Ôèëîëîãè÷åñêèå
íàóêè
Shalajeva A.V., Rak O.M.
The Chair of Foreign
Languages,Higher
State Educational Establishment of
Ukraine „Bukovinian State Medical University“,
Chernivtsi
(Ukraine)
PRECEDENT NAMES IN THE
PSYCHOLOGICAL TERMS
DESIGNATING SYNDROMS OF MENTAL
DISORDES
The phenomenon
of precedent names is a complex question, and several groups of Russian linguistic scholars present their different viewpoint on this concept.
Precedent name is an individual name,
connected either with widely known text or with a case situation. When
people use a case name in communication the appeal is made to a set of differential signs of this case
name but not to actually denotatum.
Precedent names may be presented by anthroponyms, theonyms and toponyms. Some
linguists give a specific structure of
the precedent name, the core of which is the distinctive feature, and the
periphery is its attribute. Differential
features of the precedent name include the characteristic of the name by its traits or appearance, they may also be defined by the precedent situation. Attributes of a precedent name is something
that is closely linked to the signified
name, but is not major for it. It is possible to distinguish monosemantic precedent names having the one and only interpretation, and
polysemantic ones, which may include several interpretations.
Precedent names in the
medical context are well-known proper names, which are used in the text not so much to designate a particular person,
but as a kind of symbol denoting certain qualities of character that are used
for the formation of the medical terms as syndromes of various mental
disorders.
Especially often an appeal
to the precedent names is made for creating terminological vocabulary in the
field of psychology. Among the main areas which are widely used for creation of
precedent names it is possible to designate the area of art, literature,
history and precedent situations from the people's lives.
The precedent
name in the language of psychology is a proper name associated with the
situation widely known to native speakers and serving as a precedent situation.
In this paper examples of the precedent
situations connected only with real persons will be given. They are few, but
they served as a source of emergence of syndromes, designating various mental
disorders.
In the professional language of
medicine, the term "syndrome" is commonly understood as a set of
symptoms with common pathogenesis. In other words, it is a phenomenon, one of the
characteristics of which prevails over the other features and thus allows to
distinguish an overall picture thereby. The syndrome is the main reason.
As a rule, the disease gets its name in
honour of the scientists or practical doctors, who were the first to describe
it. The disease can also be called in honour of the people who were
affected by this or that illness for the first time. The most known such syndrome in a specialized medical terminology,
is Van Gogh syndrome – a condition when a person experiences
overwhelming and persistent desire to make his own amputation of disturbing him
organ, or with perseverance insists on a prompt surgical intervention.
Vincent Van Gogh , a well-known Dutch and French post-impressionist
painter of late 19th century was famous not only for his art but
also for the self-mutilation of his ear. He had cut (according to one version)
the lower half of his left ear or the whole ear (according to another version).
This incident has given rise to the so called Van Gogh syndrome which has now
become a catchall term for self-injury, most often in relation to amputation of
an extremity, but sometimes it may be an eye, tongue, ear or genital self-mutilations.
Deliberate self-injury is the intentional injuring of body tissue without
suicidal purpose. It is considered that
self-mutilation is one of the rare but a serious complication of Schizophrenia
and other mental disorders. Nobody knows the real reason of such action of Van
Gogh in May 1888. According to historical facts, Van Gogh's mother's sister
suffered from epilepsy, and brothers and sisters of the artist suffered from
psychopathology, from mental retardation to schizophrenia. It proves that genetic
factors fundamentally influence the development of mental disorders and
syndromes. It is known that Van Gogh
suffered from manic depressive psychosis and temporal lobe epilepsy, the prolonged use of absinthe caused his
epileptic attacks. Treatment of this disease with digitalis made him see his
pictures and objects in yellow though some researchers connect this fact with
Thujone, the toxin in absinthe. There are some who believe he suffered from lead poisoning because he used lead
based paints. One of the symptoms of lead poisoning is swelling of the retinas
which can cause one to see light in circles like halos around objects. This can
be seen in some Van Gogh’s paintings. But the most likely reason could be a
painful inner ear disorder. It is
supposed that Van Gogh had Meniere's syndrome, a disorder caused by excess
fluid and pressure in the inner ear. The diagnosis of Meniere's syndrome was
based on the artist's descriptions of his pain that was intolerable and caused
him to cut off his ear and eventually to kill himself. The use of alcohol and
drugs contributed to the problem and affected the level of his self-control and
aggravated psychic disorder. Today there are a lot of people with the syndrome
of Van Gogh prone to amputation of different body parts.
