Passive cooling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_cooling

A traditional Iranian solar cooling design using a wind tower

Passive cooling is a building design approach that focuses on heat gain control and heat dissipation in a building in order to improve the indoor thermal comfort with low or no energy consumption. This approach works either by preventing heat from entering the interior (heat gain prevention) or by removing heat from the building (natural cooling).

Natural cooling utilizes on-site energy, available from the natural environment, combined with the architectural design of building components (e.g. building envelope), rather than mechanical systems to dissipate heat. Therefore, natural cooling depends not only on the architectural design of the building but on how the site's natural resources are used as heat sinks (i.e. everything that absorbs or dissipates heat). Examples of on-site heat sinks are the upper atmosphere (night sky), the outdoor air (wind), and the earth/soil.

Passive cooling is an important tool for design of buildings for climate change adaptation – reducing dependency on energy-intensive air conditioning in warming environments.

Overview

Passive cooling covers all natural processes and techniques of heat dissipation and modulation without the use of energy. Some authors consider that minor and simple mechanical systems (e.g. pumps and economizers) can be integrated in passive cooling techniques, as long they are used to enhance the effectiveness of the natural cooling process. Such applications are also called 'hybrid cooling systems'. The techniques for passive cooling can be grouped in two main categories:

• Preventive techniques that aim to provide protection and/or prevention of external and internal heat gains.
• Modulation and heat dissipation techniques that allow the building to store and dissipate heat gain through the transfer of heat from heat sinks to the climate. This technique can be the result of thermal mass or natural cooling.

Preventive techniques

This ancient Roman house avoids gaining heat. Heavy masonry walls, small exterior windows, and a narrow walled garden oriented N-S shade the house, preventing heat gain. The house opens onto a central atrium with an impluvium (open to the sky); the evaporative cooling of the water causes a cross-draft from atrium to garden.

Protection from or prevention of heat gains encompasses all the design techniques that minimizes the impact of solar heat gains through the building's envelope and of internal heat gains that is generated inside the building due occupancy and equipment. It includes the following design techniques:

• Microclimate and site design - By taking into account the local climate and the site context, specific cooling strategies can be selected to apply which are the most appropriate for preventing overheating through the envelope of the building. The microclimate can play a huge role in determining the most favorable building location by analyzing the combined availability of sun and wind. The bioclimatic chart, the solar diagram and the wind rose are relevant analysis tools in the application of this technique.
• Solar control - A properly designed shading system can effectively contribute to minimizing the solar heat gains. Shading both transparent and opaque surfaces of the building envelope will minimize the amount of solar radiation that induces overheating in both indoor spaces and building's structure. By shading the building structure, the heat gain captured through the windows and envelope will be reduced.
• Building form and layout - Building orientation and an optimized distribution of interior spaces can prevent overheating. Rooms can be zoned within the buildings in order to reject sources of internal heat gain and/or allocating heat gains where they can be useful, considering the different activities of the building. For example, creating a flat, horizontal plan will increase the effectiveness of cross-ventilation across the plan. Locating the zones vertically can take advantage of temperature stratification. Typically, building zones in the upper levels are warmer than the lower zones due to stratification. Vertical zoning of spaces and activities uses this temperature stratification to accommodate zone uses according to their temperature requirements. Form factor (i.e. the ratio between volume and surface) also plays a major role in the building's energy and thermal profile. This ratio can be used to shape the building form to the specific local climate. For example, more compact forms tend to preserve more heat than less compact forms because the ratio of the internal loads to envelope area is significant.
• Thermal insulation - Insulation in the building's envelope will decrease the amount of heat transferred by radiation through the facades. This principle applies both to the opaque (walls and roof) and transparent surfaces (windows) of the envelope. Since roofs could be a larger contributor to the interior heat load, especially in lighter constructions (e.g. building and workshops with roof made out of metal structures), providing thermal insulation can effectively decrease heat transfer from the roof.
• Behavioral and occupancy patterns - Some building management policies such as limiting the number of people in a given area of the building can also contribute effectively to the minimization of heat gains inside a building. Building occupants can also contribute to indoor overheating prevention by: shutting off the lights and equipment of unoccupied spaces, operating shading when necessary to reduce solar heat gains through windows, or dress lighter in order to adapt better to the indoor environment by increasing their thermal comfort tolerance.
• Internal gain control - More energy-efficient lighting and electronic equipment tend to release less energy thus contributing to less internal heat loads inside the space.

Modulation and heat dissipation techniques

The modulation and heat dissipation techniques rely on natural heat sinks to store and remove the internal heat gains. Examples of natural sinks are night sky, earth soil, and building mass. Therefore, passive cooling techniques that use heat sinks can act to either modulate heat gain with thermal mass or dissipate heat through natural cooling strategies.

• Thermal mass - Heat gain modulation of an indoor space can be achieved by the proper use of the building's thermal mass as a heat sink. The thermal mass will absorb and store heat during daytime hours and return it to the space at a later time. Thermal mass can be coupled with night ventilation natural cooling strategy if the stored heat that will be delivered to the space during the evening/night is not desirable.
• Natural cooling - Natural cooling refers to the use of ventilation or natural heat sinks for heat dissipation from indoor spaces. Natural cooling can be separated into five different categories: ventilation, night flushing, radiative cooling, evaporative cooling, and earth coupling.

Ventilation

A pair of short windcatchers (malqaf) used in traditional architecture; wind is forced down on the windward side and leaves on the leeward side (cross-ventilation). In the absence of wind, the circulation can be driven with evaporative cooling in the inlet. In the center, a shuksheika (roof lantern vent), used to shade the qa'a below while allowing hot air rise out of it (stack effect).

Ventilation as a natural cooling strategy uses the physical properties of air to remove heat or provide cooling to occupants. In select cases, ventilation can be used to cool the building structure, which subsequently may serve as a heat sink.

• Cross ventilation - The strategy of cross ventilation relies on wind to pass through the building for the purpose of cooling the occupants. Cross ventilation requires openings on two sides of the space, called the inlet and outlet. The sizing and placement of the ventilation inlets and outlets will determine the direction and velocity of cross ventilation through the building. Generally, an equal (or greater) area of outlet openings must also be provided to provide adequate cross ventilation.
• Stack ventilation - Cross ventilation is an effective cooling strategy, however, wind is an unreliable resource. Stack ventilation is an alternative design strategy that relies on the buoyancy of warm air to rise and exit through openings located at ceiling height. Cooler outside air replaces the rising warm air through carefully designed inlets placed near the floor.

