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1. Thirteen-year-old Sabrina came from a family where her father, as well as her aunt and grandfather, were active members of a radical Christian community. Her mother had left this religious group. A few weeks before coming down with the disease, Sabrina attracted attention in school by her nervousness, her inward unrest, and her fear. After visiting a youth-counseling center, she stabilized, and her work in school quickly improved. After a few more weeks, however, she once more manifested beha…

The word ‘crisis’ derives from the Greek, and means insecurity, hazardous situation, increasing gravity, moment of decision, turning point. In Hippocratic medicine, the concept of ‘crisis’ indicated the high point, and turning point, of the course of an illness, since either the sickness momentarily issued in catastrophe—death—or the crisis passed and there was an improvement. The more threateningly, and ‘existentially,’ a life crisis is experienced, the oftener and more ‘elementarily’ is it coupled to the religious dimension. Life Crises—Crises of Meaning—Movements of R…

‘Insanity’ and ‘Delusion’ 1. The term ‘insanity’ no longer exists in recent international systems of psychiatric classification. There is, on the other hand, the concept of delusion, which can occur either (a) as a functional illusory disturbance (‘paranoia’), or (b) with diseases of the schizophrenic group, and further, (c) as an organic illusory disturbance occurring with illnesses of the brain (tumor, inflammation of the brain), or (d) as an induced psychotic disturbance through the ingestion of psychotropic substance…