Visible saints: social cynosures and dysphoria in the Mediterranean tradition

"Visible saints" are individuals in the Mediterranean culture area who lead lives of heroic, exemplary and public suffering. This paper offers an analysis of visible saints as social cynosures as a means of exploring critical cultural psychiatric issues. We examine the changing nature of saintly suffering in the culture area and look at the media through which familiarity with the saints and their passions is developed and maintained. A detailed clinical case study is presented of "Madame Lorca," identified by her peers as a "saint." We focus on a particular illness episode which proved to be an amplification of symptoms of long standing. Psychiatric diagnostic instruments were administered and indicated the presence of severe clinical depression. However, our research suggests that Mme. Lorca's symptomatology reflects culturally specific methods of coping with dysphoric affects and chronic illness. The paper concludes with an exploration of the nature of personal illness as it relates to a wider cultural system of meaning. The findings demonstrate that the visible saint and her symptomatology are part of a cultural system which generates, promotes, patterns and frames the experience of dysphoric affect in a cultural complex quite distinct from that of clinical depression.