The
other precedent name is connected with the French author Henri-Marie Beyle
(1783–1842) known by his penname
“Stendhal” who wrote novels and books
describing sights. When Stendhal visited
Florence’s Santa Croce Cathedral and first witnessed Giotto's famous ceiling
frescoes he experienced an unusual feeling and described it in his book “Naples
and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio” . He was the first who described
it in detail. This condition is characterized by rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even
hallucinations. Specialists in psychology defined this state as a psychosomatic
disorder, which appears when an individual is exposed to an experience of great
personal significance, particularly viewing art. There have been hundreds of cases of people
experiencing similar effects. The syndrome was described in 1979 by Italian
psychiatrist Graziella Magerini, who investigated more than 100 similar cases among tourists in
Florence and gave the description
of her observations in the book “Graziella
Magherini: La Sindrome di Stendhal”. Stendhal syndrome is dangerous both for the person
and for the people around. Doctors are concerned that it may have serious
consequences for the patient, who has to undergo a long course of
antidepressants. For the people around this symptom (its alternative name is “Florence
Syndrome”) is dangerous because people in a burst of feelings try to destroy
the works of art.
The precedent name of Diogenes is
associated with the name of an ancient
Greek philosopher, who lived in a large barrel and gave rise to the emergence
of the term “Diogenes syndrome”, which is considered a disorder, characterized
by extreme disregard of common rules of life among people and by self-isolation
from society.
The term
“Diogenes syndrome” may be referred to the type of polysemantic precedent names
because it is interpreted quite differently by psychologists and psychiatrists.
Some of the scientists in medicine treat it as
senile dementia syndrome,
others connect it with the character from Gogol's novel “Dead
Souls” and call it “Plyushkin's Syndrome” or senile squalor syndrome, still
others characterize this condition
as self-neglect.
In any case, as it was defined by Clark
et al. in 1966 and is commonly accepted nowadays, it’s a condition characterized
by extreme apathy, social withdrawal, hoarding and the absence of any shame. Such
people elect to live a squalid life just simply they have chosen this way of
life. But saying they choose this might not be really correct. They have a
disease and find it impossible to live a normal life.
Curiously,
the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes most likely did not suffer from
the disorder named after him. Diogenes adhered to the strategy of
extreme minimalism and, according to legend, he lived in a barrel, but remained
at the same time socially active, had a sharp mind and was not engaged in the
accumulation of property.
Therefore, maybe it is correct to agree with Marcos M. and Cybulska E. who
state “this eponym is considered to be a misnomer”.
Adele syndrome got its name because of a
real story that happened to the daughter of Victor Hugo, Adele. This is a consuming
obsession for love and romance, hurtful passion without reciprocity. Adele met
an English lieutenant Albert Pinson and immediately decided that he was a man
of her life. Pinson betrayed her feelings regardless of her beauty and her
father’s fame. Adele chased him around the world and finally became completely
insane. François Truffaut made a film in her honour and the syndrome of inconsolable non-reciprocal
love, which is close to insanity, was called by her name .
Genovese Syndrome is also known as
“bystander effect”. The syndrome got its name after the murder of Catherine
Susan Genovese in 1964. The killer stabbed her at least a dozen wounds, but
nobody of the neighbours knew what was taking place. They heard her
screams for help but did not understand the danger of the situation, people
around perceived it as an ordinary quarrel of the young people. Nowadays this
situation is presented as a disturbing sign of mass indifference to the fate of
the others.
Precedent names make up very interesting
group for studying precedent
phenomema. Precedent names described
in this paper are closely connected with
the precedent situations. Though these
precedent names are not listed as common accepted conditions in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, they are well-known to a
wide range of people.
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