These two strategies are part of the ventilative cooling strategies.

One specific application of natural ventilation is night flushing.

Night flushing

A courtyard in Florence, Italy. It is tall and narrow, with a fountain spouting very thin streams of water at the bottom, and upper rooms opening onto it. Night flushing of the courtyard happens automatically as the night air cools; evaporative cooling cools it further and can be used to create drafts and change the air during the day. Windows can be left open around the clock.

Night flushing (also known as night ventilation, night cooling, night purging, or nocturnal convective cooling) is a passive or semi-passive cooling strategy that requires increased air movement at night to cool the structural elements of a building. A distinction may be made between free cooling to chill water and night flushing to cool down building thermal mass. To execute night flushing, one typically keeps the building envelope closed during the day. The building structure's thermal mass acts as a sink through the day and absorbs heat gains from occupants, equipment, solar radiation, and conduction through walls, roofs, and ceilings. At night, when the outside air is cooler, the envelope is opened, allowing cooler air to pass through the building so the stored heat can be dissipated by convection. This process reduces the temperature of the indoor air and of the building's thermal mass, allowing convective, conductive, and radiant cooling to take place during the day when the building is occupied. Night flushing is most effective in climates with a large diurnal swing, i.e. a large difference between the daily maximum and minimum outdoor temperature. For optimal performance, the nighttime outdoor air temperature should fall well below the daytime comfort zone limit of 22 °C (72 °F), and should not have low absolute or specific humidity. In hot, humid climates the dirunal temperature swing is typically small, and the nighttime humidity stays high. Night flushing has limited effectiveness and can introduce high humidity that causes problems and can lead to high energy costs if it is removed by active systems during the day. Thus, night flushing's effectiveness is limited to sufficiently dry climates. For the night flushing strategy to be effective at reducing indoor temperature and energy usage, the thermal mass must be sized sufficiently and distributed over a wide enough surface area to absorb the space's daily heat gains. Also, the total air change rate must be high enough to remove the internal heat gains from the space at night. There are three ways night flushing can be achieved in a building:

• Natural night flushing by opening windows at night, letting wind-driven or buoyancy-driven airflow cool the space, and then closing windows during the day.
• Mechanical night flushing by forcing air mechanically through ventilation ducts at night at a high airflow rate and supplying air to the space during the day at a code-required minimum airflow rate.
• Mixed-mode night flushing through a combination of natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation, also known as mixed-mode ventilation, by using fans to assist the natural nighttime airflow.

These three strategies are part of the ventilative cooling strategies.

There are numerous benefits to using night flushing as a cooling strategy for buildings, including improved comfort and a shift in peak energy load.^[22] Energy is most expensive during the day. By implementing night flushing, the usage of mechanical ventilation is reduced during the day, leading to energy and money savings.

There are also a number of limitations to using night flushing, such as usability, security, reduced indoor air quality, humidity, and poor room acoustics. For natural night flushing, the process of manually opening and closing windows every day can be tiresome, especially in the presence of insect screens. This problem can be eased with automated windows or ventilation louvers, such as in the Manitoba Hydro Place. Natural night flushing also requires windows to be open at night when the building is most likely unoccupied, which can raise security issues. If outdoor air is polluted, night flushing can expose occupants to harmful conditions inside the building. In loud city locations, the opening of windows can create poor acoustical conditions inside the building. In humid climates, night flushing can introduce humid air, typically above 90% relative humidity during the coolest part of the night. This moisture can accumulate in the building overnight leading to increased humidity during the day leading to comfort problems and even mold growth.

Radiative cooling

Main article: Radiative cooling

The infrared atmospheric window, frequencies in which the atmosphere is unusually transparent, is the large blueish block on the right. An object that is fluorescent in these wavelengths can cool itself to below ambient air temperature.

Radiative cooling energy budget in a yakhchāl.

All objects constantly emit and absorb radiant energy. An object will cool by radiation if the net flow is outward, which is the case during the night. At night, the long-wave radiation from the clear sky is less than the long-wave infrared radiation emitted from a building, thus there is a net flow to the sky. Since the roof provides the greatest surface visible to the night sky, designing the roof to act as a radiator is an effective strategy. Types of radiative cooling strategies that utilize the roof surface include direct and indirect, and fluorescent.

• Direct radiant cooling - In a building designed to optimize direct radiation cooling, the building roof acts as a heat sink to absorb the daily internal loads. The roof acts as the best heat sink because it is the greatest surface exposed to the night sky. Radiate heat transfer with the night sky will remove heat from the building roof, thus cooling the building structure. Roof ponds are an example of this strategy. The roof pond design became popular with the development of the Sky thermal system designed by Harold Hay in 1977. There are various designs and configurations for the roof pond system but the concept is the same for all designs. The roof uses water, either plastic bags filled with water or an open pond, as the heat sink while a system of movable insulation panels regulate the mode of heating or cooling. During daytime in the summer, the water on the roof is protected from the solar radiation and ambient air temperature by movable insulation, which allows it to serve as a heat sink and absorb the heat generated inside through the ceiling. At night, the panels are retracted to allow nocturnal radiation between the roof pond and the night sky, thus removing the stored heat. In winter, the process is reversed so that the roof pond is allowed to absorb solar radiation during the day and release it during the night into the space below.
• Indirect radiant cooling - A heat transfer fluid removes heat from the building structure through radiate heat transfer with the night sky. A common design for this strategy involves a plenum between the building roof and the radiator surface. Air is drawn into the building through the plenum, cooled from the radiator, and cools the mass of the building structure. During the day, the building mass acts as a heat sink.
• Fluorescent radiant cooling - An object can be made fluorescent: it will then absorb light at some wavelengths, but radiate the energy away again at other, selected wavelengths. By selectively radiating heat in the infrared atmospheric window, a range of frequencies in which the atmosphere is unusually transparent, an object can effectively use outer space as a heat sink, and cool to well below ambient air temperature.

Evaporative cooling

A salasabil (currently dry) in the Red Fort in Delhi, India. A salasabil is designed to maximize evaporative cooling; the cooling, in turn, may be used to drive air circulation.

