Stendhal syndrome

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View of the city of Florence

Certain psychosomatic disorders are referred to as Stendhal syndrome if they occur in connection with a cultural overstimulation . Among the symptoms include panic attacks , cognitive disorders and delusional mental changes.

This syndrome, named after the French writer Stendhal , was first scientifically described in 1979 by the Italian psychologist Graziella Magherini . A study published by Magherini ten years later, in which she described more than 100 typical cases of Stendhal syndrome in tourists in the art metropolis of Florence , made the syndrome internationally known.

Historical descriptions

Stendhal; Portrait of Johan Olaf Sodemark, 1840

The term Stendhal syndrome refers to a note from the travel sketch Reise in Italien (original title: Rome, Naples et Florence ) published in 1817 , in which the French writer Marie-Henri Beyle, known under the pseudonym Stendhal , gave his impressions during his visit to the Italian city of Florence . As soon as he arrived in town, he felt as if he was mad and could not think clearly.

When visiting the Santa Croce Church , famous for the tombs of Florentines such as Michelangelo , Dante Alighieri or Galileo Galilei , his enthusiasm increased:

“I found myself in a kind of ecstasy at the thought of being in Florence and the proximity of the great men whose graves I had just seen. [...] When I left Santa Croce, my heart was palpitations; in Berlin this is called a nerve attack; I was exhausted to the extreme and was afraid of falling over. "

- Stendhal : Journey in Italy

Stendhal felt like a lover and enjoyed the "pleasant sensations", but at the same time he was dismayed by his exhaustion.

Stendhal's account is not the only literary example of the overwhelming feeling European intellectuals felt on their Grand Tour in Italy in view of the abundance of art and buildings. The writer Wilhelm Heinse described in a letter at the end of the 18th century a feeling of floating when he entered the Pantheon in Rome , while Heinrich Heine judged in his travel pictures about the Milan Cathedral that the countless images of saints almost confused the senses. With the onset of organized tourism in the mid-19th century, the number of visitors from the United States in particular increased in the European art metropolises. In their travel reports there are repeated testimonies of great emotion, combined with states of great confusion.

A first psychological evaluation of the feeling for art was provided by Sigmund Freud , who, in retrospect, described his first visit to the Athens Acropolis in 1936 as a “memory disorder” that had triggered feelings of guilt in him. He also described in his psychoanalytical study Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensen's Gradiva (1907) a case of psychosis in an archaeologist during his visit to Pompeii.

Scientific studies

During her work as head of the psychological department of the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence, the Italian doctor Graziella Magherini noticed similar cases of illness among foreign tourists, which she interpreted as a reaction to the abundance of works of art and impressions in Florence. Based on Stendhal's travel reports, she named this psychosomatic disorder Stendhal syndrome in 1979 . In the years that followed, Magherini and her team studied numerous cases of patients suffering from Stendhal's syndrome. 106 of these medical histories were published by Magherini in January 1989 in the monograph La Sindrome di Stendhal , which made the term “Stendhal Syndrome” known to a broad public.

Characteristic of the Stendhal syndrome is a "loss of cohesion of the self ". Magherini distinguished three types of symptoms. In a group of patients, Stendhal's syndrome was manifested by disorders of thought and perception that caused hallucinations and delusional moods, as well as deep feelings of guilt in those affected. A second group developed affective disorders , which led to fantasies of omnipotence as well as to the realization of one's own insignificance in view of the abundance of art treasures. In a third group of patients, Stendhal's syndrome occurred as a panic attack associated with increased blood pressure , fainting , abdominal pain, and cramps. Most of the tourists affected by Stendhal syndrome were between 26 and 40 years old and unmarried. All patients were foreigners, mostly from the United States and the northern half of Europe. More than half of all patients had previously received psychological treatment.

After the publication of her studies, Graziella Magherini worked on further research into Stendhal syndrome. In 2007 she published another book in which she described the effect of works of art on people using Michelangelo's David statue as an example .

reception

First publications about the Stendhal syndrome received controversial comments from medical professionals. The diagnosis made by Magherini is not generally recognized, some doctors consider Stendhal syndrome to be one of the most well-known forms of neurosis . Magherini has been accused of aggregating various psychopathological symptoms and anecdotal observations. Other doctors, on the other hand, see Stendhal syndrome as a serious psychological disorder , which is studied more closely by travel doctors in particular .

In the art world, on the other hand, Stendhal syndrome was more readily adopted. The extensive coverage of the subject in the press when Magherini's book was published quickly made the syndrome known. Several writers adopted the motif of the viewer overwhelmed by art in their works. The Dutch playwright Frans Strijards published the play Das Stendhal Syndrome as early as 1989 . A year later, the German writer Christine Wolter, who lives in Italy, published the short story Das Stendhal Syndrome . Another thematization can be found in the novel The Florentine Disease by Willi Acht . The novella by Wilhelm Jensen Gradiva: A Pompeian Fantasy (1903) describes how an archaeologist slowly falls into a psychosis with delusions after seeing a goddess ( Gradiva ) on a relief during his visit to Pompeii . The story Der Tempelbrand by Yukio Mishima also bears traits of Stendhal's syndrome: a young novice is so confused and dissolved by the beauty of the Kinkaku-ji Golden Temple in Kyoto that he sees no other way out than to destroy the temple by setting fire to it. to free yourself from the torment of beauty.

