HISTORY OF PSYCHIATRY Greek mythology and medical and psychiatric terminology

Loukas Athanasiadis

A great number of terms in modern psychiatry, Narcissus gave his name to narcissism (ex medicine and related disciplines originate from treme self-love based on an idealised self-image). the Greek, including pathology, schizophrenia, He was a young man extremely proud of his ophthalmology, gynaecology, anatomy, pharma beauty and indifferent to the emotions of those cology, biology, hepatology, homeopathy, allo who fell in love with him. A goddess cursed him pathy and many others. There are also many to feel what it is to love and get nothing in return. terms that originate from figures from ancient He subsequently fell in love with his own image Greek mythology (or the Greek words related to when he saw his reflection in the water of a those figures) and I think that it might be fountain, and believed that this image belonged interesting to take a look at some of them. to a spirit. Every time he tried to embrace the Psyche means 'soul' in Greek and she gave her image it disappeared and appeared without names to terms like psychiatry (medicine of the saying a word. At the end the desperate soul), psychology, etc. Psyche was a mortal girl Narcissus died and was turned into a flower that with whom Eros ('love', he gave his name to still bears his name. erotomania, etc.) fell in love. Eros's mother Echo was a very attractive young nymph who Aphrodite had forbidden him to see mortal girls. always wanted to have the last word. One day He defied her order and started seeing Psyche in she deceived the goddess Juno, who then passed the dark, while she was not allowed to ask his a sentence upon her not to be able to speak but name or look at his face. When she disobeyed only to reply by repeating the last words of the him and lit a lamp, Eros fled away. Psyche then person talking to her. When Echo fell in love with wandered long in search of him, they were Narcissus she was unable to express her feelings eventually united and, even better, she became and she could only repeat his last words - the immortal. affair was of course very short-lived! Echo gave Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty, daughter her name to echolalia (almost automatic repeti of Diane and Jupiter, and sprang from the foam tion of words or phrases heard) and echopraxia of the sea at Cyprus. She was married to the ugly (involuntary mimicking of another's movements). god Hephaestus and had numerous affairs. She Priapism is named after Priapus. He was the gave her name to the aphrodisiacs and as Venus god of reproductive power and fertility and was (her Latin name) to the venereal diseases. later regarded as the chief deity of lasciviousness Phobos ('fear' in Greek), from whose name the and obscenity. phobias derive, was another son of Aphrodite. Sappho was a (real person), a poetess who wrote Officially he was the son of Hephaestus, however lyrical poems about sex and love, probably his real father was Ares the god of war, whom he between women. She lived on the island of Lesbos used to accompany into battle. (Mitilini) which was named after the mythical Hygeia (health) gave her name to terms like Lesbos the son of Lapithes. From Lesbos and hygiene and hygienic. She was the daughter of Sappho are derived the words lesbianism and the famous physician Asclepius, god of medicine. sapphism. The piece of the elastic membrane to the Hypnus was probably the son of Nyx (Night) entrance to the vagina is called after Hymen or and Erebus and twin brother of Thanatos Hymenaeus. He was the son of Dionysus and (Death). His name in Greek means 'sleep'. Aphrodite and the god of marriage. Hypnosis, hypnagogic phenomena, etc. have Syrinx was a beautiful nymph who was turned the same root. to a tuft of reeds when the satyr Pan tried to rape Nyx was also the mother of Géras(oldage) from her. The air sounding through the reeds pro whose name terms such as geriatric medicine duced a plaintive melody and a musical instru originate. ment was named after her. The syringe used in Morpheus was one of Hypnus's 1000 children. injections might bear a connection. The drug morphine was named after him.

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Mania was the personification of madness. him. However, Oedipus survived and years later Lethe (oblivion) was the daughter of Eris and met, had an argument with and killed his father she gave her name to the river of oblivion in the (without knowing his identity). He then solved underworld. Her name has the same root as the the riddle of the Sphinx and married his mother terms lethargy and lethargic. Jocasta. When he found out what happened (and Mnemosyne was a Titaness, daughter of his mother killed herself) he put out his eyes. His Uranus and Gaia and the personification of story has been told in Oedipus the King, memory. Amnesia, amnestic, etc. are related Antigone, and Oedipus in Colonus by Sophocles terms. and Seven against Thebes by Aeschylus. Sig- The word hebe (adolescence) is the root of the mund Freud named his famous complex after term hebephrenic. Hebe was the daughter of the Oedipus. goddess Hera, wife of Heracles and personifica The Electra complex refers to the erotic tion of youth. attachment of a daughter to her father and is Another son of Aphrodite was Hermaphroditus. named after the daughter of Agamemnon and He was a very handsome young man with whom Clytemnestra. Electra persuaded her brother the nymph Salmacis fell in love. One day he got Orestes to kill their mother and her lover undressed and plunged into the lake of Salma Aegisthus, who had previously killed Agamem cis. When she tried to embrace him Hermaphro non. ditus did not like it and tried to push her away. As you can see there is usually a remarkable She then prayed to the gods to cause their bodies resonance between the characteristics of the never to be separated. That eventually happened figures in Greek mythology and the conditions and an hermaphrodite was born. and behaviours that were named after them in The Satyrs gave their name to satyriasis the later years. (obsessive insatiable desire for sexual gratifica tion). They were half men (upper part) and half goats (lower part) and became infamous for their Further reading lasciviousness and sexual appetite. King Laius of Thebes ordered his newborn son GRIMAL. P. (1990) A Concise Dictionary of Classical Oedipus to be put to death following an oracle's Mythology, London: Blackwell. LASS.A.. KIREMIDJIAN,D.& GOLDSTEIN,R. (1987) Dictionary pronouncement that Oedipus would finally kill of Classical and Literary Allusion, Ware: Wordsworth.

782 Athanasiadis