Phenomenology

Phenomenology (pronounced fi-nom-uh-nol-uh-jee)

(1) The study of phenomena.

(2) In philosophy, the system of German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) stressing the description of phenomena; the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view; developed later as existential phenomenology, in the work of Husserl's student, the one-time Nazi, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976).

(3) In the philosophy of science, the science of phenomena as opposed to the science of being.

(4) In architecture, a school of design based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties.

(5) In archaeology, a set of theories based upon understanding cultural landscapes from a sensory perspective.

(6) In physics, a branch which deals with the application of theory to experiments.

(7) In empirical psychology, the study of subjective experiences or the experience itself.

(8) In the study of comparative religions, a field of research concerning the experiential aspect of religion in terms consistent with the orientation of the worshippers.

1764: A compound word phenomen(on) (from the Late Latin phaenomenon (appearance) from the Ancient Greek φαινόμενον (phainómenon) (thing appearing to view), the neuter present passive participle of φαίνω (phaínō) (I show) + logy.  In English the logy suffix originates with loanwords from the Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned.  Within English, the suffix became productive, forming names of sciences or departments of study and original compositions with no link to Greek or Latin forms were common by the late eighteenth century.  Phenomenology & phenomenologist are nouns phenomenological is an adjective and phenomenologically is an adverb; the noun plural is phenomenologies.

The road to Hegel

Portrait of the philosopher as a young man: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831).

Phenomenology was a created philosophical system that was intended to be free of presupposition, the notion being that objects and events should be observed and described from the position of the observer(s) a process supposedly free from claims about any objective reality. Anything not immediately conscious is to be excluded and rather than deductive or empirical methods, there was a reliance on the information gathered by the senses; all scientific or metaphysical knowledge or belief was discarded.  Phenomenology is not an essentially theoretical exercise like idealism which claimed the only thing truly to exist is the mind.  Phenomenology instead takes the position that that can be known is subjective reality, thus the pointlessness of an attempt to seek out some objective reality.  The focus is on the subjective.  That didn’t mean existentialism and phenomenology were the same.  Phenomenology was a toolbox of processes with which to view metaphysics and knowledge; existentialism, ultimately, was about generating the normative ethics to make a worthwhile life.  Phenomenology’s core method was the investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, devoid from any theoretical framework, and, to whatever extent was possible, undertaken without preconceptions and presuppositions.

Lindsay Lohan capturing Hegel's phenomenology of spirit in a T-shirt.

The word, though without quite its modern meaning, seems first to have been used in 1764 by Swiss philosopher and mathematician, Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–1777) in his work Neues Organon, a treatise on logic, the title (New Organon), a nod to The Organon (Ὄργανον in the Ancient Greek meaning “instrument, tool, organ"), the collection of Aristotle's (384-322 BC) six works on logic assembled (circa 40 BC) by a group of disciples known as the Peripatetics.  In the reductionist spirit of logic, Lambert applied the word to his particular exploration of the systemic use of knowledge to differentiate truth falsehood but it wasn’t until the publication in 1807 of Phänomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of Spirit) by German philosopher GWF Hegel that lineal paths to the twentieth century phenomenological can be traced.  Hegel was impenetrable even by the standards of German philosophers so the discursive output of the new phenomenologists of the new century seems hardly surprising.  As many students discovered, one can find one's way to Hegel but it's hard to find one's way back.

Mania

Mania (pronounced mey-nee-uh or meyn-yuh)

(1) Excessive excitement or enthusiasm; craze; excessive or unreasonable desire; insane passion affecting one or many people; fanaticism.

(2) In psychiatry, the condition manic disorder; a combining form of mania (megalomania); extended to mean “enthusiasm, often of an extreme and transient nature,” for that specified by the initial element; characterized by great excitement and occasionally violent behavior; violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity.

(3) In mythology, the consort of Mantus, Etruscan god of the dead and ruler of the underworld.  Perhaps identified with the tenebrous Mater Larum, she should not be confused with the Greek Maniae, goddess of the dead; In Greek mythology Mania was the personification of insanity.

(4) In popular use, any behavior, practice, cultural phenomenon, product etc enjoying a sudden popularity.

1350–1400: From the Middle English mania (madness), from the Latin mania (insanity, madness), from the Ancient Greek μανία (manía) (madness, frenzy; enthusiasm, inspired frenzy; mad passion, fury), from μαίνομαι (maínomai) (I am mad) +‎ -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā).  The –ia suffix was from the Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia), which form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It was used when names of countries, diseases, species etc and occasionally collections of stuff.  The Ancient Greek mainesthai (to rage, go mad), mantis (seer) and menos (passion, spirit), were all of uncertain origin but probably related to the primitive Indo-European mnyo-, a suffixed form of the root men- (to think)," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of maenad (mind) or thought.

The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  The sense of a "fad, craze, enthusiasm resembling mania, eager or uncontrollable desire" dates from the 1680s, the use in English in this sense borrowed from the French manie.  In Middle English, mania had sometimes been nativized as manye. The familiar modern use as the second element in compounds expressing particular types of madness emerged in the 1500s (bibliomania 1734, nymphomania, 1775; kleptomania, 1830; narcomania 1887, megalomania, 1890), the origin of this being Medical Latin, in imitation of the Greek, which had a few such compounds (although, despite the common perception, most were actually post-classical: gynaikomania (women), hippomania (horses) etc).

