Volume 222 - Issue 6 - June 2023
Sonja Gerstner, You Came?
1952–1971 • Oil on fiberboard • 30 x 40 cm • Inv.No. D 8073/2 (2007)
© Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital
Sonja Gerstner (1952–1971) was 16 years old when she first showed symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. Her parents were celebrities in the GDR (East Germany): her father, Karl-Heinz Gerstner, was a television journalist, her mother, Sybille, was a painter and costume designer, founder of the famous GDR fashion magazine Sibylle. She later wrote about her daughter's misfortune under a pseudonym in the book Flucht in die Wolken (Flight into the Clouds, 1981), detailing her daughter's three stays in a closed psychiatric ward (with insulin coma and electroconvulsive therapy), the increasing helplessness and social isolation. The demands of Sonja's parents for different treatments and psychotherapeutic supervision remained unsuccessful. Sonja Gerstner's forced separation from her boyfriend Peter, following medical advice, was a traumatic experience for her. In the psychiatric clinic, she kept a diary, wrote poems, composed songs, and displayed a remarkable artistic talent. In her drawings and paintings, she processed her love for “Peer” and her first sexual experiences, which she was ashamed of, but also her doubts, her fears, and her suicidal thoughts. ‘You came?’ Is the title of a self-portrait with her boyfriend, which she painted after receiving an electroshock treatment in 1970.
In December 1970, Sonja Gerstner was released from the psychiatric ward. She felt lonely, unloved, and worthless, and took her own life on March 8, 1971 (on International Women's Day) at the age of 19. In 2007, her mother entrusted the largest part of her daughter's artistic legacy, 150 works in total, to the Prinzhorn Collection on permanent loan.
Text by Ingrid von Beyme, reproduced with permission
We are always looking for interesting and visually appealing images for the cover of the Journal andwould welcome suggestions or pictures,which should be sent to Dr Allan Beveridge, British Journal of Psychiatry, 21 Prescot Street,London, E1 8BB, UK or [email protected].
Highlights of this issue
Highlights of this issue
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- 19 May 2023, p. A23
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Editorial
The WHO World Mental Health Report: a call for action
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- 16 February 2023, pp. 227-229
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Analysis
The phantasm of zero suicide
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- 15 March 2023, pp. 230-233
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Paper
Occupational class suicide risk: 12-year study of national coronial data
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- 17 March 2023, pp. 234-240
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Optimising plasma clozapine levels to improve treatment response: an individual patient data meta-analysis and receiver operating characteristic curve analysis
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- 30 March 2023, pp. 241-245
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The effectiveness of a primary care-based collaborative care model to improve quality of life in people with severe mental illness: PARTNERS2 cluster randomised controlled trial
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- 20 April 2023, pp. 246-256
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Effect of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels on the internalising dimension as a transdiagnostic risk factor: Mendelian randomisation study
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- 19 May 2023, pp. 257-263
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Book Review
Science of Life after Death By Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Marianna de Abreu Costa and Humberto Schubert Coelho Springer. 2022. £39.99 (pb). 101 pp. ISBN 978-3-031-06055-7
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- 19 May 2023, p. 264
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Kaufman's Clinical Neurology for Psychiatrists (9th edn) By David Kaufman, Howard Geyer, Mark Milstein and Jillian Rosengard Elsevier. 2022. 700pp. £122.99 (hb). ISBN: 978-0323796804
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- 19 May 2023, pp. 264-265
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Innovations in Global Mental Health Edited by Samuel O. Okpaku Springer Nature. 2021. £549.99 (hb). 1612 pp. ISBN 9783030572952
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- 19 May 2023, p. 265
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Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope
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- 19 May 2023, pp. 267-268
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Extra
To Sir William Gull – poem
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- 19 May 2023, p. 229
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Heroin chic is in? Reflective poem by a core trainee working in child and adolescent mental health services – poem
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- 19 May 2023, p. 256
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Front Cover (OFC, IFC) and matter
BJP volume 222 issue 6 Cover and Front matter
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- 19 May 2023, pp. f1-f3
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Back Cover (IBC, OBC) and matter
BJP volume 222 issue 6 Cover and Back matter
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- 19 May 2023, p. b1
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