Pathographic studies and psychopathology as a source of knowledge on the society

Abstract

After a short introduction, we presented the potentials of the sociology of psychiatric knowledge analyzed on the basis of the knowledge of the very psychiatry, namely psychopathology, that is, on the basis of what the clinical psychiatry could offer to sociological knowledge. The analysis was performed primarily from the point of view of perceiving mentally changed reality of individuals (their dreams, symptoms, their emotional state, etc.) Pathographic studies as a methodological potential of integration of psychiatric and sociological knowledge were then presented in a detailed manner. The results of pathographic studies by Fromm and Würth (international authors) and Stanojević and Adamović (domestic authors) were then presented, the studies presenting pathographies of Stalin, Hitler, Kohl, Fischer, Milošević and several other historic figures. The conclusion pointed to theoretical, methodological and empirical conditions of using pathographic studies in sociology, depending on theoretical patterns (psychoanalytical and phenomenological) and setting leaders’ biographies into certain social and historical circumstances.

Keywords

• sociology of psychiatric knowledge
• pathographic studies
• psychopathology