ABSTRACT
D. P. Schreber’s book can be viewed on many levels: as an autobiography; as an account of his mental illness, involuntary hospitalization, and the legal battle to regain his civil liberties; as a document about psychiatry in Germany; and as a commentary on contemporary culture. Among Schreber’s meditations were thoughts about the soul. The very words soul, spirit, and God, owing to their metaphysical and theological accretions down the ages, are no longer respectable concepts in scientific and philosophical discourse, as they were in the generation of Schreber’s father and his own. Paul Schreber has been branded as a paranoiac and a homosexual. Paranoia as a discrete nosological entity has been repeatedly debated ever since it was introduced into German psychiatry in the mid-19th century. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
