Chapter 1: Origins of Obsessions

In this chapter, Davis explains in detail the origins of obsessions, and how obsession was defined many years ago. Several steps had to come before the idea of obsessions in order for the emergence of obsession to be established.   Some of these steps included the idea of obsession being a demonic possession, the idea that obsession had to deal with nerves, the idea of partial insanity, and many more steps finally leading up to obsession.

 Davis gives facts relating all the way back to the Renaissance time when people considered obsession as demonic possession.  Davis explains the idea of the demonic possession model and how people believed that the devil was the cause of a person’s obsession.  In this idea, the only way to relieve a person from their obsession is through exorcism.  After the idea of demonic possession, the next explanation of obsessions and mental illness was the nervous system.  I was amazed that people actually believed that the cause of mental illness was nerves, and that the only solution was the applications of electric shocks!

Partial insanity, during the eighteenth century, was also a topic Davis spoke about, and I could actually see the relation it had towards obsession.  As Davis explains, partial insanity meant being “strongly affected by a mental problem but also clearly aware of the symptoms…the person might be said to articulate the conditions but powerless to resist.”  I see where this relates to obsession because when a person has an obsession, they know that they have a problem, but they cannot control or stop their thoughts.   Some diseases that people believed had the quality of partial insanity were hysteria, hypochondria, vapors, and spleen.  Davis refers to these conditions as “the quartet”.  Another topic I thought to be crazy was the idea of the “organ theory”, and how people actually believed that vapors from specific organs of the body affected other organs like the brain.

Even though we may look at these concepts as completely weird and useless, these concepts and others had to happen in order for the true meaning of obsession to come about and to understand it better.