Arthur Guirdham
Arthur Guirdham | |
---|---|
Born | Workington, Cumberland, England, United Kingdom |
Occupation | Psychiatrist, writer |
Nationality | British |
Period | 20th century |
Genre | Parapsychology |
Subject | Cathars, reincarnation |
Arthur Guirdham (1905–1992) was an English physician, psychiatrist, novelist, and writer on the Cathar sect, alternative medicine, ESP and reincarnation.
Biography
He was born in
After writing a couple of wartime thrillers he became increasingly interested in
Novelist and occult writer Colin Wilson was a friend of Guirdham and stayed at his house on a number of occasions. He wrote approvingly of Guirdham's reincarnation claims.[4] Wilson interviewed Guirdham for his book Strange Powers (1973).[5]
Reception
Guirdham's unorthodox ideas about psychosomatic medicine were criticized by the medical community.[6] Professor D. V. Hubble in the British Medical Journal noted that:
"Dr. Guirdham takes the Freudian theories of repression and the unconscious and extends them to the conclusion that the three types of disease-neurosis, functional (autonomic) disorders, and organic stress diseases-result from a repression of emotion into three strata, differing in depth, of the unconscious mind. The theory appears to be supported by little enough evidence; indeed, throughout the book the factual basis for Dr. Guirdham's theories is not considerable."[7]
Brian Inglis who was supportive of some of Guirdham's ideas wrote that a negative aspect of his writing was that he tended "to make sweeping assertions unsupported by evidence".[8]
Psychologist Robert A. Baker listed Guirdham and Carl Wickland as early psychiatrists who preferred to "ignore the science and embrace the supernatural".[9]
Historical researcher Ian Wilson has criticized the reincarnation claims of Guirdham noting "serious errors and inconsistencies" in his book The Cathars and Reincarnation. Wilson wrote that "Guirdham's claims lacking any means of independent verification, must be regarded as unacceptable."[10]
Publications
- Disease and the Social System (1942)
- The Lights Were Going Out (1944)
- These Paid (1946)
- I-A Stranger (1949)
- A Theory of Disease (1957)
- Christ and Freud: A Study of Religious Experience and Observance (1959)
- Man: Divine or Social (1960)
- The Nature of Healing (1964)
- The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970)
- The Gibbet and the Cross (1970)
- Obsession: Psychic Forces and Evil in the Causation of Disease (1972)
- A Foot in Both World's: A Doctor's Autobiography of Psychic Experience (1973)
- We Are One Another (1974)
- The Lake and the Castle (1976)
- The Great Heresy: The History and Beliefs of the Cathars (1977)
- The Psyche in Medicine (1978)
- Paradise Found: Reflections on Psychic Survival (1980)
- The Island (1980)
- The Psychic Dimensions of Mental Health (1982)
See also
- Reincarnation research
Notes
- ^ In A foot in both World's, in conversation with a woman born in Penrith, in Cumberland, Guirdham states that he did not go there and spent most of his time between the (west) coast and Loweswater.[1]
References
- ISBN 978-0-85978-002-5.
- ISBN 978-0-85978-002-5.
- ^ Lloyd G. Stephenson, ed. (July 1966). "Brian Inglis, A History of Medicine, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965.xv, 196 pp., illus. 16s". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. Archived from the original on 29 October 2014.
- ISBN 978-1840672831
- ISBN 978-0399173080
- ^ Anonymous. (1942). Review: The Psychosomatic Conception of Disease: Disease and the Social System by Arthur Guirdham. The British Medical Journal 1 (4240): 467.
- ^ Hubble, D. V. (1958). Review: Obsessional Nordic Man: A Theory of Disease by Arthur Guirdham. The British Medical Journal 1 (5086): 1526.
- ^ Inglis, Brian. (1958). Body and Soul: A Theory of Disease by Arthur Guirdham. Encounter. pp. 84-85
- ISBN 978-1-57392-094-0
- ISBN 0-575-02968-4