Psychopathia Sexualis

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Sigusch, V (2004), "Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902. In memory of the 100th anniversary of his death", Der Nervenarzt (published January 2004), vol.75, no.1, pp.92–6, doi: 10.1007/s00115-003-1512-7, PMID 14722666, S2CID 22595330 A wide array of actors has attempted to get at just what human sexuality is, how it comes to be, and how it might be altered, if at all. For centuries, religion and its constitutive texts, rules, and prescriptions held the most authority when it came to the “truth” of sexuality. But toward the end of the 19th century, things began to change. First published in 1866, Psychopathia Sexualis ("Psychopathology of Sex") went through a dozen editions and many translations. The book was developed as a forensic reference for doctors and judges, in high academic tone. In the introduction of the book, it was noted that the author had "deliberately chosen a scientific term for the name of the book to discourage lay readers." He also wrote sections of the book in Latin for the same purpose. Despite all these efforts, the book was highly popular with lay readers: it reached twelve editions in his lifetime and was translated into many languages. Many of Krafft-Ebing's manuscript notes are associated with case histories. Others are organised thematically (neurasthenia, hypnosis, electrotherapy etc), or are extracts from works by other specialists. Likewise the correspondence in the collection often relates to particular recorded cases, but there are separate groups of letters to and from family, friends, colleagues, publishers and university officials: these include some 43 letters by Krafft-Ebing to his grandfather, Anton Mittermaier, a lawyer, 1864-66, and photocopies of letters to his parents written from Italy, 1869-70. There is also a file of letters from members of the German Imperial family. Though Krafft-Ebing took sexual deviance quite seriously — for instance, he strongly disagreed with the German Kingdoms’ 1871 resolution to criminalize homosexuality and favored therapy instead — his work had the effect of equating deviance with pathology, and as something that must be “cured” should the homosexuality-afflicted subject be made whole again.

Krafft-Ebing spent thirteen years in the Styrian capital. He was aware that separating psychiatry from neurology would be incompatible with fruitful effectiveness in both fields, and following constant efforts in this direction, his professorship was expanded to include both psychiatry and neurology. During his work at Feldhof and in the Graz clinic, Krafft-Ebing laid the foundation for his global fame. Within a few years, his name spread across the entire world. Patients came to him from many countries. For the increasing number of patients from wealthy families, he built a state-of-the-art Private clinic in Mariagrün for the time. whether she had a lover. B. Anæsthesia Sexualis (Absence of Sexual Feeling). 1. As a Congenital Anomaly.

Volkmar Sigusch: Geschichte der Sexualwissenschaft. Campus, Frankfurt am Main u. a. 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38575-4, S. 175–193. Papers of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German-born neurologist and clinical psychiatrist, best known as the author of Psychopathia sexualis (1886), the first scientific study of sexual deviation. The papers largely comprise clinical case histories which Krafft-Ebing amassed during his professional career with a view to working on them in retirement. In the event he died very shortly after retiring from practice and resigning his chair of Psychiatry at Vienna.

sexualis, Moll’s book on libido sexualis was organised on the basis of an explanatory framework of sexuality in general, whereby his discussion of perversion served as supportive elucidation. His sexual theory was completed with the publication of Das Sexualleben des Kindes in 1908 [ The Sexual Life of the Krafft-Ebing's principal work is Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie ( Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study), which was first published in 1886 and expanded in subsequent editions. The last edition from the hand of the author (the twelfth) contained a total of 238 case histories of human sexual behaviour. [9] Blumenthal, A.L. 1981. Language and Psychology: Historical Aspects of Psycholinguistics. Krieger Pub Co. ISBN 089874167X Harry Oosterhuis: Stepchildren of nature. Krafft-Ebing, Psychiatry, and the making of sexual Identity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 0-226-63059-5. Krafft-Ebing's conclusions about homosexuality are now largely forgotten, partly because Sigmund Freud's theories were more interesting to physicians (who considered homosexuality to be a psychological problem) and partly because he incurred the enmity of the Austrian Catholic Church when he psychologically associated martyrdom (a desire for sanctity) with hysteria and masochism. [18]

An earlier industrial revolution in the West spelled great gains in technology and the sciences, as well as the faith that people put into scientists’ ability to explain the world in which we found ourselves.