A Psychiatric Study of the Life and Work of Dorothea Dix
WILLIAM J. BROWNE M.S., M.D.1
1 Clinical director, Woodville State Hospital, Box 456, Carnegie, Pa. 15106, and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry, Western Psychiatric Institute and Staunton Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
There have been no psychiatric studies of Dorothea Dix despite the importance to psychiatry of her reforms. This paper focuses on some psychodynamic themes in her life: parental identifications, childhood deprivation and reaction formation, religious conversion and mysticism, and depressive and hypomanic states. Her experiences are compared with those of other women reformers: St. Teresa, Florence Nightingale, and Jane Addams. The author concludes that successful careers in social service stem from positive identifications, although reaction formations are also prominent.