Main article: Evaporative cooling

This design relies on the evaporative process of water to cool the incoming air while simultaneously increasing the relative humidity. A saturated filter is placed at the supply inlet so the natural process of evaporation can cool the supply air. Apart from the energy to drive the fans, water is the only other resource required to provide conditioning to indoor spaces. The effectiveness of evaporative cooling is largely dependent on the humidity of the outside air; dryer air produces more cooling. A study of field performance results in Kuwait revealed that power requirements for an evaporative cooler are approximately 75% less than the power requirements for a conventional packaged unit air-conditioner. As for interior comfort, a study found that evaporative cooling reduced inside air temperature by 9.6 °C compared to outdoor temperature. An innovative passive system uses evaporating water to cool the roof so that a major portion of solar heat does not come inside.

Ancient Egypt used evaporative cooling; for instance, reeds were hung in windows and were moistened with trickling water.

Evaporation from the soil and transpiration from plants also provides cooling; the water released from the plant evaporates. Gardens and potted plants are used to drive cooling, as in the hortus of a domus, the tsubo-niwa of a machiya, and so on.

Earth coupling

A qanat and windcatcher used as an earth duct, for both earth coupling and evaporative cooling. No fan is needed; the suction in the lee of the windtower draws the air up and out.

Main article: Ground-coupled heat exchanger

Earth coupling uses the moderate and consistent temperature of the soil to act as a heat sink to cool a building through conduction. This passive cooling strategy is most effective when earth temperatures are cooler than ambient air temperature, such as in hot climates.

• Direct coupling or earth sheltering occurs when a building uses earth as a buffer for the walls. The earth acts as a heat sink and can effectively mitigate temperature extremes. Earth sheltering improves the performance of building envelopes by reducing heat losses and also reduces heat gains by limiting infiltration.
• Indirect coupling means that a building is coupled with the earth by means of earth ducts. An earth duct is a buried tube that acts as avenue for supply air to travel through before entering the building. The supply air is cooled by conductive heat transfer between the tubes and surrounding soil. Therefore, earth ducts will not perform well as a source of cooling unless the soil temperature is lower than the desired room air temperature. Earth ducts typically require long tubes to cool the supply air to an appropriate temperature before entering the building. A fan is required to draw the air from the earth duct into the building. Some of the factors that affect the performance of an earth duct are: duct length, number of bends, thickness of duct wall, depth of duct, diameter of the duct, and air velocity.

In conventional buildings

Further information: Green building

There are "smart-roof coatings" and "smart windows" for cooling that switches to warming during cold temperatures. The whitest paint formulation can reflect up to 98.1% of sunlight.

Oedipus complex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex 

Oedipus describes the riddle of the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, c. 1805

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex (also spelled Œdipus complex) refers to a son's sexual attitude towards his mother and concomitant hostility toward his father, first formed during the phallic stage of psychosexual development. A daughter's attitude of desire for her father and hostility toward her mother is referred to as the feminine Oedipus complex. The general concept was considered by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), although the term itself was introduced in his paper A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men (1910).

Freud's ideas of castration anxiety and penis envy refer to the differences of the sexes in their experience of the Oedipus complex. The complex is thought to persist into adulthood as an unconscious psychic structure which can assist in social adaptation but also be the cause of neurosis. According to sexual difference, a positive Oedipus complex refers to the child's sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and aversion to the same-sex parent, while a negative Oedipus complex refers to the desire for the same-sex parent and aversion to the opposite-sex parent. Freud considered that the child's identification with the same-sex parent is the socially acceptable outcome of the complex. Failure to move on from the compulsion to satisfy a basic desire and to reconcile with the same-sex parent leads to neurosis.

The theory is named for the mythological figure Oedipus, an ancient Theban King who discovers he has unknowingly murdered his father and married his mother, whose depiction in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex had a profound influence on Freud. Freud rejected the term Electra complex, introduced by Carl Jung in 1913 as a proposed equivalent complex among young girls.

Some critics have argued that Freud, by abandoning his earlier seduction theory (which attributed neurosis to childhood sexual abuse) and replacing it with the theory of the Oedipus complex, instigated a cover-up for sexual abuse of children. Some scholars and psychologists have criticized the theory for being incapable of applying to same-sex parents, and as being incompatible with the widespread aversion to incest.

Background

Sigmund Freud (age 16) with his mother in 1872

Oedipus refers to a 5th-century BC Greek mythological character Oedipus, who unwittingly kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta. A play based on the myth, Oedipus Rex, was written by Sophocles, ca. 429 BC.

Modern productions of Sophocles' play were staged in Paris and Vienna in the 19th century and were phenomenally successful in the 1880s and 1890s. The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) attended. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, first published in 1899, he proposes that an Oedipal desire is a universal psychological phenomenon innate (phylogenetic) to human beings, and the cause of much unconscious guilt.

Freud believed that the Oedipal sentiment has been inherited through the millions of years it took for humans to evolve from apes. His view of its universality was based on his clinical observation of neurotic or normal children, his analysis of his own response to Oedipus Rex, and on the fact that the play was effective on both ancient and modern audiences. Freud describes the Oedipus myth's timeless appeal thus:

His destiny moves us only because it might have been ours — because the Oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so.

Freud also claims that the play Hamlet "has its roots in the same soil as Oedipus Rex", and that the differences between the two plays are revealing:

In [Oedipus Rex] the child's wishful fantasy that underlies it is brought into the open and realized as it would be in a dream. In Hamlet it remains repressed; and—just as in the case of a neurosis—we only learn of its existence from its inhibiting consequences.

However, in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud makes it clear that the "primordial urges and fears" that are his concern and the basis of the Oedipal complex are inherent in the myths the play is based on, not primarily in the play itself, which Freud refers to as a "further modification of the legend" that originates in a "misconceived secondary revision of the material, which has sought to exploit it for theological purposes".

Before the idea of the Oedipus complex, Freud believed that childhood sexual trauma was the cause of neurosis. This idea, sometimes called Freud's seduction theory, was deemphasized in favor of the Oedipus complex around 1897.

