Madness in women throughout history

• April 25, 2024

In her book "Locos de la Historia", the writer and psychology expert, Alejandra Vallejo-Nájera ratifies an old rumor: Juana La Loca "was completely crazy, she had a schizophrenia inherited from her grandmother Isabel de Portugal, who showed the first symptoms of the disease when her daughter, Isabel la Católica, was born." Otherwise, Juana la Loca was a very intelligent and capable person to govern .

The Spanish writer talks about other real characters with psychiatric problems, such as Luisa Isabel de Orleáns, daughter-in-law of Felipe V, who was an exhibitionist, and her own Felipe V He had to interrupt his reign on four occasions because of the crisis of madness he suffered. According to Vallejo-Nájera, "the problem of these people is that they married each other and the psychosis was passed on to each other within the family itself".

Women and madness throughout history

According to the doctor Teresa Ordorika Sacristán , specialist in sociology and mental health of women of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities of the UNAM, throughout history it has been believed that the woman has suffered more madness than man However, thanks to academic gender research, it has been demonstrated that there is no numerical discrepancy between women and men with regard to mental illness .

The overrepresentation of women in psychiatric statistics on certain types of suffering is a product and a reflection of inequities and oppression that they experience socially. And the "typically female" mental disorders are caused by the effects of violence and the poverty that face daily.

During the nineteenth century, explains the researcher, it was thought that women had a greater incidence in various aspects related to the mental disorder , they were hospitalized more frequently, they made greater use of ambulatory services and they were prescribed more psychotropic than men.

Currently, the research supports the existence of 3 types of risk factors women face and that increase their likelihood of suffering these conditions: the vulnerability , the agents that cause disorders like lost (divorce, illness or chronic disability) and factors such as depression caused by violence, constant humiliation and low self-esteem. According to data from the United Nations, says the specialist, we are facing a panorama of feminization of poverty . Women are a substantial part of the world's poorest, making up the majority of the 1.5 billion people living in extreme poverty, with less than a dollar a day. This relates them directly to suffering psychic disorders .

Video Medicine: Madness and the Victorian woman (April 2024).