The adjective maniac was from circa 1600 in the sense of "affected with mania, raving with madness" and was from the fourteenth century French maniaque, from the Late Latin maniacus, from the Ancient Greek maniakos, the Adoption in English another borrowing from French use; from 1727 it came also to mean "pertaining to mania." The noun, "one who is affected with mania, a madman" was noted from 1763, derived from the adjective.  The adjective manic (pertaining to or affected with mania), dates from 1902, the same year the clinical term “manic depressive” appeared in the literature although, perhaps strangely, the condition “manic depression” wasn’t describe until the following year although the symptoms had as early as 1857 been noted as defined as “circular insanity”, from the from French folie circulaire (1854).  It’s now known as bi-polar disorder.  The constructions hypermania & submania are both from the mid-twentieth century.  The adjective maniacal was from the 1670s, firstly in the sense of "affected with mania" and by 1701 "pertaining to or characteristic of a maniac; the form maniacally emerged during the same era.  Mania is quite specific but craving, craze, craziness, enthusiasm, fad, fascination, frenzy, infatuation, lunacy, obsession, passion, rage, aberration, bee, bug, compulsion, delirium, derangement, desire & disorder peacefully co-exist.

Noted manias

Anglomania: An excessive or undue enthusiasm for England and all things English; rarely noted in the Quai D'Orsay.

Anthomania: An extravagant passion for flowers; although it really can’t be proved, the most extreme of these are probably the orchid fanciers.  Those with an extravagant passion for weed are a different sub-set of humanity and are really narcomanics (qv) although there may be some overlap. 

Apimania: A passionate obsession with bees; beekeepers tend to be devoted to their little creatures so among the manias, this one may more than most be a spectrum condition.

Arithmomania: A compulsive desire to count objects and make calculations; noted since 1884, it’s now usually regarded as being within the rubric of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Bibliomania: A rage for collecting rare or unusual books.  This has led to crime and there have been famous cases.

Cacodaemomania: The obsessive fixation on the idea that one is inhabited by evil spirits.  To the point where it becomes troublesome it’s apparently rare but there are dramatic cases in the literature, one of the most notorious being Anneliese Michel (1952–1976) who was subject to the rites of exorcism by Roman Catholic priests in the months before she died.  The priests and her parents (who after conventional medical interventions failed, also become convinced the cause of her problems was demonic possession) were convicted of various offences related to her death.  Films based on the events leading up to death have been released including The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Requiem (2006) and Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011).

Callomania: The obsessive belief in one’s own beauty, even when to all others this is obviously delusional.

Dipsomania: The morbid craving for alcohol; in pre-modern medicine, it was used also to describe the “temporary madness caused by excessive drinking”, the origin of this being Italian (1829) and German (1830) medical literature.

Egomania: An obsessive self-centeredness; it was known since 1825 but use didn’t spike until Freud (and others) made it widely discussed after the 1890s and few terms from the early days of psycho-analysis are better remembered.

Erotomania: Desperate love, a sentimentalism producing morbid feelings.

Flagellomania: An obsessive interest in flogging and/or being flogged, often as one’s single form of sexual expression and thus a manifestation of monomania (qv).  The English Liberal Party politician Robert Bernays (1902-1945), the son of a Church of England vicar, was a flagellomanic whose proclivities were, in the manner of English society at the time, both much discussed and kept secret.  He was also an illustration of the way such fetishes transcend other sexual categories.

Gallomania: An excessive or undue enthusiasm for France and all things French; rarely noted in the British Foreign Office.

Graphomania: A morbid desire to write.  Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527; Italian diplomat, philosopher and political advisor of the Renaissance) attributed many of the problems he suffered to his graphomania and he was right, his sufferings because of what he wrote, when it was written and about whom.

Hippomania: An excessive fondness for horses; an affliction which often manifests as the intense and passionate interest in horses developed by some girls who join pony clubs and fall in love.

Hypermania: There’s a definitional dualism to hypermania; it can mean either an extreme example of any mania or, as used by clinicians, specifically (and characterized usually by a mental state with high intensity disorientation and often violent behavior), a severe case of bipolar disorder (the old manic-depression).  The earlier term was hypomania (A manic elation accompanied by quickened perception), one of the earliest (1882) clinical terms from early-modern psychiatry.

Kleptomania: The obsessive desire to steal; in early (1830s) use, the alternative form was cleptomania.  The klepto element was from the Ancient Greek kleptes (thief, a cheater), from kleptein (to steal, act secretly), from the primitive Indo-European klep- (to steal), from the root kel- (to cover, conceal, save) and was cognate with the Latin clepere (to steal, listen secretly to), the Old Prussian au-klipts (hidden), the Old Church Slavonic poklopu (cover, wrapping) and the Gothic hlifan (to steal) & hliftus (thief).  The history of the word kleptomania is of interest also to sociologists in that as early as the mid-nineteenth century, there was controversy about the use by those with the capacity to buy the services of doctors and lawyers were able to minimize or escape the consequences of criminal misbehavior by claiming a psychological motive.  The argument was that the “respectable” classes were afforded the benefit of this defense while the working class were presumed to be inherently criminal and judged accordingly.  The same debate, now also along racial divides, continues today.

Lindsaymania: A specific instance of mania suffered by those obsessed with Lindsay Lohan (manifested often on Instagram and other social media platforms), including those poor deluded souls who curate blogs with substantial Lohanic content.  They are sometimes referred to as "Lindsaiacs".  Those who focus on Ms Lohan's feet were historically labeled podophiles but the DSM has since re-classified them as "foot particularists"; if their interest is restricted to her feet alone they are a subset of the Lindsaymaniacs whereas if their interest includes the feet of others, they are pure foot particularists. 

Logomania: An obsession with words.  It differs from graphomania (qv) which is an obsession to write; logomania instead is a fascination with words, their meanings and etymologies.

Megalomania: Delusions of greatness; a form of insanity in which the subjects imagine themselves to be great, exalted, or powerful personages.  It was first used in the medical literature in 1866 (from the French mégalomanie) and came to be widely applied to many politicians and potentates the twentieth century.

Micromania:  "A form of mania in which the patient thinks himself, or some part of himself, to be reduced in size", noted first in 1879 and twenty years later used also in reference to insane self-belittling.  In the twentieth century and beyond, micromania was widely used, sometimes humorously, to refer to things as varied as the sudden consumer in interest in small cars to the shrinking size of electronic components.   

Monomania: An insane obsession in regard to a single subject or class of subjects; applied most often in academic, scientific or political matters but can be used about anything where the overriding mental impulses are perverted to a specific delusion or the pursuit of a particular thing.

Morphinomania: A craving for morphine; one of the earliest of the words which noted specific addictions, it dates from 1885 but earlier still there had been morphiomania (1876) and morphinism (1875) from the German Morphiumsucht.  In the medical literature, morphinomaniac & morphiomaniac rapidly became common.

Narcomania: The uncontrollable craving for narcotic drugs and a term which is so nineteenth century, the preferred modern form being variations of "addiction".

Necromania: An obsession to have sexual relations with the bodies of the dead although, perhaps surprisingly, practitioners (those who treat rather than practice the condition) classify many different behaviors which they list under the rubric of necromania, some of the less confronting being a morbid interest in funeral rituals,  morgues, autopsies, and cemeteries.   Those whose hobbies include the study of the architecture of crypts and tombs or the coachwork of funeral hearses might be shocked to find there are psychiatrists who classify them in the same chapters as those who enjoy intimacy with corpses.

Nymphomania: The morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire in women.  Perhaps the most celebrated (and often sought) of the manias, it dates from 1775, in the English translation of Nymphomania, or a Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1771) by French doctor Jean Baptiste Louis de Thesacq de Bienville (1726-1813), the construct being the Ancient Greek nymphē (bride, young wife; young lady) + mania.  The actual condition is presumed to have long pre-dated the term and in use, deserves to be distinguished from less pleasing modern forms such as the "skanky ho".

Onomatomania: One obsessively compelled to respond with a rhyming word to the last word spoken by another (something possible even with orange and silver).  It’s thought to co-exist with other conditions, especially schizophrenia.

Phonomania: An uncontrollable urge to murder; those who suffer this now usually described as the more accessible “homicidal maniac”.  When applied especially to serial killers, the companion condition (just further along the spectrum) is androphonomania which, if properly argued, could be a defense against a charge of mass-murder but counsel would need to be most assiduous in jury selection.

Plutomania: The obsessive pursuit of wealth (and used sometimes in a clinical setting to describe an "imaginary possession of wealth").

Pyromania: A form of insanity marked by a mania for destroying things by fire.  It was used in German in the 1830s and seemed to have captured the imagination of Richard Wagner (1813–1883); the older word for the condition was incendiarism.

Rhinotillexomania: Nose picking. Gross, but a thing which apparently often manifests when young but fades, usually of its own volition or in reaction to the disapprobation of others.

Trichotillomania: The compulsion to pull-out one’s hair.  The companion condition is trichtillophagia which is the compulsive eating of one’s own hair, one of a remarkable number of eating disorders.

Definitional variations in the criteria for mania, DSM-IV & DSM-5

The study and classification of idea of manias had been part of psychiatry almost from its origin as a modern discipline although the wealth of details and fragmentation of nomenclature would come later, the condition first noted “increased busyness”, the manic episodes characterized by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926; a founding father of psychiatric phenomenology) as those of someone who was “…a stranger to fatigue, his activity goes on day and night; work becomes very easy to him; ideas flow to him.” 

Whatever the advances (and otherwise) in treatment regimes, little has changed in some aspects of the condition.  In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 2013), the primary criterion of mania remains “a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood” and “abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy” but did extend duration of the event to qualify for a diagnosis.  In the DSM-IV (1994), the criterion for a manic episode only required “a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least one week” whereas DSM-5 now requires in addition the presence of “abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy”; moreover, these symptoms must not only last at least one week, they must also be “present most of the day, nearly every day.”