Timeline

• 1896. Freud publishes The Aetiology of Hysteria. The paper was criticized for theorizing that hysteria is caused by sexual abuse.
• 1897–1909. After his father's death in 1896, and having seen the play Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, Freud begins using the term "Oedipus". As Freud wrote in an 1897 letter, "I found in myself a constant love for my mother, and jealousy of my father. I now consider this to be a universal event in early childhood."
• 1909–1914. Proposes that Oedipal desire is the "nuclear complex" of all neuroses; first usage of "Oedipus complex" in 1910.
• 1914–1918. Considers paternal and maternal incest.
• 1919–1926. Complete Oedipus complex; identification and bisexuality are conceptually evident in later works.
• 1926–1931. Applies the Oedipal theory to religion and custom.
• 1931–1938. Investigates the "feminine Oedipus attitude" and "negative Oedipus complex"; later the "Electra complex".

The Oedipus complex

Original formulation

Freud's original examples of the Oedipus complex are applied only to boys or men; he never fully clarified his views on the nature of the complex in girls. He described the complex as a young boy's hatred or desire to eliminate his father and to have sex with his mother.

Freud introduced the term "Oedipus complex" in a 1910 article titled A Special Type of Choice of Object made by Men. It appears in a section of this paper describing what happens after a boy first becomes aware of prostitution:

When after this he can no longer maintain the doubt which makes his parents an exception to the universal and odious norms of sexual activity, he tells himself with cynical logic that the difference between his mother and a whore is not after all so very great, since basically they do the same thing. The enlightening information he has received has in fact awakened the memory-traces of the impressions and wishes of his early infancy, and these have led to a reactivation in him of certain mental impulses. He begins to desire his mother herself in the sense with which he has recently become acquainted, and to hate his father anew as a rival who stands in the way of this wish; he comes, as we say, under the dominance of the Oedipus complex. He does not forgive his mother for having granted the favour of sexual intercourse not to himself but to his father, and he regards it as an act of unfaithfulness.

Freud and others eventually extended this idea and embedded it in a larger body of theory.

Later theory

Oedipus and the Sphinx, by Gustave Moreau (1864)

In classical psychoanalytic theory, the Oedipus complex occurs during the phallic stage of psychosexual development (age 3–6 years), although it can manifest at an earlier age.

In the phallic stage, a boy's decisive psychosexual experience is the Oedipus complex—his son–father competition for possession of his mother. It is in this third stage of psychosexual development that the child's genitalia is his or her primary erogenous zone; thus, when children become aware of their bodies, the bodies of other children, and the bodies of their parents, they gratify physical curiosity by undressing and exploring themselves, each other, and their genitals, so learning the anatomic differences between male and female and the gender differences between boy and girl.

Despite the mother being the parent who primarily gratifies the child's desires, the child begins forming a discrete sexual identity—"boy", "girl"—that alters the dynamics of the parent and child relationship; the parents become objects of infantile libidinal energy. The boy directs his libido (sexual desire) toward his mother and directs jealousy and emotional rivalry against his father. The boy's desire for his mother is concomitant with a desire for the death of his father and even an impulse to instigate that death. These desires manifest in the realm of the id, governed by the pleasure principle, but the pragmatic ego, governed by the reality principle, knows that the father is an impossible rival to overcome and the impulse is repressed. The boy's ambivalence about his father's place in the family, is manifested as fear of castration by the physically superior father; the fear is an irrational, subconscious manifestation of the infantile id.

In both sexes, defense mechanisms provide transitory resolutions of the conflict between the drives of the id and the drives of the ego. Repression, the blocking of unacceptable ideas and impulses from the conscious mind, is the first defence mechanism, but its action does not resolve the id–ego conflict; it merely confines the impulse in the unconscious, where it continues to exert pressure in the direction of consciousness. The second defense mechanism is identification, in which the child adapts by incorporating, into his or her (super)ego, the personality characteristics of the same-sex parent. In the case of the boy, this diminishes his castration anxiety, because his likeness to his father protects him from the consequences of their rivalry. The little girl's anxiety is diminished in her identification with the mother, who understands that neither of them possesses a penis, and thus are not antagonists.

The satisfactory resolution of the Oedipus complex is considered important in developing the male infantile super-ego. By identifying with the father, the boy internalizes social morality, thereby potentially becoming a voluntary, self-regulating follower of societal rules, rather than merely reflexively complying out of fear of punishment. Unresolved son–father competition for the psychosexual possession of the mother might result in a phallic stage fixation that leads to the boy becoming an aggressive, over-ambitious, and vain man.

Oedipal case study

In Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy (1909), the case study of the equinophobic boy "Little Hans", Freud showed that the relation between Hans's fears—of horses and of his father—derived from external factors, the birth of a sister, and internal factors, the desire of the infantile id to replace his father as companion to his mother, and guilt for enjoying the masturbation normal to a boy of his age. Little Hans himself was unable to relate his fear of horses to his fear of his father. As the treating psychoanalyst, Freud noted that "Hans had to be told many things that he could not say himself" and that "he had to be presented with thoughts, which he had, so far, shown no signs of possessing".

Feminine Oedipus attitude

Freud applied the Oedipus complex to the psychosexual development of boys and girls, but later modified the female aspects of the theory as "feminine Oedipus attitude" and "negative Oedipus complex". His student–collaborator Carl Jung, in his 1913 work The Theory of Psychoanalysis, proposed the Electra complex to describe a girl's daughter–mother competition for psychosexual possession of the father.

In the phallic stage, the feminine Oedipus attitude is the little girl's decisive psychodynamic experience in forming a discrete sexual identity (ego). Whereas a boy develops castration anxiety, a girl develops penis envy, for she perceives that she has been castrated previously (and missing the penis), and so forms resentment towards her own kind as inferior, while simultaneously striving to claim her father's penis through bearing a male child of her own. Furthermore, after the phallic stage, the girl's psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile clitoris to the adult vagina.

Freud considered a girl's negative Oedipus complex to be more emotionally intense than that of a boy, resulting, potentially, in a woman of submissive, insecure personality.

Freudian theoretic revision

Carl Gustav Jung

The Electra complex: the matricides Electra and Orestes.

