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Margery Kempe, a new theory: the inadequacy of hysteria and postpartum psychosis as diagnostic categories

Carley Rees Bogarad

Diane E. Sholomskas

Margery Kempe (c. 1373-1439), author of the first spiritual autobiography in English, wrote the only personal account of madness by a woman in the Middle Ages. Conventional sources define her mental state as hysteria or as postpartum psychosis, a diagnosis which helps to explain her first recorded disorder. By placing The Book of Margery Kempe in the context of medieval theories of mental illness, this paper challenges contemporary views and reveals that she reported a disorder in which episodes of mania and melancholia culminated in mystical visions. These cycles determined the direction of her life. She transformed illness and health into adventure, devotion, and belief in a direct relationship with God.

History of Psychiatry, Vol. 1, No. 2, 169-190 (1990)
DOI: 10.1177/0957154X9000100202


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