The changes certainly affected the practice of the clinician, DSM-5 substantially increasing the complexity associated with the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, no longer requiring that clinically significant symptoms which may be present should be ignored.  All those years ago, Kraepelin conceptualized manic-depression as a single illness with a continuum of episodic presentations including admixtures of symptoms which have long since been considered opposing polarity.  DSM-5 thus represents an advance with the possibility of improved treatment outcomes because it enables clinicians to diagnose mood episodes and specify the presence of symptoms inconsistent with pure episodes; a major depressive episode with or without mixed features and manic/hypomanic episodes with or without mixed features.

The revisions in DSM-5 also reflect the efforts of the editors over several decades to simplify diagnostic criteria while developing more precise categories of classification.  In the DSM-IV, both bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder were included in one chapter of mood disorders and a “mixed state” was a subtype of bipolar I mania, a diagnosis of a mixed state requiring that criteria for both a manic episode (at least three or four of seven manic symptoms) and a depressive episode (at least five of nine depressive symptoms) were met for at least one week.  In DSM-5, bipolar disorder and depressive disorders have their own chapters, and “mixed state” was removed and replaced with “manic episode with mixed features” and “major depressive disorder with mixed features.”

Psychache

Psychache (pronounced sahyk-eyk)

Psychological pain, especially when it becomes unbearable, producing suicidal thoughts.

1993: The construct was psyche- + ache.  Psychache was coined by US clinical psychologist Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) and first appeared in his book Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993).  The prefix psych- was an alternative form of psycho-.  Psycho was from the Ancient Greek ψῡχο- (psūkho-), a combining form of ψυχή (psukhḗ) (soul).  Wit was used with words relating to the soul, the mind, or to psychology.  Ache was from the Middle English verb aken & noun ache (noun), from the Old English verb acan (from the Proto-West Germanic akan, from the Proto-Germanic akaną (to ache)) and the noun æċe (from the Proto-West Germanic aki, from the Proto-Germanic akiz), both from the primitive Indo-European heg- (sin, crime).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian eeke & ääke (to ache, fester), the Low German aken, achen & äken (to hurt, ache), the German Low German Eek (inflammation), the North Frisian akelig & æklig (terrible, miserable, sharp, intense), the West Frisian aaklik (nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary) and the Dutch akelig (nasty, horrible).  Historically the verb was spelled ake, and the noun ache but the spellings became aligned after Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) published A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), the lexicographer mistakenly assuming it was from the Ancient Greek ἄχος (ákhos) (pain) due to the similarity in form and meaning of the two words.  As a noun, ache meant “a continuous, dull pain (as opposed to a sharp, sudden, or episodic pain) while the verb was used to mean (1) to have or suffer a continuous, dull pain, (2) to feel great sympathy or pity and (3) to yearn or long for someone or something.  Pyscheache is a noun

Psychache is a theoretical construct used by clinical suicidologists and differs from psychomachia (conflict of the soul).  Psychomachia was from the Late Latin psӯchomachia, the title of a poem of a thousand-odd lines (circa 400) by Roman Christian poet Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens; 348-circa 412), the construct being the Ancient Greek Greek psukhē (spirit) + makhē (battle).  The fifth century poem Psychomachia (translated usually as “Battle of Spirits” or “Soul War”) explored a theme familiar in Christianity: the eternal battle between virtue & vice (onto which can be mapped “right & wrong”, “good & evil” etc) and culminated in the forces of Christendom vanquishing pagan idolatry to the cheers of a thousand Christian martyrs.  An elegant telling of an allegory familiar in early Christian literature and art, Prudentius made clear the battle was one which happened in the soul of all people and thus one which all needed to wage, the outcome determined by whether the good or evil in them proved stronger.  The poem’s characters include Faith, Hope, Industry, Sobriety, Chastity, Humility & Patience among the good and Pride, Wrath, Paganism, Avarice, Discord, Lust & Indulgence in the ranks of the evil but scholars of literature caution that although the personifications all are women, in Latin, words for abstract concepts use the feminine grammatical gender and there’s nothing to suggest the poet intended us to read this as a tale of bolshie women slugging it out.  Of interest too is the appearance of the number seven, so familiar in the literature and art of Antiquity and the Medieval period as well as the Biblical texts but although Prudentius has seven virtues defeat seven vices, the characters don’t exactly align with either the canonical seven deadly sins, nor the three theological and four cardinal virtues.  In modern use, the linguistic similarity between psychache and psychomachia has made the latter attractive to those seduced by the (not always Germanic) tradition of the “romance of suicide”.

A pioneer in the field of suicidology, Dr Shneidman’s publication record was indicative of his specialization.