In response to Freud's proposal of the Oedipus complex, which was initially more focused on the little boy's experience of desire for the mother and jealous rivalry in relation of the father, student–collaborator Carl Jung proposed that girls experienced desire for the father and aggression towards the mother via what he called the Electra complex. Electra was a Greek mythologic figure who plotted matricidal revenge with Orestes, her brother, against their mother Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus, for the murder of her father Agamemnon. Like Oedipus, the character is the subject of a play by Sophocles (Electra) from the 5th century BC. Orthodox Jungian psychology uses the term "Oedipus complex" only to denote a boy's psychosexual development. Freud himself rejected the equivalence, arguing that at this stage of development it is only the male who experiences a simultaneous love for one parent and competitive hatred for the other. For Freud, the idea of the Electra complex assumes an analogous relation between boys and girls, in relation to their same and opposite sex parents, that does not actually exist. According to Freud, the Electra complex fails to take account of the differing effects of the castration complex, and the significance of the phallus, in the two sexes, and overlooks the girl's preoedipal attachment to the mother.

Otto Rank

Otto Rank on the far left, behind Sigmund Freud, and other psychoanalysts (1922).

In classical Freudian psychology the super-ego, "the heir to the Oedipus complex", is formed as the infant boy internalizes the familial rules of his father. In contrast, in the early 1920s, using the term "pre-Oedipal", Otto Rank proposed that a boy's powerful mother was the source of the super-ego, in the course of normal psychosexual development. Rank's theoretic conflict with Freud excluded him from the Freudian inner circle; nonetheless, he later developed the psychodynamic Object relations theory in 1925.

Melanie Klein

Whereas Freud proposed that the father (the paternal phallus) was central to infantile and adult psychosexual development, Melanie Klein concentrated on the early maternal relationship, proposing that Oedipal manifestations are perceptible in the first year of life, the oral stage. Her proposal was part of the "controversial discussions" (1942–44) at the British Psychoanalytical Association. The Kleinian psychologists proposed that "underlying the Oedipus complex, as Freud described it ... there is an earlier layer of more primitive relationships with the Oedipal couple". She assigned "dangerous destructive tendencies not just to the father but also to the mother in her discussion of the child's projective fantasies". Klein's concept of the depressive position, resulting from the infant's ambivalence toward the mother, lessened the central importance of the Oedipus complex in psychosexual development.

Wilfred Bion

"For the post-Kleinian Bion, the myth of Oedipus concerns investigatory curiosity—the quest for knowledge—rather than sexual difference; the other main character in the Oedipal drama becomes Tiresias (the false hypothesis erected against anxiety about a new theory)". As a result, "Bion regarded the central crime of Oedipus as his insistence on knowing the truth at all costs".

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan argued against removing the Oedipus complex from the center of psychosexual developmental experience. For him, the Oedipus complex "—in so far as we continue to recognize it as covering the whole field of our experience with its signification—may be said to mark the limits that our discipline assigns to subjectivity". It is that which superimposes the kingdom of culture upon the person, marking his or her introduction to the symbolic order.

Thus "a child learns what power independent of itself is as it goes through the Oedipus complex ... encountering the existence of a symbolic system independent of itself". Moreover, Lacan's proposal that "the ternary relation of the Oedipus complex" liberates the "prisoner of the dual relationship" of the son–mother relationship proved useful to later psychoanalysts; thus, for Bollas, the "achievement" of the Oedipus complex is that the "child comes to understand something about the oddity of possessing one's own mind ... discovers the multiplicity of points of view". Likewise, for Ronald Britton, "if the link between the parents perceived in love and hate can be tolerated in the child's mind ... this provides us with a capacity for seeing us in interaction with others, and ... for reflecting on ourselves, whilst being ourselves". As such, in The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes (2000), Michael Parsons proposed that such a perspective permits viewing "the Oedipus complex as a life-long developmental challenge ... [with] new kinds of Oedipal configurations that belong to later life".

In 1920, Sigmund Freud wrote that "with the progress of psychoanalytic studies the importance of the Oedipus complex has become, more and more, clearly evident; its recognition has become the shibboleth that distinguishes the adherents of psychoanalysis from its opponents"; thereby it remained a theoretic cornerstone of psychoanalysis until about 1930, when psychoanalysts began investigating the pre-Oedipal son–mother relationship within the theory of psychosexual development. Janet Malcolm reports that by the late 20th century, to the object relations psychology "avant-garde, the events of the Oedipal period are pallid and inconsequential, in comparison with the cliff-hanging psychodramas of infancy. ... For Kohut, as for Winnicott and Balint, the Oedipus complex is an irrelevance in the treatment of severe pathology". Nonetheless, ego psychology continued to maintain that "the Oedipal period—roughly three-and-a-half to six years—is like Lorenz standing in front of the chick, it is the most formative, significant, moulding experience of human life ... If you take a person's adult life—his love, his work, his hobbies, his ambitions—they all point back to the Oedipus complex".

Criticism

Lack of empirical basis

Studies conducted of children's attitudes to parents at the oedipal stage do not demonstrate the shifts in positive feelings that are predicted by the theory. Case studies that Freud relied upon, such as the case of Little Hans, could not be verified through research or experimentation on a larger population. Adolf Grünbaum argues that the type of evidence Freud and his followers used, the clinical productions of patients during analytic treatment, by their nature cannot provide cogent observational support for Freud's core hypotheses.

Evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, in their 1988 book Homicide, argue that the Oedipus complex theory yields few testable predictions. They find no evidence of the Oedipus complex in people. There is evidence of parent–child conflict but it is not for sexual possession of the opposite sex-parent.

According to psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, Freud and his followers resisted subjecting his theories, including the Oedipus theory, to scientific testing and verification. Lieberman claims that investigations based in cognitive psychology either contradict or fail to support Freud's ideas.

Cover for sexual abuse

In the 1970s, social worker Florence Rush wrote that Freud's seduction theory, which came early in his career, correctly attributed his patients' memories of childhood trauma to the patient's family, often the father, implying that widespread sexual abuse of children by parents was common in his society. According to Rush, the discovery of this abuse made Freud uncomfortable, so he abandoned the theory and invented the Oedipus complex to replace it. The Oedipus complex allowed him to attribute stories of childhood sexual abuse to the children themselves. Freud came to the conclusion that the stories were fantasies of hidden desires, rather than factual descriptions of trauma. Thus, Rush argues, Freud covered up illegal and immoral sexual abuse by undermining the perceptions of his patients, particularly his female patients. Rush's theory became known as The Freudian Coverup.

