Tarantism, dancing mania and demonopathy: the anthro-political aspects of ‘mass psychogenic illness’

Abstract

SynopsisThis study questions the widely held assumption that the phenomenon known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI) existsper sein nature as a psychiatric disorder. Most MPI studies are problematical, being descriptive, retrospective investigations of specific incidents which conform to a set of pre-existing symptom criteria that are used to determine the presence of collective psychosomatic illness. Diagnoses are based upon subjective, ambiguous categories that reflect stereotypes of female normality which assume the presence of a transcultural disease or disorder entity, underemphasizing or ignoring the significance of episodes as culturally conditioned roles of social action. Examples of this bias include the mislabelling of dancing manias, tarantism and demonopathy in Europe since the Middle Ages as culture-specific variants of MPI. While ‘victims’ are typified as mentally disturbed females possessing abnormal personality characteristics who are exhibiting cathartic reactions to stress, it is argued that episodes may involve normal, rational people who possess unfamiliar conduct codes, world-views and political agendas that differ significantly from those of Western-trained investigators who often judge these illness behaviours independent of their local context and meanings.

The physics of collective consciousness

“…Large number of people (tens of thousands of people) were involved in epidemics of psychoses on several occasions and for long times (years) (Farkaslaki, 1939) in the medieval age. Similar occasions took place in the modern era, such as tarantism, demonopathy, dancing mania, mass hysteria (Smelser, 1962), mental epidemics, 'mass psychogenic illnesses' (see the recent review of Bartholomew, 1994). The transference of the anomalous behaviour was described as when the number of people showing the anomalous behaviour reached a certain threshold, the behaviour spread much more easily (Turner and Killian, 1972;Miller, 1985).…”

Huntington???s Disease: What We Learned From the Original Essay

“…Previous to the Paracelsus description were Middle Age stories of an episodic dancing disorder referred to as chorea sancti viti or St. Vitus' dance. There was uncertainty in the early classification of the choreas mainly because of confusion with Sydenham's Chorea (7)(8)(9)). An early 18 th century medical dictionary lists Sydenham's Chorea along with dancing mania (10).…”

Epidemic Hysteria: A Dialogue with François Sirois

“…A key point is that social realities alter perceptual out looks. Because human perception is noto riously poor and people are prone to interpret ing information patterns that reflect their worldviews, the rapid spread of false beliefs in community settings is not typically precipi tated by mental disturbance, and rarely re sults in psychogenic symptoms [2,7], D ancing with M yth s Medieval dancing manias, which spread across Europe during the latter Middle Ages, arc almost universally portrayed as a histori cal and culture-specific variant of epidemic conversion symptoms precipitated by pent-up stress caused by the Black Death and other catastrophes [8], Researchers have failed to adequately assess the social, cultural, histori cal and political context of these highly com plex 'pandemics', which were not sponta neous outbursts, but highly organized forms of worship, and often involved large groups of both genders. Vigorous dancing in the vicinity of religious shrines was widely held to be a means of attaining divine penance and favor, and enjoyed an influx of participants during stressful periods.…”