Dr Edwin Shneidman (1918-2009) was a clinical psychologist who practiced as a thanatologist (a practitioner in the field of thanatology (the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families); the construct of thanatology being thanato- (from the Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos) (death)) +‎ -logy.  The suffix -ology was formed from -o- (as an interconsonantal vowel) +‎ -logy.  The origin in English of the -logy suffix lies with loanwords from the Ancient Greek, usually via Latin and French, where the suffix (-λογία) is an integral part of the word loaned (eg astrology from astrologia) since the sixteenth century.  French picked up -logie from the Latin -logia, from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logía).  Within Greek, the suffix is an -ία (-ía) abstract from λόγος (lógos) (account, explanation, narrative), and that a verbal noun from λέγω (légō) (I say, speak, converse, tell a story).  In English the suffix became extraordinarily productive, used notably to form names of sciences or disciplines of study, analogous to the names traditionally borrowed from the Latin (eg astrology from astrologia; geology from geologia) and by the late eighteenth century, the practice (despite the disapproval of the pedants) extended to terms with no connection to Greek or Latin such as those building on French or German bases (eg insectology (1766) after the French insectologie; terminology (1801) after the German Terminologie).  Within a few decades of the intrusion of modern languages, combinations emerged using English terms (eg undergroundology (1820); hatology (1837)).  In this evolution, the development may be though similar to the latter-day proliferation of “-isms” (fascism; feminism et al).

Death and the College Student: A Collection of Brief Essays on Death and Suicide by Harvard Youth (1973) by Dr Edwin Shneidman.  Dr Shneidman wrote many papers about the prevalence of suicide among college-age males, a cross-cultural phenomenon.

Dr Shneidman was one of the seminal figures in the discipline of suicidology, in 1968 founding the AAS (American Association of Suicidology) and the principal US journal for suicide studies: Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior.  The abbreviation AAS is in this context used mostly within the discipline because (1) it is a specialized field and (2) there are literally dozens of uses of “AAS”.  In Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior (1993) he defined psychache as “intense psychological pain—encompassing hurt, anguish, and mental torment”, identifying it as the primary motivation behind suicide, his theory being that when psychological pain becomes unbearable, individuals may perceive suicide as their only escape from torment.

Although since Suicide as Psychache: A Clinical Approach to Self-Destructive Behavior appeared in 1993 there have been four editions of American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), “psychache” has never appeared in the DSM.  That may seem an anomaly given much in the DSM revolves around psychological disturbances but the reason is technical.  What the DSM does is list and codify diagnosable mental disorders (depression, schizophrenia. bipolar disorder et al), classifying symptoms and behaviors into standardized categories for diagnosis and treatment planning.  By contrast, psychache is not a clinical diagnosis; it is a theoretical construct in suicidology which is used to explain the subjective experience of psychological pain that can lead to patients taking their own lives.  It thus describes an emotional state rather than a psychiatric disorder.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December, 2011.

Despite that, mental health clinicians do actively use the principles of psychache, notably in suicide risk assessment and prevention and models have been developed including a number of “psychache scales”, self-reporting tools used to generate a metric measuring the intensity of psychological pain (categorized with headings such as shame, guilt, despair et al).  The approaches do in detail differ but most follow Dr Shneidman’s terminology in that the critical threshold is the point at which the patient’s pain becomes unbearable or inescapable and the objective is either to increase tolerance for distress or reframe troublesome thoughts.  Ultimately, the purpose of tools is to improve suicide risk assessments and reduce suicide rates.

DSM-5 (2013).

Interestingly, Suicidal Behavior Disorder (SBD) was introduced in Section III of the DSM-5 (2013) under “Conditions for Further Study”.  Then, SBD chiefly was characterized by a self-initiated sequence of behaviors believed at the time of initiation to cause one’s own death and occurring in the last 24 months.  That of course sounds exact but the diagnostic criteria in the DSM are written like that and the purpose of inclusion in the fifth edition was to create a framework so systematically, empirical studies related to SBD could be reviewed so primary research themes and promising directions for future research could be identified.  Duly, over the following decade that framework was explored but the conclusion was reached there seemed to be little utility in the clinical utility of SBD as a device for predicting future suicide and that more research was needed to understand measurement of the diagnosis and its distinctiveness from related disorders and other self-harming behaviors.  The phase “more research is required” must be one of the most frequently heard among researchers.

In the usually manner in which the APA allowed the DSM to evolve, what the DSM-5s tentative inclusion of SBD did was attempt to capture suicidality as a diagnosis rather than a clinical feature requiring attention.  SBD was characterized by a suicide attempt within the last 24 months (Criterion A) and that was defined as “a self-initiated sequence of behaviors by an individual who, at the time of initiation, expected that the set of actions would lead to his or her own death”.  That sounds uncontroversial but what was significant was the act could meet the criteria for non-suicidal self-injury (ie self-injury with the intention to relieve negative feelings or cognitive state in order to achieve a positive mood state (Criterion B) and cannot be applied to suicidal ideation or preparatory acts (Criterion C).  Were the attempt to have occurred during a state of delirium or confusion or solely for political or religious objectives, then SBD is ruled out (Criteria D & E).  SBD (current) is given when the suicide attempt occurred within the last 12 months, and SBD (in early remission), when it has been 12-24 months since the last attempt.  It must be remembered that while a patient’s behavior(s) may overlap across a number of the DSM’s diagnosises, the AMA’s committees have, for didactic purposes, always preferred to “silo” the categories.

DSM-5-TR (2022).