A director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, adopted the view that Freud's work was a cover-up for abuse after reading Freud's unpublished letters. In his book The Assault on Truth, Masson argues that Freud misattributed accounts of sexual abuse to fabrications and fantasies of children because, for personal reasons, he was unable to accept that the accounts were real. According to Masson, among Freud's reasons to suppress the abuse was that he did not want to be confronted by the father of a patient who was accused of committing abuse. Late in his career Freud sought to prevent colleague Sandor Ferenczi from delivering a paper that reasserted the seduction theory. Freud had hoped that his former student would abandon the theory as he himself had done, but Ferenczi delivered the paper in 1932. Masson writes that, because the theory of the Oedipus complex became widely popular, psychoanalysts continue to do damage to their patients by doubting the reality of the patient's early memories of trauma.

Other Freud scholars argue that Masson and Rush have misrepresented the reasons and intention behind Freud's abandonment of the seduction theory and adoption of the theory of the Oedipus complex. According to Dr. Kurt R. Eissler, who replaced Masson as director of the Freud Archives, Freud did not in any sense reject the reality of childhood sexual trauma, but realized that actual abuse was not the universal cause of neurosis he had thought it to be. New York psychiatrist Dr. Frank R. Hartmann said that "Freud realized he made a mistake in attributing all neurosis to repressed memories of actual abuse. He discovered a much broader theory which explained much more." The historian Peter Gay, author of Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988), emphasizes that Freud continued to believe that some patients were sexually abused, but realized that there can be a difficulty in distinguishing between truth and fiction. Therefore, according to Gay, there was no sinister motive in changing his theory; Freud was a scientist seeking the facts and was entitled to change his views if new evidence was presented to him.

Gender role assumptions

Many scholars and psychologists observe that, because the theory of the Oedipus complex assigns distinct roles to a mother and father, it is a poor fit for families that do not use traditional gender roles.

The Oedipus complex has been criticized for disregarding nontraditional family structures such as families with parents of the same sex

As of November 2022 same-sex marriage is legal in 31 nations. Same-sex couples start families through adoption or surrogacy. The pillars of the family structure are diversifying to include parents who are single or of the same sex as their partner along with the traditional heterosexual, married parents. These new family structures pose new questions for the psychoanalytic theories such as the Oedipus complex that require the presence of the mother and the father in the successful development of a child.

Evidence suggests children who have been raised by parents of the same sex are not much different from children raised in a traditional family structure. The classic theory of the Oedipal drama has fallen out of favor in today's society, according to a study by Drescher, having been criticized for its "negative implications" towards same sex parents. Many psychoanalytic thinkers such as Chodorow and Corbett are working towards changing the Oedipus complex to eliminate "automatic associations among sex, gender, and the stereotypical psychological functions deriving from these categories" and make it applicable to today's modern society. From its Freudian conception, psychoanalysis and its theories have always relied on traditional gender roles to draw itself out.

In the 1950s, psychologists distinguished different roles in parenting for the mother and father. The role of primary caregiver is assigned to the mother. Motherly love was considered to be unconditional. While the father is assigned the role of secondary caregiver, fatherly love is conditional, responsive to the child's tangible achievements. The Oedipus complex is compromised in the context of modern family structures, as it requires the existence of the notions of masculinity and femininity. When there is no father present there is no reason for a boy to have castration anxiety and thus resolve the complex. Psychoanalysis presents non-heteronormative relationships a sort of perversion or fetish rather than a natural occurrence. To some psychologists, this emphasis on gender norms can be a distraction in treating homosexual patients.

The 1972 book Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari is "a critique of psychoanalytic normativity and Oedipus" according to Didier Eribon. Eribon criticizes the Oedipus complex described by Freud or Lacan as an "implausible ideological construct" which is an "inferiorization process of homosexuality". According to psychologist Geva Shenkman, "To examine the application of concepts such as Oedipus complex and primal scene to male same-sex families, we must first eliminate the automatic associations among sex, gender, and the stereotypical psychological functions based on these categories."

Postmodern psychoanalytic theories, which aim to reestablish psychoanalysis for modern times, suggest modifying or discarding the complex because it does not describe newer family structures. Shenkman suggests that a loose interpretation of the Oedipus complex in which the child seeks sexual satisfaction from any parent regardless of gender or sex, would be helpful: "From this perspective, any parental authority, or institution for that matter, may represent the taboo that gives rise to the complex". Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein proposed a theory which broke gender stereotypes but still kept traditional father-mother family structure. She assigned "dangerous destructive tendencies not just to the father but also to the mother in her discussion of the child's projective fantasies".

Stretched theory

Anouchka Grose understands the Oedipus complex as "a way of explaining how human beings are socialised ... learning to deal with disappointment". Her summary of the complex is "You have to stop trying to be everything for your primary carer, and get on with being something for the rest of the world". This post-Lacanian interpretation of the complex diverges considerably from its description in 19th century. Eribon writes that it "stretches the Oedipus complex to a point where it almost doesn't look like Freud's any more".

Aversion to incest

Parent-child and sibling-sibling incestuous unions are almost universally forbidden. An explanation for this incest taboo is that rather than instinctual sexual desire, there is instinctual sexual aversion against these unions (See Westermarck effect). Steven Pinker wrote that "The idea that boys want to sleep with their mothers strikes most men as the silliest thing they have ever heard. Obviously, it did not seem so to Freud, who wrote that as a boy he once had an erotic reaction to watching his mother dressing. Of note is that Amalia Nathansohn Freud was relatively young during Freud's childhood and thus of reproductive age, and Freud having a wet-nurse, may not have experienced the early intimacy that would have tipped off his perceptual system that Mrs. Freud was his mother."

Historical mystique - Ethnocentrism

Bourdieu

In Esquisse pour une autoanalyse, Pierre Bourdieu argues that the success of the concept of Oedipus is inseparable from the prestige associated with ancient Greek culture and the relations of domination that are reinforced in the use of this myth. In other words, if Oedipus was Bantu or Baoulé, his story would probably not be viewed as a human universal. This remark recalls the historically and socially situated character of the founder of psychoanalysis.

Malinowski

Sex and Repression in Savage Society is considered "a famous critique of psychoanalysis, arguing that the 'Oedipus complex' described by Freud is not universal."

