Iatrogenic depression: the case of Frederic Chopin

Psychological disorders caused by the doctor’s rash words are as common as the side effects of drug. Iatrogenic depression caused by ethical and psychological mistakes of doctors will never go away. Their frequency can be reduced only by improving the physicians’ skills in the fields of medical ethics and psychology. A clinical case analysis based on a famous person’s history of the disease is an effective pedagogical tool. The study aims to present the case of the famous Polish composer Frederic Chopin. The A comparative analysis of doctors’ objective actions and patients’ subjective evaluations of their actions were made based on a study of Chopin’s and Sand’s letters as well as the works of composer’s biographers. This approach provides a valuable opportunity to see doctors through the patient’s eyes. In the fall of 1838, during his rest in Majorca, the local doctors diagnosed pulmonary tuberculosis in Chopin. The Majorcan doctors made a serious ethical mistake. They ignored the patient’s anamnesis vitae indicating his phthisiophobia and informed Chopin about the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis and a poor prognosis in a very cynical manner. Chopin wrote: ‘One (doctor) said I had died the second that I am dying, the 3rd that I shall die’. Chopin perceived the diagnosis of tuberculosis as a ‘death sentence’, as a result of which he developed iatrogenic depression. All previous and subsequent Chopin’s doctors used other tactics: they prescribed the correct treatment, but the diagnosis was not voiced. The analysis shows the effectiveness of this tactic: Chopin lived another 10 years after the Majorcan episode. Chopin’s case shows typical doctors’ ethical and psychological issues in informing the patient about the dangerous diagnosis and poor prognosis as well as tactics for building a good physician‑patient relationship.

Do Christian and secular moralities exclude one another?

The objective of the article was to critique two cognitive strategies used by both proponents of Christian and secular moralities to justify an exclusionary relationship between them, thus contributing to the conflict between them. They are the cognitive strategies of foundationalism and incompatibilism. The objective was also to resume a critical discussion of these two strategies in Wentzel van Huyssteen’s publications. The method followed was, first, to provide a historical reconstruction of the relationship between Christian faith and the secular and, second, a critical analysis of Richard Dawkins’ foundationalist view of secular morality and Stanley Hauerwas’ incompatibilist view of Christian morality. Findings were that influential views of a positive relationship between Christian faith and secular morality are found in history, and that the foundationalist view of Dawkins and the incompatibilist view of Hauerwas are both untenable and contextually inappropriate. This led to the conclusion that there is no justification for the view that Christian morality and secular moralities necessarily exclude one another. The remaining challenge to find an alternative approach that would allow for a more positive relationship between these two moralities and provide guidance on adaptations they need to make was also identified.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The Christian ethical research undertaken in the article drew on research findings in the fields of Christian Ethics, Church History, philosophy, evolutionary ethics and psychology. Research results present Christian and philosophical ethics with the challenge to find an acceptable alternative for the problematic foundationalist and incompatibilist approaches.

FOURTEEN PHYSICIANS OF FREDERIC CHOPIN: FOURTEEN WAYS TO TELL A PATIENT ABOUT HIS DISEASE

The narratives based on history of the disease of famous people are an effective pedagogical tool for future physicians’ preparation in medical ethics and psychology. The objective of this study was to analyze the methods that doctors used to inform Frederic Chopin about his disease. Frederic Chopin's and Georges Sand's letters, the works of the composer's biographers as well as scientific publications devoted to Chopin's illness were analysed. The analysis showed that most of Frederic Chopin's physicians hid from him an incurable and fatal diagnosis for ethical reasons. This tactic proved to be effective: Chopin lived for more than 10 years with severe symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis.