When in 2022 the “text revision” of the DSM-5 (DSM-5-TR) was released, SBD was removed as a condition for further study in Section III and moved to “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention” in Section II. The conditions listed in this section are intended to draw to attention of clinicians to the presence and breadth of additional issues routinely encountered in clinical practice and provide a procedure for their systematic documentation.  According to the APA’s editorial committee, the rationale for the exclusion of SBD from the DSM-5-TR was based on concerns the proposed disorder did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder but instead constituted a behavior with diverse causes and while that distinction may escape most of us, within the internal logic of the history of the DSM, that’s wholly consistent.  At this time, despite many lobbying for the adoption of a diagnostic entity for suicidal behavior, the APA’s committees seem still more inclined to conceptualize suicidality as a symptom rather than a disorder and despite discussion in the field of suicidology about whether suicide and related concepts like psychache should be treated as stand-alone mental health issues, that’s a leap which will have to wait, at least until a DSM-6 is published.

How to and how not to: Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) by Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek naar Zorgvuldige Zelfdoding (The Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide) (left) and How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Clancy Martin (right).

Informatie over Zorgvuldige Levensbeëindiging (Information about the Careful Ending of Life, 2008) was published by a group of Dutch physicians & and researchers; it contained detailed advice on methods of suicide available to the general public, the Foundation for Scientific Research into Careful Suicide arging “a requirement exists within society for responsible information about an independent and dignified ending of life.”  It could be ordered only from the foundation’s website and had the advantage that whatever might be one’s opinion on the matter, it was at least written by physicians and scientists and thus more reliable than some of the “suicide guides” which are sometimes found on-line.  At the time research by the foundation had found that despite legislation in the Netherlands which permit doctors (acting within specific legal limits) to assist patient commit suicide, there were apparently several thousand cases each year of what it termed “autoeuthanasia” in which no medical staff directly were involved.  Most of these cases involved elderly or chronically ill patients who refused food and fluids and it was estimated these deaths happened at about twice the rate of those carried out under the euthanasia laws.  Since then the Dutch laws have been extended to included those who have no serious physical disease or are suffering great pain; there are people who simply no longer wish to live, something like the tragic figure in Blue Öyster Cult’s (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1976) © Donald Roeser (b 1947):

Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid

There is a diverse literature on various aspects of suicide (tips and techniques, theological & philosophical interpretations, cross-cultural attitudes, history of its treatment in church & secular law etc) and some are quite personal, written variously by those who later would kill themselves or those who contemplated or attempted to take their own lives.  In How Not to Kill Yourself: A Phenomenology of Suicide (2023) by Canadian philosopher Clancy Martin (b 1967), it was revealed the most recent of his ten suicide attempts was “…in his basement with a dog leash, the consequences of which he concealed from his wife, family, co-workers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck and series of vague explanations.”

BKA (the Bundeskriminalamt, the Federal Criminal Police Office of the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany (the old West Germany)) mug shots of the Red Army Faction's Ulrike Meinhof (left) and Gudrun Ensslin (right).

The song (Don't Fear) The Reaper also made mention of William Shakespeare's (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) and in taking her own life (using her dead lover’s dagger) because she doesn’t want to go on living without him, Juliette joined the pantheon of figures who have made the tragedy of suicide seem, to some, romantic.  Politically too, suicide can grant the sort of status dying of old age doesn’t confer, the deaths of left-wing terrorists Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) of the West German Red Army Faction (the RAF and better known as the “Baader-Meinhof gang”) both recorded as “suicide in custody” although the circumstances were murky.  In an indication of the way moral relativities aligned during the high Cold War, the French intellectuals Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) compared their deaths to the worst crimes of the Nazis but sympathy for violence committed for an “approved” cause was not the exclusive preserve of the left.  In July, 1964, in his speech accepting the Republican nomination for that year’s US presidential election, proto-MAGA Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) concluded by saying: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!  And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”  The audience response to that was rapturous although a few months later the country mostly didn’t share the enthusiasm, Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; US president 1963-1969) winning the presidency in one of the greatest landslides in US electoral history.  Given the choice between crooked old Lyndon and crazy old Barry, Americans preferred the crook.

Nor was it just politicians and intellectuals who could resist the appeal of politics being taken to its logical “other means” conclusion, the Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) during the last years of the Cold War writing First We Take Manhattan (1986), the lyrics of which were open to interpretation but clarified in 1988 by the author who explained: “I think it means exactly what it says.  It is a terrorist song.  I think it's a response to terrorism.  There's something about terrorism that I've always admired.  The fact that there are no alibis or no compromises.  That position is always very attractive.”   Even in 1988 it was a controversial comment because by then not many outside of undergraduate anarchist societies were still romanticizing terrorists but in fairness to the singer the coda isn’t as often published: “I don't like it when it's manifested on the physical plane – I don't really enjoy the terrorist activities – but Psychic Terrorism.”

First We Take Manhattan (1986) by Leonard Cohen

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom

For tryin' to change the system from within

I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens

I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

 

Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win

You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I don't like your fashion business, mister

And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin

I don't like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin

 

I'd really like to live beside you, baby

I love your body and your spirit and your clothes

But you see that line there moving through the station?

I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those

First We Take Manhattan performed by Jennifer Warnes (b 1947), from the Album Famous Blue Raincoat (1986). 

