The Puerto Rican Syndrome

Patricia Gherovici

$65

Paperback

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English

Other Press LLC
17 November 2003

Anthropology; Neurology & clinical neurophysiology; Psychiatry

Series: Cultural Studies

Winner of the Gradiva Award in Historical Cultural and Literary Analysis and The

2004 Boyer Prize for Contributions to Psychoanalytic Anthropology

During the 1950's,

US Army medical officers noted a new and puzzling syndrome that contemporary psychiatry

could neither explain nor cure. These doctors reported that Puerto Rican soldiers

under stress behaved in a very peculiar and dramatic manner, exhibiting a theatrical

form of pseudo-epilepsy. Startled physicians observed frightened and disoriented

patients foaming at the mouth, screaming, biting, kicking, shaking in seizures, and

fainting. The phenomenon seemed to correspond to a serious neurological disease yet,

as with some forms of hysteria, physical examination failed to identify any sign

of an organic origin. This unusual set of symptoms, entered into medical records

as ""a group of striking psychopathological reaction patterns, precipitated by minor

stress,"" and was designated ""Puerto Rican Syndrome.""

In this lucid and sophisticated

new work, Patricia Gherovici thoroughly examines the so-called Puerto Rican Syndrome

in the contemporary world, its social and cultural implications for the growing Hispanic

population in the US and, therefore, for the US as a whole. As a mental illness that

is, allegedly, uniquely Puerto Rican, this syndrome links nationality and culture

to a psychiatric disease whose reappearance recalls the spectacular hysteria that

led to the discovery of the unconscious and the birth of psychoanalysis. Gherovici

beautifully and systematically uses the combined insights of Freud and Lacan to examine

the current state of psychoanalysis and the Hispanic community in America. Blending

these insights with history, current events, and her own case material, Gherovici

provides a startling, fresh look at Puerto Rican Syndrome as social and cultural

phenomenon. She sheds new light on the future of American society and argues that

psychoanalysis is not only possible, but much needed in the ghetto.

By: Patricia Gherovici
Imprint: Other Press LLC
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 439g
ISBN: 9781892746757
ISBN 10: 1892746751
Series: Cultural Studies
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 17 November 2003
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Patricia Gherovici Patricia Gherovici is an analyst in private practice and founding member and director of the Philadelphia Lacan Study Group and Seminar. She has published in numerous journals and collections, most recently Where Id Was- Challenging Normalization in Psychoanalysis (Continuum- 2001). She is the former director of a mental health clinic in Philadelphia.

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The Puerto Rican Syndrome

Patricia Gherovici

$65

Paperback

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