Ethics

How has ethics been connected with the science and profession of psychology? Has ethics been essential to psychology? Or have psychologists increasingly developed objective psychological understandings free of ethical biases? Is ethics in psychology limited to research ethics and professional ethics? Understanding the various connections among ethics and psychology requires conceptual clarity about the many meanings of ethics and related terms (such as moral, ideal, and flourishing). Ethics has included, but goes beyond, research and professional ethics, since ideas about what is good or bad, right or wrong, obligatory or virtuous have shaped psychological inquiry. In moral psychology, psychologists have sought to understand the psychology of ethical dimensions of persons, such as prejudice or altruism. Some psychologists have worked to minimize ethical issues in psychology in general, but others embraced psychologies tied to ethical visions, like advancing social justice. Many ethical issues (beyond professional ethics) have also been entangled in professional practice, including understanding the problems (“not good” states of affairs) for which clients seek help and the (“good”) goals toward which psychologists helped people move. Cutting across the various ways ethics and psychology have been interconnected is an enduring tension: Although psychologists have claimed expertise in the science of psychology and in the provision of psychological services, they have had no disciplinary expertise that equips them to determine what is good, right, obligatory, and virtuous despite the fact that ethical issues have often been deeply intertwined with psychology.

CULTUROLOGICAL ORIENTATORS OF MODERN UKRAINIAN CINEMA CRITICS

The article analyses the position of Ukrainian scientists, represented in their works during the first two decades of the XXI century, when the influence of the basis of the cultural analyses on the development of cinema critics has become appreciable. The accent has been made on new approaches both to the history of Ukrainian cinema in trying to understand personalized approach prevails and to the estimation of subject direction of the films shoot on the boundary of the XX – XXI centuries. It is underlined that film expert's attention was concentrated on the further improvement of notion-categorical apparatus which provides investigations in film critics. It is shown that film science outlines some human problems which having historical cultural traditions, can appear as aesthetical-artistic reference points in creative process. It is declared that the important aspect of the article is dedicated to the fixation of the art studies formation history in the process of cinema development. The role of Danish producer Urban Gad, the author of the book "Cinema, its means and aims" is marked. It is indicated that while constantly shooting films U.Gad summarized his own experience of work in the cinema making in the first European investigation in the cinema studies. It is underlined that taking into consideration the dynamics of cinematograph's development, using of historical and cultural achievements of the past as reference points for modern cinema theory demands caution and correctness. In the context of this thesis systematization and analysis of works of Ukrainian film critics on the activities of national cinematograph's development are presented both actual and expediency. It is shown that using in the cinema study fundamental principles of cultural analysis in particular cross-scientific personalization a composed element of biographic method – to correlate cinema analysis with material of such human sciences as aesthetics, ethics and psychology. It is noticed that taking into consideration collective character of the creation in cinematograph the principle of personalization objectively appraises the contribution of each representative of the cinematic group within the creative process.

Parenthood: A Humanistic Close Reading

Part IV looks at a film text often described as “humanistic” using the analytical methods established throughout the book. This chapter describes how Parenthood’s particular domestic realism offered a precursor to later suburban ensemble pictures, before breaking down the politics, ethics and psychology of the film. The latter half of the chapter goes into more detail on the narrative’s modelling of familial psychology, but also the way the film form itself represents many of its key concerns: Parenthood’s structure provokes the very confounding emotional causality across extended networks that the film speaks to.

Melanchthon, Philipp (1497–1560)

Philipp Melanchthon was one of Luther’s closest associates, helping to systematize Lutheran theology, and his Loci communes (Commonplaces) (1521) was one of the most influential early works of Protestant theology. He was often a moderating influence in theological debates between Catholics and Protestants. Melanchthon was also involved in controversy over the relationship between human will and God’s grace in the achievement of salvation. He was responsible for the reform of Protestant German education in the sixteenth century, through the large number of textbooks which he composed, and through his revisions of the statutes of universities (notably Wittenberg) and schools. As a scholar and reformer of education, he was a staunch follower of the humanism of Agricola and Erasmus, committed to teaching the best Latin authors and the Greek language. Many of his works are textbooks (often produced in different versions), frequently based on lecture notes, summarizing or commenting on classical authors or scripture. Although more important as a summarizer and popularizer than as a source of new ideas, Melanchthon nevertheless made important contributions to the development of logic, rhetoric, ethics and psychology, as well as to aspects of Reformation theology. In logic he contributed to the growth of interest in method. In ethics he established a place for classical moral teaching alongside but subordinate to the teaching of the Bible. His favourite philosopher was Aristotle, and he tended to pour scorn on rival ancient schools of philosophy. In psychology he favoured a simplified Aristotelianism, close to medieval faculty psychology, with strong emphasis on links with biology. He opposed scepticism wherever he encountered it.