Whatever they achieved in life, it was their suicides which lent a lingering allure to German-American ecofeminist activist Petra Kelly (1947–1992) & the doomed poet American poet Sylvia Path (1932-1963) and the lure goes back for millennia, the Roman Poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) in his Metamorphoses telling an ancient Babylonian tale in which Pyramus, in dark despair, killed herself after finding her young love lifeless.  Over the centuries it’s been a recurrent trope but the most novel take was the symbolic, mystical death in Richard Wagner's (1813–1883) Tristan und Isolde (1865).  Mortally wounded in a duel before the final act, Tristan longs to see Isolde one last time but just as she arrives at his side, he dies in her arms.  Overwhelmed by love and grief, Isolde sings the famous Liebestod (Love-Death) and dies, the transcendent aria interpreted as the swansong which carries her to join Tristan in mystical union in the afterlife.  This, lawyers would call a “constructive suicide”.

Austrian soprano Helga Dernesch (b 1939) in 1972 performing the Liebestod aria from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989).

While she didn’t possess the sheer power of the greatest of the Scandinavian sopranos who in the mid-twentieth century defined the role, Dernesch brought passion and intensity to her roles and while, on that night in 1972, the lushness of what Karajan summoned from the strings was perhaps a little much, her Liebestod was spine-tingling and by then, Karajan had been forgiven for everything.  Intriguingly, although Tristan und Isolde is regarded as one of the great monuments to love, in 1854 Wagner had written to the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886) telling him:

“As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall be thoroughly satiated.  I have in my head ‘Tristan and Isolde’, the simplest but most full-blooded musical concepion; with the ‘black flag’ which floats at the end of it I shall cover myself to die.”

It’s not known whether Listz reflected on this apparent compositional self-medication for psychache after in 1870 learning from his morning newspaper his daughter Cosima (1837-1930) was to be married to Wagner (then 24 years her senior) but because she’d been for some seven years conducting an adulterous affair with the German the news may not have been unexpected.  He was aware Cosmia’s daughter (Isolde Beidler (1865–1919)) had been fathered not by her then husband (the German conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–1894)) but by Wagner and her second marriage proved happier than the first so there was that.

Volkssturm

Volkssturm (pronounced folks-stuhm)

1944: A German compound, the construct being Volk +‎ -s- +‎ Sturm (a civilian militia (literally “people's storm”) formed during the last days of the Third Reich.  Volkssturm is a proper noun.

One member of the Volkssturm was the philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), noted for his seminal work in phenomenology & existentialism, a flirtation with the Nazis which he spent the rest of his life rationalizing and an affair with the Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt (1906–1975).  He was drafted into the Volkssturm in 1944 and apparently dug anti-tank ditches.  Although some sources claim a youthful Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger, b 1927; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus since) was a member of the Volkssturm, he was actually drafted as a Flakhelfer (an auxiliary attached to an anti-aircraft (flak) unit).  According to the Pope Emeritus, he was never part of shooting at anything.

Volk was from the Middle High German volc, from the Old High German folc, from the Proto-West Germanic folk, from the Proto-Germanic fulką.  It was cognate with the Dutch volk, the English folk, the Swedish folk, the Norwegian Bokmål folk, the Norwegian Bokmål folk, the Icelandic fólk and the Danish folk.  Volk is famously associated with its best understood meaning (people of a certain race united by culture, history, descent & language) with the phrase used by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; German head of government 1933-1945 and head of state 1934-1945) to describe the “Führer state”: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer! (One People, One Realm, One Leader!).  Whatever the inconsistencies in the reality of the Nazi state, the phrase is an accurate description of the Nazi vision of how the German nation should be understood.  Historically, Volk was also used in the sense of (1) “the common people, the lower classes, the working classes” (now largely archaic), (2) “a large gathering of people (a crowd) in any context” & (3) in zoology (especially entomology) to refer to a herd, covey, swarm, colony etc”.

Sturm was from the Middle High German and Old High German sturm (storm), the retention of the u vowel being irregular; it was lowered to o because of a mutation in all other West Germanic languages (and the Old Norse), despite German being the one Germanic language where a-mutation most consistently occurred, especially of u to o.  A Sturm was a “strong, blustery wind; gust; gale; squall; a storm or tempest” and in Prussia the imagery appealed to the military which applied it to mean a sudden, rushed attack and in the Imperial Army created relatively small units called Sturmtruppen (storm troopers).  As a technique, the precise infiltration tactics of the Sturmtruppen weren’t a German invention and had probably been part of organized military operations as long as warfare has been practiced but the development of rapid-fire weapons had limited the effectiveness of the use of massed formations and during the nineteenth century, the concept of the surgical strike became popular and nowhere was it more fully developed than in the Prussian army manual.  The best known example of the used of the word in this context was the notorious Sturmabteilung (the SA, literally "Storm Detachment"), the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party which was a vital component of the structure until power was gained in 1933, after which, having outlived its usefulness to the point where (a as formation with a membership of millions many discontented with the results of the party had offered them once in power) the Nazi hierarchy (and the army) came to regard them as a (at least potential) threat and a bloody purge (Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives), also called Unternehmen Kolbri (Operation Hummingbird)) was executed.

Austrian Sturm.

