecuted, but own a special flavor. Among the sequels are persisting and paranoid anxieties, re-arousable by specific situations. There are also realistic anxiety and persecution dreams, mood disturbances, lack of confidence, attempted suicide and complaints about lack of understanding by others, which the victims suffer from. Questions of indemnification for psychiatric sequelae have entered into a new stage after the East-German parliament had passed a rehabilitation bill and because of corresponding declarations in the unification treaty. Psychiatrists should fight for treatment costs and appropriate compensation for physical and psychiatric sequels of Stasi persecution to be set into reality as soon as possible. There is urgent need for a not yet existing scientific literature and publications of clinical experiences.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1990

[Adolf Meyer and relations between German and American psychiatry].

German psychiatrists do not have an easy access to Adolf Meyer. The reasons include: his influence on American psychiatry was mainly exercised by his personal influence; he did not have the gift of writing his important and influential ideas in a clear language; these ideas, furthermore, were scattered over great number of papers in a variety of periodicals; there is only one unsatisfactory (from the point of view of edition) collection of Meyers papers; no textbook of Meyerian psychiatry exists. There seems to be no German translation of any of Meyers papers. Meyer, who was always in close contact with German psychiatry and psychiatrists, transmitted their ideas to the American scientific public, although in a critical vein. His own psycho-biological or genetico-psychodynamic theory pointed to the importance of the biological and personality structure and its reactions, of how the patient reacts to which live events and which illness in his or her body contrasts to Kraepelins concept of self-sufficiency of the endogenous psychoses. Whereas DSM I und II had been moulded in Meyers spirit, DSM III led far away from it.

Biological Psychiatry↗
PubMed1990

[The Hinckley case and some sequelae for psychiatry].

After John Warnock Hinckley jr. had fired shots at President Reagan and had severely injured three others, he was considered not guilty by reason of insanity and brought to a psychiatric hospital. The case caused an unprecedented public interest because the psychiatric testimonies were contradictory (schizophrenia vs. personality disorder). According to the known facts it is very unlikely that a German psychiatrist would have diagnosed Hinckley as schizophrenic. One of the sequels of the sentence was a lowering of the reputation of psychiatrists for their inability to arrive at clear diagnosis. Another sequel was to increase the funds for research in biological psychiatry. Still another sequel was an insanity defense reform bill. The scientific debate and public discussions continue.

Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders↗
PubMed1990

[Endogenous and symptomatic schizophrenia. Wherein lies the difference?].

It is the opinion of the present writer that endogenous and symptomatic schizophrenia are two completely different matters. By classical symptomatology it is impossible to establish the distinction in every individual case. Nevertheless, in not one of the published cases known to us did Bonhoeffer err in his diagnosis of the one or the other. Evidently he made use of additional characteristica gathered in practice, about which he himself may not always have been quite clear.

Diagnosis, Differential↗
PubMed1990

[The symptomatic psychosis of Friedrich Nietzsche, made evident by his last attempt at an autobiography].

Nietzsche's autobiography gestates neither conflicts, nor life problems, nor matter suppressed from his subconscious, nor are the speech distortions of the schizophrenic patient to be found. In all, analysis allows with certainty the conclusion that is was written by a sick person suffering from a psycho-organic disorder of the kind Bonhoeffer referred to by the general term "symptomatic psychosis".

Famous Persons↗
PubMed1989

[Psychological sequelae of persecution. The survivor syndrome].

