Suicide, Melancholia, and Manic Defense in Byron’s Manfred

Richard Lansdown, “Suicide, Melancholia, and Manic Defense in Byron's Manfred” (pp. 1–32) This essay presents a literary-critical account of Lord Byron’s verse drama Manfred (1817) from the perspective of Freudian and Object Relations psychological theories, in particular as regards the distinction between melancholia and mourning and the presence of part-objects within the psyche. It argues that whereas it is important to preserve a distinction between the poet and his works, such a distinction can never be total: like Childe Harold, Manfred is clearly in part a personal projection, given Byron’s state of mind at the time of composition. To provide context for these discussions the essay surveys both Byron’s personal views concerning suicide and the history of self-slaughter in Western culture, with Romanticism as a particular focus. The poet’s attitudes were many and various, depending on which cases he had in mind. Furthermore, the Romantic tradition initiated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and continued by Byron’s numerous treatments of suicide mark a complication of the attitudes we find voiced by Enlightenment philosophers and, indeed, by Sigmund Freud himself.

Risk for Mania and its Relationship to Implicit and Explicit Achievement Motivation

There is evidence that bipolar disorders are associated with achievement-related cognitions such as setting high goals. A psychodynamic model, the manic defense hypothesis, postulates that a threat to fragile self-esteem triggers grandiosity and manic behaviors in vulnerable people. Vulnerability to bipolar disorders should therefore be positively associated with indicators of explicit hope of success (HS) and implicit fear of failure (FF). Using an online sample (n = 252), we tested these hypotheses using the well-validated Hypomanic Personality Scale as risk indicator for mania, the Multi-Motive Grid for achievement motivation, controlling for current and lifetime depression. Contrary to expectations, we found that vulnerability for mania was significantly and positively related to implicit HS but not to FF after controlling for depression. All measures were self-report tools. Our results contradict the Manic Defense Hypothesis, but they are in line with the idea that achievement-related cognitions are of relevance to vulnerability in bipolar disorders. This is in line with research focusing on the role of the Behavioral Activation System in relation to vulnerability for mania.