Tom and Viv: A Secondary form of mental illness...

A quote from the movie “Tom and Viv” (IMDB). Movie is a version of the difficulties T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne had during and after they were married.

Doctor: We consider it a secondary form of mental disease, and it is notorious in attacking young women of exceptional gifts. The patient fails to understand her social position and her duty to society. She becomes vulgar and impulsive and frequently shows a rebellious disregard for propriety. And it is this condition that the law and the medical professions define as “Moral Insanity”.

T.S. Eliot: Insanity?

Doctor: Technically, yes.

It was likely she was only (moderately) chemically unbalanced but “modern medicine” was unable to see it. I had to quote the movie, dramatized as it was, because it cracked me up. Per the Doctor, half to a third of the people I know are suffering from “Moral Insanity”.

According to Wikipedia: Moral insanity was proposed as a category of medical diagnosis by Dr. James Prichard in 1835. He described it as “a morbid perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral dispositions, and natural impulses, without any remarkable disorder or defect of the intellect or knowing and reasoning faculties, and particularly without any insane illusion or hallucination”. Moral insanity was used in Great Britain in the 19th century in court and criminal defense pleas.

For more info on this “Mental illness”, I would like to refer all readers to an 1856 article on this specific topic. You can trust that it MUST be accurate as it was written by Charles Finney and is maintained by the Gospel Truth Ministries so that it can “be RELIED UPON for AUTHENTICITY and SCHOLARLY RESEARCH”.