Williams's "Major Depression" (2004)

Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2004 Mar-Apr;12(2):129-33; discussion 128.

William Carlos Williams.

Evans EA, Jeste DV.

Source

University of California, San Diego, VA San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, California 92161, USA. djeste@ucsd.edu

Abstract

Williams Carlos Williams was a physician and a poet. He suffered from multiple episodes of major depression, and had post-stroke depressions in later life; yet, he remained a productive writer until a few years prior before his death, at age 80. The structure, style, and content of Williams' writings evolved continually, and he received a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for poetry written during his later life. The authors discuss factors that seem to be associated with his successful coping with mental illness. Williams' life helps challenge the negative stereotypes associated with serious mental illness and aging.

Perspect Biol Med. 2010 Spring;53(2):215-30. doi: 10.1353/pbm.0.0156.

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Bless me reader for I have sinned: physicians and confessional writing.

Wear D, Jones T.

Source

Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, OH 44272, USA. dw@neoucom.edu

Abstract

From the poetry of William Carlos Williams, the novels of Walker Percy, and the short stories of Anton Chekov to the contemporary essays of Atul Gawande, physicians' contributions to literary genres have been significant. This article explores the specific form of confessional writing offered by physicians during the past half century, writing that often exposes medical error or negative feelings towards patients. A history of confessional practices as a legal tool, as religious practice, and as literary genre is offered, followed by analyses of selected confessional writings by physicians, many of them found in clinical journals such as Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Lancet. The authors of the narratives described here are engaged in several or all elements of the confessional sequence, which may offer them some resolution through the exposure and acknowledgment of their shared humanity with their patients and their ｅxpression of regret for any harm done.

PMID:

20495259

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]