Neurasthenia
| Neurasthenia | |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | |
| Treatment | Electrotherapy, rest[5] |
Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον neuron "nerve" and ἀσθενής asthenés "weak") is a term that was first used as early as 1829
As a
Neurasthenia was a diagnosis in the World Health Organization's ICD-10, but deprecated, and thus no more diagnosable, in ICD-11.[2][8] It also is no longer included as a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.[9] The condition is, however, described in the Chinese Society of Psychiatry's Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders.
Americans were said to be particularly prone to neurasthenia, which resulted in the nickname "Americanitis"[10] (popularized by William James[11]). Another (albeit rarely used) term for neurasthenia is nervosism.[12]
Symptoms
The condition was explained as being a result of exhaustion of the central nervous system's energy reserves, which Beard attributed to modern civilization. Physicians in the Beard school of thought associated neurasthenia with the stresses of urbanization and with stress suffered as a result of the increasingly competitive business environment. Typically, it was associated with upper class people and with professionals working in sedentary occupations, but really can apply to anyone who lives within the monetary system.
In 19th-century Britain and, by extension, across the British Empire, neurasthenia was also used to describe mental exhaustion or fatigue in “brain workers” or in the context of “overstudy”.[15] This use was often synonymous with the term “brain fag”.[15]
Diagnosis
From 1869, neurasthenia became a "popular" diagnosis, expanding to include such symptoms as
Treatment
Beard, with his partner A.D. Rockwell, advocated first electrotherapy and then increasingly experimental treatments for people with neurasthenia, a position that was controversial. An 1868 review posited that Beard's and Rockwell's knowledge of the scientific method was suspect and did not believe their claims to be warranted.
William James was diagnosed with neurasthenia, which he nicknamed "Americanitis", and was quoted as saying, "I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide."[17]
In 1895, Sigmund Freud reviewed electrotherapy and declared it a "pretense treatment". He emphasized the example of Elizabeth von R's note that "the stronger these were the more they seemed to push her own pains into the background."[14]
Nevertheless, neurasthenia was a common diagnosis during World War I for "shell shock",[18] but its use declined a decade later.[citation needed] Soldiers who deserted their post could be executed even if they had a medical excuse, but officers who had neurasthenia were not executed.[19]
Modern diagnosis
This diagnosis remained popular well into the 20th century, eventually coming to be seen as a mental and behavioural rather than physical condition. Neurasthenia had largely been abandoned as a medical diagnosis by the 21st century, and is deprecated in the ICD-11 classification system of the World Health Organization.[20][2][21]
The earlier
One modern theory of neurasthenia is that it was actually dysautonomia, an "imbalance" of the autonomic nervous system.[24][failed verification]
In Asia
The medical term neurasthenia is translated as Chinese shenjing shuairuo (
Despite being removed from the American Psychiatric Association's DSM in 1980, neurasthenia is listed in an appendix as the culture-bound syndrome shenjing shuairuo as well as appearing in the ICD-10. The condition is thought to persist in Asia as a culturally acceptable diagnosis that avoids the social stigma of a diagnosis of mental disorder.
In Japan, shinkei-suijaku is treated with Morita therapy involving mandatory rest and isolation, followed by progressively more difficult work, and a resumption of a previous social role. The diagnosis is sometimes used to disguise serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and mood disorders.[27][28]
In
See also
- Burnout syndrome
- Chronic fatigue syndrome(ME/CFS)
- Combat stress reaction
- Newyorkitis (satirical)
- Placebo effect
- Psychogenic disease
References
- ^ .
- ^ ISSN 2666-7703.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-85575-167-5.
- ^ a b WHO. "ICD-10 Version:2019". Retrieved November 26, 2022.
- ^ PMID 11731361.
- ^ Good, John Mason (1829). The study of medicine. New York: Harper and Brothers. pp. (ed. 3) IV. 370.
- .
- ^ World Health Organization. "ICD-11 for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics". Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ISBN 978-0-89042-656-2.
- ^ Marcus, G (1998-01-26). "One Step Back; Where Are the Elixirs of Yesteryear When We Hurt?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
- ^ Daugherty, Greg (25 March 2015). "The Brief History of "Americanitis"". Smithsonian. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
- ^ "Nervosism - Biology-Online Dictionary - Biology-Online Dictionary". www.biology-online.org. December 2020.
- ^ "Says Venus de Milo was not a Flapper; Osteopath Says She Was Neurasthenic, as Her Stomach Was Not in Proper Place" (PDF). The New York Times. April 29, 1922. Retrieved August 5, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-93677-4.
- ^ PMID 32589474.
- PMID 17495507.
- ISBN 978-0-393-03939-9.
- ISBN 978-0-387-87887-4.
- ^ "World War One executions", History Learning Site. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
- PMID 10583715.
- ^ World Health Organization. "ICD-11". Retrieved 2023-04-24.
- ^ WHO (2007). "Chapter V Mental and behavioural disorders (F00-F99)". Retrieved 2009-10-09.
- ^ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Office of the Center Director, Data Policy and Standards (March 2001). "A Summary of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Its Classification in the International Classification of Diseases" (PDF). Centers for disease Control. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 11, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
- About.com. Retrieved 11 September 2008.
- ^ a b c Jenni Murray, Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World by Barbara Ehrenreich. Jenni Murray salutes a long-overdue demolition of the suggestion that positive thinking is the answer to all our problems. The Observer, 10 January 2010 at guardian.co.uk.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-8749-9.
New Thought had won its great practical victory. It had healed a disease—the disease of Calvinism, or, as James put it, the "morbidness" associated with "the old hell-fire theology."
- ^ PMID 12208833.
- S2CID 28936419.
- ^ Kleinman, Arthur (1986), Social Origins of Distress and Disease: Depression, Neurasthenia, and Pain in Modern China, Yale University Press, p. 115.
Further reading
- Brown, EM (1980). "An American Treatment for the 'American Nervousness'". American Association of the History of Medicine. Archived from the original on 2008-09-07. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
- Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marijke (2001). Cultures of Neurasthenia: From Beard to the First World War (Clio Medica 63) (Clio Medica). Rodopi Bv Editions. ISBN 978-90-420-0931-8.
- Gosling, F. G. Before Freud: Neurasthenia and the American Medical Community, 1870-1910. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
- Weir Mitchell, S (1884). Fat and Blood: an essay on the treatment of certain types of Neurasthenia and hysteria. Philadelphia: J. D. Lippincott & Co. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
- Farmer A, Jones I, Hillier J, Llewelyn M, Borysiewicz L, Smith A (October 1995). "Neuraesthenia revisited: ICD-10 and DSM-III-R psychiatric syndromes in chronic fatigue patients and comparison subjects". Br J Psychiatry. 167 (4): 503–6. S2CID 45684552.
- Schuster, David G. Neurasthenic Nation: America's Search for Health, Comfort, and Happiness, 1869-1920. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011.
- Lutz, Tom. American Nervousness, 1903. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
- The book The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg.