Monomania
The term monomania comes from a psychiatric disease theory of the early 19th century. It meant something like “individual madness ” (from ancient Greek μόνος monos , German “alone, only” and μανία maníā “frenzy, anger, madness”) in contrast to a comprehensive / complete “madness”. The term was aimed at an isolated, “partial” disorder of psychological functions, that is, psychological illnesses that are not associated with complete insanity, or “ delirium ”, but only express themselves in certain areas, but leave the other psychological areas unaffected. Today it has only (psychiatric) historical significance and is no longer used in psychiatry in the 20th and 21st centuries.
It is not found in the International Classification of Mental Disorders published by the World Health Organization (WHO), the 10th revision of which ( ICD-10 ) is binding in Germany, nor in the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM-IV ) Psychiatric Association (which is more common in the scientific field). However, relics of monomania can still be found, including in the terms kleptomania and pyromania . Although they are generally rejected in forensic psychiatry, they are still represented as separate categories in the DSM-IV and ICD-10 classification systems (for more information, see Müller). This often leads to misunderstandings, especially in connection with judicial criminal proceedings.
History of the term
The monomania theory comprised an independent conception of mental illness, which was increasingly criticized in psychiatry at the end of the 19th century and was ultimately rejected and discarded. Despite the abandonment of monomania, two of its terms have remained: “ Kleptomania ” as “monomania of theft ” and “ pyromania ” as “monomania of arson”.
The term itself was coined by the French psychiatrist Jean-Étienne Esquirol (1772-1840). Esquirol drew on the concepts of his teacher and colleague, the psychiatric reformer Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), and added monomania to his classification of mental illnesses. Esquirol understood it to be a mental illness "in which delirium is limited to a single object or a small number of objects, and which is accompanied by excitement and the predominance of a cheerful and exuberant passion." In 1801, in his main work "Traité médico-philosophique sur l'alienation mental, ou la manie", Pinel spoke of the "mania sans délire", of an "anger" or "frenzy" that can be achieved without mental confusion (= "delirium") occur. As early as the 17th century, the German doctor Michael Ettmüller spoke of a "mania sine delirio".
The Geneva doctor André Matthey took up Pinel's suggestions for “mania sans délire”, who introduced the term “pathomania” in 1816 and defined it as “perversion de la volonté et des penchants naturels sans lésion apparente des fonctions intellectuelles” (reversal of the Volitional and natural inclinations with no apparent disturbance of the mental functions).
In England the psychiatrist James Cowles Prichard presented the concept of " moral insanity ", which was very similar in content, at the same time (around 1835) .
Concept of monomania
Jean-Étienne Esquirol based his content on Matthey and Pinel.
The French psychiatrist Charles Chrétien Henry Marc (1771–1841) took up Esquirol's monomania and enriched it with other forms.
Monomania and personality model
According to a personality model that was widespread in the 19th century , which was based on three distinct areas of personality - mind / feeling / will - Esquirol and Marc distinguished between three basic categories of "monomania":
- in the case of an isolated disturbance of the intellectual functions they spoke of "intellectual monomania",
- in isolated disorders of the emotional area from an "affective monomania" and
- in isolated disorders of the “will” from an “instinctive monomania”.
Types of monomania
In both Marc and Esquirol, the classification / nomenclature of the various individual types of monomania was based on more external, accidental characteristics, for example (in the case of "instinctive monomania") according to the type of act committed, or (in the case of the "intellectual" or the "affective." Monomania ”) according to the salient thought or feeling content. So there was at Esquirol u. a .:
- hypochondriac monomania
- religious monomania
- erotic monomania
- Suicide monomania
- Murder monomania
Charles Chrétien Henry Marc basically assumes a principally inexhaustible variety of forms of monomania and cites as examples:
- Monomania of wealth, ambition, pride
- ascetic, religious monomania
- Demonomania
- erotomania
- Aidomania
- kleptomania
- Pyromania
- Imitation monomania
A number of other authors subsequently added a myriad of other forms of "monomania": B. the
- Poriomania as a tendency to wander, or the
- Dinomania as a dance passion (see e.g. Peters).
