Talk:Neurasthenia

Article Content
This article isn't about Freud, it's about neurasthenia. Freud's suggestions are only that, suggestions, and they're no more valid than a number of other suggestions. Please bear in mind that while Freud revolutionised psychiatry in a number of ways, he was also wrong about many issues, especially when they related to female sexuality.

We can never prove what people with "neurasthenia" were actually suffering from, let alone whether it was a physiological or a psychiatric illness in each individual case, but please note that this Wikipedia article primarily defines it as a dysfunction of the central nervous system, not a psychiatric condition. Both physiological and psychiatric illnesses are possible, from the descriptions of patients at the time. The link with CFS/ME has been proposed by a number of medical historians, as for instance may be read about at http://www.meridianinstitute.com/neurasth.htm, and is well-accepted by the medical community. I would suggest that it is therefore added to this article.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was imprisoned for a "rest cure" specifically for post-natal depression, not for neurasthenia. The two conditions may have been conflated at the time, however. It appears that "neurasthenia" suffered the same problems that "chronic fatigue syndrome" does today: it's not an accurate name for the condition, there's a great deal of argument about what it means, misdiagnosis is common, and it is frequently used as a dustbin diagnosis (for instance for WW1 soldiers who actually had PTSD, known at the time as "shell shock"). This reflects medical failings and prejudices and should never be used to justify belittling these medical conditions, which are extremely serious and can result in death.

I would suggest making it clear that neurasthenia was always a foggy diagnosis and that there were a number of medical conditions it could cover. Then list the conditions and write about why they were labelled as neurasthenia. The dustbin diagnosis element is pretty important, since here we're looking at a strong social phenomenon (the categorisation of disease and social uses of this categorisation) as well as a medical condition.

Charles Darwin, Henry James and Florence Nightingale were all diagnosed with neurasthenia, which would be a useful addition to this article. --Elettaria (talk) 11:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * So if, according to the article, Americanitis was thought by Freud to be due to excessive masturbation, can we conclude that Americans are wankers? --93.96.236.8 (talk) 10:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

References Cleanup
I've gone through the page history and tried to match citations with the data that they support. In addition, I've cleaned up the existing citations and separated out the footnote as its own reference from the other references, which were all citations.

After doing so, there are references remaining which I think are no longer relevant to the article, as the information has either been removed, or it was never clear what information it was supporting. In order that nothing be lost in the reorganization, I'm moving them here. If anybody has access to them and finds that they do support information in the article, please feel free to move them back there (editing/removing this paragraph and the following list as necessary). Here are they are:



If there are any concerns or questions about what I've done, please feel free to contact me here or on my talk page. —RobinHood70 (talk • contribs) 03:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

History of psychiatry
Just finishing a very interesting book on the history of psychiatry. It discussed the mental illnesses that have come and gone including hysteria as well as neurasthenia. Arguing that mental illnesses are culturally based. Neurasthenia is not being used to hide mood disorders but is being replaced by mood disorders similar to Dawkins memes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Ehrenreich
I don't see the assertion that Ehrenreich felt that neurasthenia was caused by Calvinist gloom as fully supported by the cite. it says that calvinist gloom causes mental and physical illness. it then says that invalidism and neurasthenia could be helped by the New Thought. Obviously she isn't saying that all cases of invalidism are/were caused by Calvinist gloom and also is not saying that all cases of invalidism are 'healed' by New Thought; likewise, it isn't clear that she felt that all cases of neurasthenia were caused by calvinist gloom or healed by New Thought.

I will remove this passage unless it can be backed up by a cite (preferably to the book). JustinReilly (talk) 03:50, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I have added a quote from the book. Obviously Ehrenreich is restating James's point, she is not original in her claims about the New Thought, therefore it cannot be claimed that these are controversial claims. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)


 * William James did not claim that the New Thought was something else than mumbo-jumbo, but for him it was a mumbo-jumbo which healed people of their infirmity. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

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CairoZeppelin's edits
I have removed the following from the main body of the article, added by CairoZeppelin:

""""""In December 1894, an up-and-coming Viennese psychiatrist wrote a paper whose influence was enormous and whose consequences for those who came after have been profound and unfortunate. Because of him, neurasthenia, which is still the most common illness of our day, is accepted as a normal element of the human condition, for which no external cause need be sought. Because of him, environmental illness, that is, illness caused by a toxic environment, is widely thought not to exist, its symptoms automatically blamed on disordered thoughts and out-of-control emotions. Because of him, we are today putting millions of people on Xanax, Prozac, and Zoloft instead of cleaning up their environment. For over a century ago, at the dawn of an era that blessed the use of electricity full throttle not just for communication but for light, power, and traction, Sigmund Freud renamed neurasthenia "anxiety neurosis" and its crises "anxiety attacks." Today we call them also "panic attacks.

Freud ended the search for a physical cause of neurasthenia by reclassifying it as a mental disease. And then, by designating almost all cases of it as "anxiety neurosis," he signed its death warrant. Although he pretended to leave neurasthenia as a separate neurosis, he didn't leave it many symptoms, and in Western countries it has been all but forgotten. In some circles it persists as "chronic fatigue syndrome," a disease without a cause that many doctors believe is also psychological and that most don't take seriously. Neurasthenia survives in the United States only in the common expression, "nervous breakdown," whose origin few people remember. [23]"""""

It doesn't seem to me to even minimally meet the standards required for encyclopedic content and has also likely been lifted verbatim from elsewhere, quite possibly without the original author's consent. I'm open to suggestions if anyone thinks any of the quoted content is salvageable. Daedalus 96 (talk) 10:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I've found some juicy stuff that would spice up the Article, attributing not just definitions of the disease to Freud, but also claiming the disease disproportionately affected Jewish women. I'm not grabbing that 3rd rail, but someone else can.
 * 2600:1700:10DE:30C0:C397:876F:7BBF:BE5F (talk) 07:08, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

"Mechanical weakness of the nerves" seems not to mean anything

 * Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον neuron "nerve" and ἀσθενής asthenés "weak") is a term that was first used as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves.

I've added "clarification needed" to this.

"Mechanical weakness of the nerves" seems not to mean anything - nerves are not subject to "mechanical weakness".

We should rephrase or clarify this.

- 189.60.49.251 (talk) 07:22, 21 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Agree it stands out as weird in terms of readability, but I decided it meant mechanical vs. "electric". Meaning the nerves are conducting electricity as they normally would, but they are mechanically broken in some way.  Maybe they go to places they shouldn't, instead of places they are supposed to.  It would be interesting and improve the Article if some theories of the time of how the body functioned were included. Defining what "mechanically broken nerves" were sounds interesting.
 * 2600:1700:10DE:30C0:C397:876F:7BBF:BE5F (talk) 07:13, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Why "popular" in Quotes?
"From 1869, neurasthenia became a "popular" diagnosis, expanding to include such symptoms as..."

Seems like a straightforward statement, and I see no reason, nor any added subtle meaning imparted by the quotes. Diagnosis (however its pluralized) have always been, and continue to be, more or less popular. Fibromyalgia is a current popular diagnosis. No need to be euphemistic here, IMO.

2600:1700:10DE:30C0:5A43:E2D:42F1:EF59 (talk) 07:04, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Updating scholarship
The most thorough study of this topic is not included.

McLawhorn, D. (2021). The Neurasthenia-Depression Controversy: A Window on Chinese Culture and Psychiatric Nosology (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003108771 Donmclawhorn (talk) 12:41, 28 December 2023 (UTC)