Sexism

Feminist views on the Oedipus complex include criticism of the phallocentrism of the theory by philosopher Luce Irigaray among others. Irigaray charges that Freud's work assumes a masculine perspective, epitomized by the centrality of the penis (or lack of a penis for girls) in the Oedipus complex. She thinks that Freud's desire for a neat, symmetrical theory leads him to a contrived understanding of women as inverse men. She charges that he does not explore mother–daughter relationships and that he dogmatically assumes female sexuality will be a perfect mirror of male sexuality.

Evidence

A study conducted at Glasgow University potentially supports at least some aspects of the psychoanalytic conception of the Oedipus complex. The study demonstrated that men and women were twice as likely to choose a partner with the same eye color as the parent of the sex they are attracted to. Another study by anthropologist Allen W. Johnson and psychiatrist Douglas Price-Williams suggests that the classic version of the Oedipus Complex that boys go through is present, with the sexual and aggressive sentiments less repressed in cultures without class separation.

Another study examined adoptive-daughters and choice of husband. The study attempted to distinguish conceptually phenotypic matching from positive sexual imprinting. Phenotypic matching can be understood as an individual's seeking (presumably without conscious awareness) traits in mates that are similar to their own phenotype. Sexual imprinting can be understood as mate preferences that are influenced by experiences and observations with parents/caregivers in early childhood. Adoptive daughters were examined in part to disentangle these two influences. The results of the study support positive sexual imprinting independent of phenotypic matching: "Judges found significant resemblance on facial traits between daughter's husband and her adoptive father. Furthermore, this effect may be modified by the quality of the father–daughter relationship during childhood. Daughters who received more emotional support from their adoptive father were more likely to choose mates similar to the father than those whose father provided a less positive emotional atmosphere." The study's authors also hypothesized that "sexual imprinting on the observed features of the opposite-sex parent during a sensitive period in early childhood might be responsible for shaping people's later mate choice criteria," a hypothesis that would be at least partially in accordance with Freud's Oedipal model.

Encephalitis lethargica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalitis_lethargica 

 

Encephalitis lethargica
Other names	Economo's disease; von Economo's encephalitis
An illustration from von Economo's Die Encephalitis lethargica (1918) showing brain tissue of a monkey affected by Encephalitis lethargica, as seen under a microscope
Specialty	Infectious diseases, neurology
Causes	Unknown
Frequency	Unknown

Encephalitis lethargica is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleeping sickness" or "sleepy sickness" (distinct from tsetse fly-transmitted sleeping sickness), it was first described in 1917 by neurologist Constantin von Economo and pathologist Jean-René Cruchet. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless. Between 1915 and 1926, an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica spread around the world. The exact number of people infected is unknown, but it is estimated that more than one million people contracted the disease during the epidemic, which directly caused more than 500,000 deaths. Most of those who survived never returned to their pre-morbid vigour.

Signs and symptoms

Encephalitis lethargica is characterized by high fever, sore throat, headache, lethargy, double vision, delayed physical and mental response, sleep inversion and catatonia. In severe cases, patients may enter a coma-like state (akinetic mutism). Patients may also experience abnormal eye movements ("oculogyric crises"), Parkinsonism, upper body weakness, muscular pains, tremors, neck rigidity, and behavioral changes including psychosis. Klazomania (a vocal tic) is sometimes present.

Cause

Encephalitis lethargica. Its sequelae and treatment – Constantin von Economo, 1931: front page

The causes of encephalitis lethargica are uncertain. Though it used to be believed that it was connected to the Spanish flu epidemic, modern research provides arguments against this claim. Some studies have explored its origins in an autoimmune response, and, separately or in relation to an immune response, links to pathologies of infectious disease—viral and bacterial, such as in the case of influenza, where a link with encephalitis is clear. Postencephalitic Parkinsonism was clearly documented to have followed an outbreak of encephalitis lethargica following the 1918 influenza pandemic; evidence for viral causation of the Parkinson's symptoms is circumstantial (epidemiologic, and finding influenza antigens in encephalitis lethargica patients), while evidence arguing against this cause is of the negative sort (for example, lack of viral RNA in postencephalitic Parkinsonian brain material). In reviewing the relationship between influenza and encephalitis lethargica (EL), McCall and coauthors conclude, as of 2008, that "the case against influenza [is] less decisive than currently perceived ... there is little direct evidence supporting influenza in the etiology of EL", and that "[a]lmost 100 years after the EL epidemic, its etiology remains enigmatic." Hence, while opinions on the relationship of encephalitis lethargica to influenza remain divided, the preponderance of literature appears skeptical.

The German neurologist Felix Stern, who examined hundreds of encephalitis lethargica patients during the 1920s, noted that their encephalitis lethargica typically evolved over time. The early symptoms would be dominated by sleepiness or wakefulness. A second symptom would lead to an oculogyric crisis. The third symptom would be recovery, followed by a Parkinson-like syndrome. If patients of Stern followed this course of disease, he diagnosed them with encephalitis lethargica. Stern suspected encephalitis lethargica to be close to poliomyelitis, without evidence. Nevertheless, he experimented with the convalescent serum of survivors of the first acute syndrome. He vaccinated patients with early-stage symptoms, telling them that it might be successful. Stern is author of the definitive 1920s book, Die Epidemische Encephalitis.

In 2010, in a substantial Oxford University Press compendium reviewing the historic and contemporary views on EL, its editor, Joel Vilensky, of the Indiana University School of Medicine, quotes another researcher, writing in 1930, who states, "we must confess that etiology is still obscure, the causative agent still unknown, the pathological riddle still unsolved", and goes on to offer the following conclusion, as of that publication date:

Does the present volume solve the "riddle" of EL, which ... has been referred to as the greatest medical mystery of the 20th century? Unfortunately, no: but inroads are certainly made here pertaining to diagnosis, pathology, and even treatment"

Subsequent to publication of this compendium, an enterovirus was discovered in encephalitis lethargica cases from the epidemic. In 2012, Oliver Sacks, the author of the book Awakenings, about institutionalized survivors, acknowledged this virus as the probable cause of the disease. Other sources have suggested Streptococcus pneumoniae as a cause.

