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Pregnancy
Published in Nadia Maria Filippini, Clelia Boscolo, Pregnancy, Delivery, Childbirth, 2020
In the 17th century, the presence of worms or snakes was also discussed, further increasing the range of possible living or non-living forms, that could be mysteriously generated within a woman’s body. In short, knowing what was actually developing inside women’s bodies before childbirth was impossible: “Affirmare quid intus sit divinare est” (“to say what may be inside is guessing”), as a 17th-century doctor called to pronounce on a case of false pregnancy had declared (Conforti 2009: 144).
EMI – psychopathology
Published in Bhaskar Punukollu, Michael Phelan, Anish Unadkat, MRCPsych Part 1 In a Box, 2019
Bhaskar Punukollu, Michael Phelan, Anish Unadkat
1. F. Pseudocyesis: a false pregnancy. Often presents with many of the signs and symptoms of pregnancy and is similar to a real pregnancy in every way except for the presence of a foetus. Couvade’s syndrome is a sympathetic pregnancy in a man.
Deviant and sick medical staff
Published in John C. Gunn, Pamela J. Taylor, Forensic Psychiatry, 2014
John Gunn, Rob Hale, Tony Maden, Pamela J Taylor
Allitt had previously shown symptoms of factitious disorder (see chapter 17), and the psychiatrists who saw her in prison described her as suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy (factitious disorder by proxy). As a child, she wore bandages and casts over wounds that she would use for attention but not allow to be examined. One of four children, she seemed happy for a while, but became overweight as an adolescent. She had a healthy appendix removed but the scar failed to heal because she kept plucking at it. She also injured herself with a hammer and glass. She went on to train as a nurse and was suspected of odd behaviour, such as smearing faeces on walls in a nursing home where she trained. Her absentee level was also exceptionally high, the result of a string of illnesses. A boyfriend at that time said later that she was aggressive, manipulative and deceptive, claiming false pregnancy as well as rape, before the end of the relationship. Kelleher and Kelleher (1998) described her as suffering from a volatile temperament, becoming aggressive at times and complaining of a series of physical ailments that sent her into a hospital. For example, she complained of gallbladder pain, headaches, urinary infections, uncontrolled vomiting, blurred vision, minor injuries, appendicitis, back trouble, and ulcers.
Phantom Penis: Extrapolating Neuroscience and Employing Imagination for Trans Male Sexual Embodiment
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2020
Ramachandran and McGeoch state that one cannot simply will a phantom into existence. But allow me to read against the grain of their statement by emphasizing the word “simply.” I think this is justified when one considers Ramachandran’s larger body of work. One only has to read the chapter on false pregnancy in Phantoms of the Brain to witness respect for the unknowns (and knowns) of mind–body medicine (Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1999). “If the human mind can conjure up something as complex as pregnancy, what else can the brain do to or for the body” (p. 215)? The authors reject blind faith, but insufficiently explained cases like this, in which a “highly specific wish” (p. 217) produces phantom pregnancy, “illustrate our ignorance and illuminate the need for conducting experiments on topics that most people have ignored for no obvious reason” (p. 221). As Sobchack’s testimony indicates, the relation of volition to phantoms is surely less than absolute. Phantoms are protean and have proven themselves, to doctors and patients alike, hardly predictable and ultimately uncontrollable, yet there are times when they bend to the conscious mind. How might trans men harness cognition to the task not only of influencing but also creating phantom penises? Crowther argues that imagination is both generative and subject to the will in a way that perception is not. To the degree that any image that one imagines is styled by personal history, one’s imagination is volitional. In terms of its psychological generation imagination involves deliberative activity. It is something we can both choose to do, and, when appropriate, do thoughtfully—either through visualizing some described state of affairs, or through paying close attention to what we are imagining. (Crowther, 2013, p. 106)
Discussion of “Phantom Penis: Extrapolating Neuroscience and Employing Imagination for Trans Male Sexual Embodiment”
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2020
One question hard to answer but important to address is the question of will and imagination. If we are comfortable thinking of persons experiencing false pregnancy and symptoms, what is the reservation about the willfulness and imagination of a prosthetic penis?