CATEGORY: Clinical & Surgical, Research & Documentation, Silent, Black & White
PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: James D. Page, University of Rochester School of Medicine
Summary
Shot with only a stationary camera, this film records eighteen patients in scenes of 15 to 45 seconds. The inmates, white adults of both sexes, stand or sit, mostly outdoors, at a red-brick institution with porches and well-kept lawns. This is not the closed, Dantesque world of The Snake Pit (1948)… Each patient performs a single symptom. Extravagant bodily symptoms predominate: gestures, tics, and postures…Read The Essay
Supplementary Materials
Stills from Symptoms in Schizophrenia
A ‘hebephrenic’ patient, whose symptoms are characterized by repetitive ‘silly’ gestures.
A patient angrily denounces an imaginary enemy and maybe the cameraman.
A woman demonstrates the typical repetitive gestural routine of a hebephrenic.
A ‘hebephrenic’ patient, whose symptoms are characterized by repetitive gestures. Symptoms in schizophrenia National Library of Medicine #8700092A
Schizophrenia (dementia praecox) is the most prevalent of mental disorders. About one per cent of the population eventually develop it.
A ‘hebephrenic’ patient, whose symptoms are characterized by repetitive gestures.
It is essentially a chronic disease of unknown origin, characterized by marked personality disintegration. Symptoms in Schizophrenia
In general appearance schizophrenics resemble normal individuals. All body types are represented. Distinction lies in their mental content and behavior. Symptoms in Schizophrenia
Schizophrenics are divided into four clinical groups: simple, paranoid, catatonic and hebephrenic. Symptoms in Schizophrenia
A patient angrily addresses an imaginary enemy.
Delusions and hallucinations occur in most hebephrenic, catatonic and paranoid patients. The latter often give evidence of these symptoms by conversing or arguing with imaginary individuals. Symptoms in Schizophrenia
A patient performs a routine of repetitive gestures.
A patient conducts a lively conversation with an imaginary partner.
A ‘catatonic’ patient permits his limbs to be molded by an ‘examiner.’
Patients on the grounds of a mental institution in New York State.
Digitized Films on Mental Disorders at the National Library of Medicine