In Austrian viniculture, Sturm is a beverage made from white or red grapes that has begun to ferment but that has not yet turned into wine.  It’s not obviously appealing to look at and is most popular between late September & early October, served usually poured in a pint glass or large tumbler and resembles a hazy, unfiltered beer.  Sturm is unusual in that it’s a partially completed product, being still fermenting and that said to be a large part of the appeal and there’s much variation, some made with red grapes (though most are from white) and they tend from the sweet to the very sweet, all sharing a fresh, juicy, slightly fizzy quality.  Definitely not produced for cork dorks, Sturm is meant to be guzzled.  As a point of note for English speakers, when the word Sturm is used in the original (meteorological) context, the word has no association with rainfall; a Sturm may be accompanied by rain but it refers only to strong winds.

Lindsay Lohan at the Weisses Fest (White Festival), Linz, Austria, July 2014.

The Volkssturm was a civilian militia created by the Nazi Party after Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) was appointed Reichsbevollmächtigter für den totalen Kriegseinsatz (Reich Plenipotentiary for the Total War Effort) in the wake of the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944.  The attempt clearly focused the Führer’s mind on the dire situation confronting Germany or, as Goebbels noted in his diary: “It takes a bomb under his ass to make Hitler see sense”.  By then however it was already too late.  Had the Germany economy been moved to a total war footing during 1941 it might have altered the course (though probably not the outcome) of the war but, paradoxically, the authoritarian Nazi state lacked the structure to impose the controls the democracies were able quickly to implement early in the conflict.

Hitler Youth members with Panzerfausts.

Germany’s military was by 1944 in retreat on three fronts (the position worse still considering the loss of superiority in the air and the state of the war at sea) and armament production, although it would peak that year, was not sufficient even to cover losses.  The same was true of the manpower required to replace battlefield causalities and for this reason, the decision was taken to created the Volkssturm by conscripting males aged between 16-60 who had not yet been absorbed by the military unit.  Initially, the Volkssturm members continued in their usual occupations, drilling in the evenings or on (their now rare) days off or constructing obstacles such as tank ditches or barricades.  Poorly equipped and lacking adequate weapons or even uniforms, the Volkssturm, when finally committed in combat in the battle for Berlin in 1945 were militarily ineffective (their greatest successes coming in the number of Soviet tanks destroyed with the remarkably effective Panzerfaust (tank fist) although with these bazooka-like devices the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) formations proved even more effective) and suffered a high rate of causalities, just as predicted by the Army commanders which opposed their deployment, correctly fearing they would only obstruct movement. 

Volkssturm members with Panzerfausts. 

The Volkssturm truly was scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel but, in terms of the only strategic option left open to the regime, by 1945 it did make sense in that its deployment might delay the advance of the allied armies and it was Hitler’s last hope that that if defeat could be staved off, the differences the Western powers and the Soviet Union might see their alliance sundered, one bizarre thought being that the UK and US might realize their true enemy was the USSR and they might join with Germany in vanquishing the "Bolshevik menace".  The Führerbunker must have been a strange place to be in the last days although few actually shared Hitler’s more outlandish hopes and it’s not clear exactly when Hitler too finally realized his luck had run out but almost to the end, however many of the Volkssturm could be cajoled or threatened to assemble, were sent into battle.  As well as the support of Goebbels, the platoons of the old and sick were championed by Martin Bormann (1900–1945; leading Nazi functionary and ultimately Secretary to the Führer 1943-1945), one of the breed of blood-thirsty non-combatants which right-wing politics to this day seems to attract.  Hitler would well have understood service in the Volkssturm was a death sentence for those not able to sneak away (which many did).  In 1937 in an address to the Kreisleiters (district leaders) in Vogelsang Castle, he described such civilian militias as a “totally worthless crowd” because “drumming up enthusiasm” could never produce soldiers.  Mr Putin may be reaching the same conclusion.

While videos and photographs circulating on the internet suggest the Russian military machine is not now what it once was (and by most until a few months ago presumed still to be), the Kremlin’s problem is not the dire shortage of men available for military mobilization but their collective unwillingness to join the battle.  It’s unlikely the photographs in circulation showing some rather grey and elderly recruits are representative of the mobilization; like every military, the Russian databases will have a few incorrect records but all the indications are that there are shortfalls in the equipment able to be supplied to the troops thus far available for immediate deployment, let alone those undergoing training.  Certainly, the Kremlin’s claim (apparently verified as official) that the September 2022 mobilization would yield some 300,000 troops (there was no comment on how many would be combat-ready) or about 15 divisions (in historic terms) seems unlikely to be realized.  Even had the numbers become available, the course of the special military action (war) thus far suggests even the available Russian forces so reinforced would not been sufficient to conquer, let alone occupy Ukraine but expectations may have been lowered (adjusted in political-speak) to the point where a serviceable and defensible land-bridge to the Crimea would suffice for victory to be declared.  However, that would likely merely re-define rather than resolve the Kremlin’s problems.  It appears too that the Kremlin’s problems pre-date the special military action (war), the aim in autumn of 2021 to recruit 100,000 volunteers to the Russian Combat Army Reserve falling well short, as did subsequent attempts, the most recent initiated in June 2022.  The compulsory mobilization is a tacit admission the formation of “volunteer battalions” has not been successful.  Still, it’s unlikely the Kremlin will resort to creating its own Volkssturm to try to plug the gaps.

Practical advice to newly mobilized Russian troops.