Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T13:44:10.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crime and Folie À Deux: Review and Case History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

H. Phillip Greenberg
H. Phillip Greenberg*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The phenomenon to which Lasègue and Falret in 1873 applied the term “folie à deux”, had many times previously been recognized and described. William Harvey (1651) noted a case, and his contemporary, Sir Kenelm Digby (1658) not only recorded an excellent clinical description but suggested a psychopathology (Greenberg et al., 1956). For Lasègue and Falret, folie à deux was a social rather than a psychiatric phenomenon: the second “passive” subject, they believed, was not truly psychotic but simply “absurdly credulous”. As they saw it, the more authoritative and intelligent “active” partner created the delusions and imposed them on the “passive” subject. This was more likely to occur in a setting of prolonged and isolated intimacy. The delusions were more likely to be accepted if they were plausible and played on the hopes and fears of the second subject. Heredity, they pointed out, offered no overall explanation, for this process frequently involved unrelated individuals. The second subject often accepted the first's delusions only after a fruitless and exhausting struggle to restore his sanity: “the indifferent escape both this useless travail and its consequences.” They held the prognosis for the “passive” subject to be invariably good, providing that the pair were separated. As early as 1563 Wier, writing on the cure of nuns afflicted en masse by demoniacal possession, had advised this course.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 102 , Issue 429 , October 1956 , pp. 772 - 779
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1956 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Archambault, P., Indép. méd., Paris, 1907; (abst.) Encéph., 1908, 3(i), 159.Google Scholar
Bacon, F., Sylva Sylvarum: or a Naturall Historie, 1627. London.Google Scholar
Ballotta, F., Zacchia, 1940; quoted by Cucchi, 1947.Google Scholar
Boedeker, J., Charité-Ann., Berlin, 1891, 16, 479.Google Scholar
BOLDRINI, B., Riv. sper. Freniat., 1938, 62, 896.Google Scholar
Chpolianski, J., Des analogies entre la folie à deux et le suicide à deux, 1885. Paris.Google Scholar
Cionini, A., Riv. sper. Freniat., 1892, 18, 636.Google Scholar
Claude, H., J. Prat., Paris, 1926, 40(i), 161.Google Scholar
Craig, M., Psychological Medicine, 1905. London.Google Scholar
Cucchi, A., Riv. sper. Freniat., 1947, 71, 349.Google Scholar
Curran, D., Partridge, M., Psychological Medicine, 1955. 4th edit. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Dagron, J., Arch. clin. Mal. ment. nerv., 1861, 1, 29.Google Scholar
Delasiauve, L. J. F., J. Méd. ment., 1869, 9, 375.Google Scholar
Despine, P., De la contagion morale, 1870. Paris.Google Scholar
Digby, K., A Late Discourse made in a Solemne Assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpellier in France … Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Power of Sympathy … Rendred faithfully out of French into English by R. White, Gent., 1658. London.Google Scholar
Esquirol, E., Du Suicide, 1821; Des Maladies Mentales, 1838, 1, 526. Paris.Google Scholar
Folsom, C. F., Boston med. surg. J., 1880, 102, 265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Funaioli, P., Arch. Ital. Mal. nerv., 1887, 24, 469.Google Scholar
Greenberg, H. P., Guy's Hosp. Rep., 1954, 103, 381.Google Scholar
Idem , Folie à Deux: An Historical and Clinical Study, 1956. London.Google Scholar
Idem , Hunter, R. A., Macalpine, I., Brit. J. med. Psychol., 1956. In press.Google Scholar
Harvey, W., Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium, 1651. Trans. by Willis, R., 1847. London.Google Scholar
Henderson, D. K., Gillespie, R. D., Text-Book of Psychiatry, 1950. 7th edit. London.Google Scholar
Hofbauer, D. K., Gillespie, R. D., Oest. med. Wschr., 1846, p. 1183.Google Scholar
Kalmus, E., Arch. Psychiat. Nervenkr., 1902, 35, 189.Google Scholar
Kiernan, J. G., Alien. Neurologist, 1883, 4, 285.Google Scholar
Knigge, F., Z. ges. Neurol. Psychiat., 1939, 166, 271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovalevsky, P., Gaz. hebd. Méd. Chir., Paris, 1896, 1, 1189.Google Scholar
Laignel-Lavastine, M., Arch. internat. Neurol., 1951, 70, 20.Google Scholar
Lasègue, C., Falret, J., Ann. méd.-psychol., 1873, 10, 483.Google Scholar
Idem , ibid, 1877, 18, 321.Google Scholar
Levassort, C., Falret, J., Encéph., 1912, 7(i), 485.Google Scholar
Livi, C., Arch. Ital. Mal. nerv., 1868; (abst.) Allg. Z. Psychiat., 1869, 26, 154.Google Scholar
Macalpine, I., Hunter, R. A., Daniel Paul Schreber: Memoirs of my Nervous Illness, 1955. London.Google Scholar
Magnan, V., Leçons cliniques sur les maladies mentales, 1893. 2nd edit. Paris.Google Scholar
Marandon de Montyel, E., Ann. méd.-psychol., 1881, 5, 28.Google Scholar
Mayer-Gross, W., Slater, E., Roth, M., Clinical Psychiatry, 1954. London.Google Scholar
Medlicott, R. W., Brit. J. med. Psychol., 1955, 28, 205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minovici, M., Ann. méd. lég., 1929, 9, 469.Google Scholar
Moreau de Tours, P., Ann. méd.-psychol., 1893, 18, 14.Google Scholar
Pitres, A., Régis, E., Les obsessions et les impulsions, 1902. Paris.Google Scholar
Régis, E., La folie à deux, 1880. Paris.Google Scholar
Roller, E., Allg. Z. Psychiat., 1894, 50, 722.Google Scholar
Romano, A., Gazz. internaz. Med., 1921, 24, 182, 190, 204, 213, 222.Google Scholar
Schlöss, H., Cbt. Nervenheilk. Psychiat., 1891, 2, 49.Google Scholar
Semelaigne, R., Ann. méd.-psychol., 1893, 17, 427.Google Scholar
Sikorski, J. A., Allg. Z. Psychiat., 1898, 55, 326.Google Scholar
Smith, P., Austral. med. J., 1875, 20, 393.Google Scholar
Sommer, R., Kriminal Psychologie, 1904. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Taguet, R., Ann. méd.-psychol., 1887, 6, 50.Google Scholar
Tamburini, A., Riv. sper. Freniat., 1892, 18, 658.Google Scholar
Tolsma, F. J., Fol. psychiat. neurol. neurochir. neerland., 1951, 54, 300.Google Scholar
Wier, J., De praestigiis daemonum, 1563. (Reprint of 1579 trans.): Histoires, disputes et discours des illusions et impostures des diables, etc., 1885. Paris.Google Scholar
Woods, O., J. Ment. Sci., 1889, 34, 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.