The teaching of monomania in current psychiatry
Last but not least, this expansion of the monomania theory into arbitrary terms, which makes it possible to relate practically every human behavior, feeling, thinking that somehow seems conspicuous or remarkable, led to the rejection of monomania in the late 19th century Psychiatry run. Particularly in court, however, those terms were and are (for understandable reasons) brought into play again and again that aim at criminally relevant behavior (e.g. " kleptomania ", " pyromania "), which forensic psychiatry vehemently rejects. As early as the beginning of the 20th century there was talk of “criminal psychiatric artifacts” (Birnbaum), while in contemporary psychiatry the concept is considered to be “long obsolete” (Janzarik, Mundt). Forensic psychiatry of today rejects the monomania theory and the terms associated with it (in particular "kleptomania", "pyromania") completely, since with it socially disruptive and delinquent behavior was "inappropriately monosymptomatically hyped up to clinical pictures, [...], and thus suggested, in a circular way, that corresponding behaviors should be classified as pathological ”(Venzlaff & Pfäfflin).
Remnants of the monomania doctrine can still be found in ICD-10 in chapter F63 (“Abnormal habits and impulse control disorders”) with the categories F63.1 “Pathological arson [pyromania]” and F63.2 “Pathological stealing [kleptomania]”, as well in the DSM-IV . Overview and criticism in (Müller).
Popular reception of the term
Terms from the theory of monomania also appear again and again in the context of popular science or in feature sections (and last but not least also on the Internet), i. d. Usually in connection with conspicuous, socially deviant or delinquent behavior and the more or less openly formulated question whether a mental disorder could be present here.
- The behavior of Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is called monomaniac by Herman Melville .
See also
- Fixed idea
- Thinking disorder → Section overvalue idea
literature
- Karl Birnbaum : The Psychopathic Criminals . Thieme, Leipzig 1926.
- Horst Dilling u. a. (Ed.): International Classification of Mental Disorders. ICD-10 , Chapter V (F); clinical diagnostic guidelines . Huber, Bern 2006, ISBN 3-456-84286-4 .
- Jean-Etienne Esquirol : General and special pathology and therapy of mental disorders . Hartmann, Leipzig 1827.
- Jean-Étienne Esquirol: The mental illnesses in relation to medicine and state medicine . Voss, Berlin 1838 (2 volumes).
- Werner Janzarik: Topics and tendencies in German-speaking psychiatry . Springer, Berlin 1974.
- Charles Chrétien Henry Marc : The Mental Illnesses in Relation to Justice . Voss, Berlin 1843/1844 (2 vol.).
- André Matthey : Nouvelles recherches sur les maladies de l'esprit précédées considérations sur les difficulté de l'art de guérir . Paschoud, Paris 1816.
- Tobias Müller: Impulse control disorders - old wine in new bottles? In: Rolf Baer u. a. (Ed.): Ways of psychiatric research . Perimed, Erlangen 1990, ISBN 3-88429-3907 .
- Christoph Mundt: Kleptomania . In: Christian Müller : Lexicon of Psychiatry . Springer, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-540-16643-2 .
- Uwe H. Peters: Lexicon of psychiatry, psychotherapy, medical psychology . Urban & Fischer, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-437-15060-X .
- Philippe Pinel : L'alienation mental ou la manie. Traité médico-philosophique . L'Harmattan, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-7475-9780-6 (Repr. D. Edition Paris 1801, German translation: M. Wagner: Philosophical-medical treatise on mental confusion or mania . Vienna 1801).
- Henning Saß u. a .: Diagnostic criteria of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. DSM-IV -TR . Hogrefe, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-8017-1661-9 .
- Ulrich Venzlaff, Friedemann Pfäfflin: Personality disorders and other abnormal mental developments . In: Klaus Foerster (ed.): Psychiatric assessment . Elsevier, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-437-22900-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol: From the mental illnesses. Edited and introduced by Erwin Heinz Ackerknecht . Bern / Stuttgart 1968, p. 30.
