graceface kwon: February 2011

One day as I meandered the psychology section of the stacks, my hands came upon the most engrossing psychiatry book that was published in 1948. The pages felt delicate like powder, and the content was extremely interesting and entertaining. I checked this book out 3 times until I was no longer allowed. Which felt silly because the book was last checked out in 1975, so no one was exactly eager to get their hands on it.

This illustration is about an antiquated description of narcissism, a symptom of hebephrenic schizophrenia.

This was an assignment for Visual Communications:

1. Find a book at the library you enjoy. (Already found it before)

2. Illustrate/Design a bookmark about one of the pages.

3. Leave that bookmark in that book (without your name) and return it to the library.

Here is the portion of the book that I found so fascinating and bizarre:

"The Patient has no natural interest in his body, though he uses his body extensively in the service of his ego. He believes himself both male and female.

Because he possesses the primitive idea of oral impregnation, he eats voraciously with the idea that the more he eats the greater number of babies he produces. He is incessantly populating the world.

Closely connected with this idea is the belief that people are constantly being reincarnated through him: they are in him ready to be born.

Furthermore, in his delusional way he regards the interior of his body as made up of people, with whom he is constantly in touch.

The various organs of his body are people. That is why the patient says he is talking to his heart or lungs or stomach, or other organs."

-Hinsie, Leland E. Understandable Psychiatry. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948.