In the present decennium, the fifth after the end of the Nazi holocaust, the psychological sequelae in the survivors are far from being overcome, and this chapter of psychiatry is not yet closed. The clinical symptomatology of the survivor's syndrome had only gradually been described during a period of about 20 postwar years. Among the particularities of what survivors experienced were their being outlawed, discrimination, defamation, total absence of rights, loss of individuality, life threatening over a long period, being uprooted, the fact of little number of survivors in one's family and elsewhere, lack of grave for the victims, loss of language, culture and home and many others. Characteristics of the survivor's syndrome are continuing anxiety of being persecuted, struggle against memory, tension feeling, rumination over past, low self esteem, irritability, feeling of survivor's guilt, lack of initiative, retreat in apathy, unability of gaiety and to enjoy the pleasures of life, and return of the persecution in dreams among others. Discussions on care and treatment for the aging survivors now is still vivid in many countries. As a consequence of the holocaust experience remains our knowledge that even a fully built up and equilibrated personality can completely be altered, if circumstances are forcing. Further on it has become more clear that there is a transmission if in altered form of the personality changes to at least the second and third generations. In spite of its many difficulties and setbacks psychiatric help is possible, so that there has developed psychiatry of the persecuted as a new branch of psychiatry.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1989

[Why does the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) invade the nervous system?].

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has neurotropic effects that are independent of the well-known lymphotropism. They have been proved by various techniques, but their pathogenesis is not clear. It is remarkable that the neuropathological features do not correlate with the degree of the clinical symptomatology. HIV antigens and antibodies are demonstrable within the central nervous system by immunological tests. The macrophages transport the virus across the blood-brain barrier and are responsible for its persistence in that location. Different cell types, especially of the subcortical areas, have HIV-receptive CD4 molecules. These markers may be identical with the receptors for endogenous neuropeptides and it is likely that viral proteins are causing a competitive inhibition of these mostly neurotrophic factors. This interference is discussed as one of the main reasons of HIV dementia.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1989

[Irma--Emma--Martha--Anna. Some additional comments on presentations by K. R. Eissler and H. Thomä].

The author re-examines the significance of the Emma-Eckstein-episode and the Irma-dream with their implications for the theory of psychoanalysis. He follows Eissler and contradicts Schur in his argument that the identity of Irma with Emma cannot be proven and is, in any case, improbable. Neither the proof nor the refutation of this identity are of vital significance for psychoanalytic theory, but only for the suppression of dynamic psychiatry in favour of biological psychiatry.

Austria↗
PubMed1989

[Symptomatic mania in HIV infection. 3 cases of classified euphoric psychoses as a sequela of the AIDS disease].

3 case histories of patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome and acute organic psychoses are reported. Their psychoses can be classified as benefaction or blissfulness psychoses. A handfull of previous reports classify similar acute organic psychoses as symptomatic manias. The respective descriptions make obvious that these psychoses are homogenous among each other and that their contents represent a vivid reflection over a life situation which had been thoroughly changed by the AIDS illness.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1979

[Word play and schizophrenic language disorder - what constitutes the difference?].

The listener often perceives a similarity between humorous comments by schizophrenic patients and linguistic word plays, especially puns. A structural analysis of specific examples illustrates the basic difference. In 'good' as well as 'bad' word plays the humorous effect stems from the surprising similarity of word pairs (homonyms and homophones), while the seemingly humorous comments of the schizophrenic patient are rooted in an alteration of the semantic field of the word(s) employed. In spite of certain similarities in superficial structure there is a basic and specific difference in the semantic structure of these two forms of word play.

Humans↗
PubMed1978

[Introduction to a structural psychopathology].

Structural psychopathology maintains that the psychiatrist finds himself in a situation similar to that of the literary critic. The objects of their critical analysis are marked by a high degree of linguistic complexity, reflecting social as well as personal interrelationships. The structural method which developed in the course of this century is thus applicable to psychopathological relationships, if careful attention is paid to their unigueness. The structural method is illustrated by a schizopasic text. Those typical stylistic and rhetorical structures which lead to the impression of schizophasia are isolated. The structural method can also be used to examine the pathogenesis of an illness or to extrapolate information from medical histories. Finally, through the analysis of the book "Mary Barnes, two accounts of a journey through madness" it can be shown how the structural method can illuminate critical problems of a literary science which are disguised as psychiatric ones.

Adult↗