Reflex theory

“Reflex theory explained neurasthenia, puerperal insanity, adolescent insanity, hysteria, insanity related to menopause, and other conditions as well. The reflex theory was a concept designed to account ‘scientifically’ for symptoms grouped together by patients and patients’ families. Physicians argued among themselves about the direction of the reflex action – predictably, with neurologists maintaining the nerves as the source and gynecologists asserting the primacy of the reproductive organs – but regardless of specialty or nonspecialization, nineteenth-century physicians accepted the patient-grouping of physical and psychological symptoms as codependent and fashioned disease concepts to account for patients’ complaints. . . . The reflex theory, along with the diseases it scientifically legitimized, came out of a doctor-patient-family relationship new to the nineteenth century, one based on the patient’s willingness to tell all and show all, the doctor’s ability to listen sympathetically and intervene in some way, and the patient’s and family’s acquiescence to some degree of medical control” (Thieriot, 356). . . . The medical literature indicates that physicians were sympathetic listeners who managed to assert authority and control even while they often collaborated with patients and patients’ families and friends over treatment. . . . Often the physician’s recommendations had to do with asserting authority not only over patients, but over patients’ families and friends as well” (359).