Beethoven and Mental Illness

[jfienen]

Did beethoven have some kind of mental illness? I have read and heard many conflicting reports on this subject. Can you guys please respond and let me know or guide me towards the right information?


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[Nightklavier]

I've read somewhere that perhaps our Ludwig had manic depression. Anyone want to confirm if they saw that somewhere too?

[Peter]

I think it's almost impossible to diagnose someone retrospectively after 200 years, all we end up with is a mass of theories which are good for writing a new book. However we know Beethoven suffered from depression due to his deafness and general poor health - as to being manic, well in the throws of the creative process he probably did seem manic, but I don't think he could be described in modern terms as a manic-depressive. He was certainly eccentric and these eccenticities were high lighted with age and increasing deafness.

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'Man know thyself'

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Peter:
. However we know Beethoven suffered from depression due to his deafness and general poor health

The whole bottle of wine a day would not have helped him either.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Steppenwolf:
The whole bottle of wine a day would not have helped him either.

By the standards of the day a bottle of wine was quite abstemious.

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'Man know thyself'

[Steppenwolf]

Originally posted by Peter:
By the standards of the day a bottle of wine was quite abstemious.

I'm sure it was. But it is a fact that large amounts of alcohol can cause depression. Try drinking a whole bottle of wine a day and see how your mood is after a week. Certainly that was not the primary cause, but add that to his deafness, isolation and lonliness, and it is, in my opinion, not at all suprising that he suffered with depression.

I certainly don't think there is credible evidence that he suffered from any serious mental illness. The manic-depressive theory is pure fantasy - in our post-Freudian world we seem obsessed with psychoanalysing historical personalities and 'diagnosing' them with all sorts of clinical conditions. The hardest possibility for us to accept is that perhaps there was nothing wrong with some of them.


[This message has been edited by Steppenwolf (edited 10-28-2005).]

[sjwenger]

It is common for geniuses to be called "crazy" by their non-genius contemporaries. However, Beethoven's behavior and his mannerisms did nothing to dispel that image . . .

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Fate banging on the door with a jackhammer

[jfienen]

If diagnoses were hard back then. Then how do we know about his manic depression.

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by jfienen:
If diagnoses were hard back then. Then how do we know about his manic depression.

We don't. You misunderstand, I think. He was never diagnosed with it, people today look at some of his documented behaviors and see that they are consistent with some of the symptoms that we now associate with bipolar disorder (manic/depression), and they say "Aha! He had manic/depression". In fact, without directly examining him, there is no basis for such a diagnosis. It is a popular thing to do...


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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