Is it worthy for psychiatrist to read the nineteenth century psychology textbook? Review article

Abstract

The William James’ theories experience a renaissance; there are used not only in psychology but also in psychiatry. The article presents examples of James’ up-to-date theories on the research of emotions, memory and attention. In emotions, the ridiculed James–Lange’s theory, indicating the somatic manifestations of anxiety in the production and perception of emotions, is surprisingly accurately explaining many physiological and pathological conditions (emotional life of people with locked-in syndrome, idiopathic orthostatic hypotension, panic disorder’ pathophysiology). In memory, James suggested distinction between the primary and secondary, congruous with the contemporary differentiation. As the precursor he was the first who estimated working memory’ range. He predicted the associative nature of memory, its relationship with emotions and motivation and investigated autobiographical memory beforehand. Even the idea of “scars on the brain” occurring under stress, in the light of knowledge about the atrophy of certain brain structures (the hippocampus) after trauma is prophetic. In attention, the division into involuntary (bottom–up) and voluntary (top–down) proposed by James is the paradigm of modern brain research with scope reaching the latest concepts of schizophrenia. In view of the relevance and far-reaching consequences of his observations, the scientific achievements of James deserves greater prevalence among psychiatrists, especially in Poland, where its knowledge is dim.