The best-known artistic implementation of the Stendhal Syndrome is Dario Argento's horror thriller The Stendhal Syndrome (original title: La sindrome di Stendhal ) from 1996. In this film, Argento's daughter Asia plays a young Italian policewoman who is looking for a serial killer in the Florentine Uffizi gallery collapses and falls into the hands of the murderer (portrayed by Thomas Kretschmann ).

The high level of awareness of Stendhal's syndrome, which was also mentioned in travel guides about Florence, led, according to Graziella Magherini, to a significant decrease in diseases in Florence. At the same time, medical and popular science publications described mental disorders associated with staying in other tourist destinations. The Jerusalem syndrome describes a mental disorder that affects many visitors to the city of Jerusalem , while the frequent occurrence of Paris syndrome has been described among Japanese tourists . And in connection with the coverage of the publication of a study of suicides and attempted suicide by foreigners in Venice , the term “Venice Syndrome” was used.

literature

  • Graziella Magherini: La Sindrome di Stendhal . Ponte Alle Grazie, Florence 1989. ISBN 978-88-7928-308-3 .
  • Graziella Magherini: "Mi sono innamorato di una statua": Oltre la Sindrome di Stendhal . Nicomp, Florence 2007. ISBN 978-88-87814-66-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Stendhal: Journey In Italy; In: Stendhal: Collected Works (Ed. Manfred Naumann). Rütten and Löning, Berlin 1964, p. 234.
  2. ↑ Eberhard Haufe (Ed.): German letters from Italy. From Winckelmann to Gregorovius . Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-7338-0038-9 , p. 13.
  3. ^ Heinrich Heine: travel pictures . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1982, p. 303.
  4. ↑ James Elkins: Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings . Routledge, London 2004, ISBN 0-415-97053-9 , p. 44.
  5. ↑ Jacques Le Rider : But more Moses than Apollo and Dionysus? On Freud's handling of classical studies . In: “More Dionysus than Apollo”: anticlassical antiquity reception around 1900 (Ed. Achim Aurnhammer, Thomas Pittrof). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-465-03210-1 , pp. 205f.
  6. ↑ Louis Inturrisi: Going to Pieces over Masterpieces . In: The New York Times , November 6, 1988 (accessed February 16, 2009).
  7. ^ Magherini: La Sindrome di Stendhal , p. 98.
  8. ^ Magherini: La Sindrome di Stendhal , pp. 99-106.
  9. ↑ a b Alexander Smoltczyk: The Stendhal swindle . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 2008, p. 117 ( online ).
  10. ^ Clyde Haberman: Florence's Art Makes Some Go to Pieces . In: The New York Times , May 15, 1989 (accessed February 16, 2009).
  11. ^ The Daily Telegraph : Boredom, work and other illnesses , October 11, 2004 (accessed February 15, 2009)
  12. ↑ Fluttering hearts . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1989, pp. 176 ( online ).
  13. ↑ D. Survilaitė: Stendhal Syndrome and other Traveller's Psychiatric Disorders . In: Seminars in Neurology 2008, 12 (36), pp. 92-99.
  14. ^ H. Jürgen Kagelmann and Alexander G. Keul: Tourism - coping with stress and health-promoting effects . In: Psychology in society, culture and the environment (Eds. Dieter Frey and Carl Graf Hoyos). Beltz PVU, Weinheim 2005, ISBN 3-621-27549-5 , p. 375.
  15. ↑ German edition published in Theater heute No. 11, 1991, pp. 43–56.
  16. ↑ Christine Wolter : The Stendhal Syndrome . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1990, ISBN.
  17. ↑ Willi Acht : The Florentine Disease . Edition Cologne, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-936791-57-0 .
  18. ↑ BBC News : 'Paris Syndrome' strikes Japanese, December 20, 2006 (accessed February 16, 2009).
  19. ↑ netzeitung.de : Japanese give Parisians cleaning tutoring ( memento from June 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) from May 31, 2009 (accessed on May 31, 2009).
  20. ↑ Paris Syndom (Tagesspiegel, Berlin) , accessed on Aug. 7, 2010
  21. ^ Elke Hartmann and Eva Maria Kallinger: Death in Venice . In: Focus , No. 49, 2000, p. 252 (accessed on February 16, 2009).
  22. ↑ Kerstin Becker: See Venice - and die . On November 20, 2000 on welt.de
  23. ↑ Suicides: When the gondolas are in mourning . On November 20, 2000 on spiegel.de