Diagnosis

There have been several proposed diagnostic criteria for encephalitis lethargica. One, which has been widely accepted, includes an acute or subacute encephalitic illness where all other known causes of encephalitis have been excluded. Another diagnostic criterion, suggested more recently, says that the diagnosis of encephalitis lethargica "may be considered if the patient's condition cannot be attributed to any other known neurological condition and that they show the following signs: influenza-like signs; hypersomnolence (hypersomnia), wakeability, ophthalmoplegia (paralysis of the muscles that control the movement of the eye), and psychiatric changes". Others describe lethargy, "mask-like faces", excess blood in the meninges, and other general neurological symptoms.

Treatment

L-DOPA

Modern treatment approaches to encephalitis lethargica include immunomodulating therapies, and treatments to remediate specific symptoms.

There is little evidence so far of a consistent effective treatment for the initial stages, though some patients given steroids have seen improvement. The disease becomes progressive, with evidence of brain damage similar to that of Parkinson's disease.

Treatment is then symptomatic. L-DOPA (Levodopa) and other anti-Parkinson drugs often produce dramatic responses; however, most people given L-DOPA experience improvements that are short-lived.

History

Occurrences

Retrospective diagnosis tentatively suggests various historical outbreaks of encephalitis lethargica:

• In 1580, Europe was swept by a serious febrile and lethargic illness that led to Parkinsonism and other neurological sequelae.
• In 1673–1675, a similar serious epidemic occurred in London, which Thomas Sydenham described as "febris comatosa".
• In 1695, a 20-year-old woman in Germany experienced oculogyric crises, Parkinsonism, diplopia, strabismus, and other symptoms following an attack of somnolent brain fever, as described by Albrecht of Hildesheim.
• In 1712–1713, a severe epidemic of Schlafkrankheit ('sleep sickness') occurred in Tübingen, Germany, followed in many cases by persistent slowness of movement and lack of initiative (aboulia).
• Between 1750 and 1800, France and Germany experienced minor epidemics of "coma somnolentum" with features of Parkinsonism, including hyperkinetic hiccup, myoclonus, chorea, and tics.
• Between 1848 and 1882, Paris-based neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot documented many isolated cases of juvenile Parkinsonism, associated with diplopia, oculogyria, tachypnoea, retropulsion, and obsessional disorders, which were almost certainly post-encephalitic in origin.
• In 1890 in Italy, following the influenza epidemic of 1889–1890, a severe epidemic of somnolent illnesses (nicknamed the "Nona") appeared. For the few survivors of the Nona, Parkinsonism and other sequelae developed in almost all cases.
• Between 1915 and 1926, a world-wide encephalitis lethargica pandemic occurred, impacting nearly 5 million people and killing an estimated 1.6 million people.

Pandemic of 1915–1926

Further information: 1919–1930 encephalitis lethargica epidemic

In the winter of 1916–1917, a "new" illness suddenly appeared in Vienna and other cities, and rapidly spread world-wide over the next three years. Earlier reports appeared throughout Europe as early as the winter of 1915–1916, but communication about the disease was slow and chaotic, given the varied manifestation of symptoms and difficulties disseminating information in wartime; it was officially recognized as its own disease in 1917. Some authors define the span of the outbreak as being from 1918 to 1930.

Neurologist Constantin von Economo published a paper in April 1917 describing some of the cases he encountered in the winter months of 1916–1917. These patients, despite varying diagnoses, had a similar pattern of symptoms which led von Economo to suggest a novel disease, which he called Encephalitis Lethargica. In France, physician Jean-René Cruchet was experiencing something similar, and he published his findings within a few days of von Economo. After these two, many more reports began being released about the disease, starting in Europe before moving around the globe.

Until Constantin von Economo identified a unique pattern of damage among the brains of deceased patients and introduced the unifying name encephalitis lethargica, reports of the protean disease came in under a range of names: botulism, toxic ophthalmoplegia, epidemic stupor, epidemic lethargic encephalitis, acute polioencephalitis, Heine-Medin disease, bulbar paralysis, hystero-epilepsy, acute dementia, and sometimes just "an obscure disease with cerebral symptoms". Just 10 days before von Economo's breakthrough in Vienna, Jean-René Cruchet described 40 cases of "subacute encephalomyelitis" in France.

The number of people infected during the ten years of the pandemic is unknown, but it is estimated that more than 1 million people contracted the disease, which directly caused more than 500,000 deaths. Encephalitis lethargica assumed its most virulent form between October 1918 and January 1919.

In the United States the epidemic peaked from 1920 to 1924. It is estimated that as many as one million people were diagnosed with encephalitis lethargica during the epidemic period.

The pandemic disappeared in 1927, as abruptly and mysteriously as it first appeared. The great encephalitis pandemic coincided with the 1918 influenza pandemic, and it is likely that the influenza virus potentiated the effects of the causative agent of the encephalitis or lowered resistance to it in a catastrophic way.

Aftermath

Many surviving patients of the 1915–1926 pandemic seemed to make a complete recovery and return to their normal lives. However, the majority of survivors subsequently developed neurological or psychiatric disorders, often after years or decades of seemingly perfect health. Post-encephalitic syndromes varied widely: sometimes they proceeded rapidly, leading to profound disability or death; sometimes very slowly; sometimes they progressed to a certain point and then stayed at this point for years or decades; and sometimes, following their initial onslaught, they remitted and disappeared. It is also known to cause postencephalitic parkinsonism (PEP). Though often thought of as a disease of the past, it is still seen in occasional cases today.

Notable cases

Notable cases include:

• Muriel "Kit" Richardson (née Hewitt), first wife of actor Sir Ralph Richardson, died of the condition in October 1942, having first shown symptoms in 1927–28.
• There is speculation that Adolf Hitler may have had encephalitis lethargica when he was a young adult (in addition to the more substantial case for Parkinsonism in his later years).
• Mervyn Peake (1911–1968), author of the Gormenghast books, began his decline towards death which was initially attributed to encephalitis lethargica with Parkinson's disease–like symptoms, although others have later suggested his decline in health and eventual death may have been due to Lewy body dementia.
• Those described in the book Awakenings by the British neurologist Oliver Sacks.
• Jane Norton Grew Morgan, wife of J. P. Morgan Jr., died of encephalitis lethargica in 1925. At the time, doctors attributed her encephalitis to having contracted influenza during the 1918 pandemic.