Postimperial Melancholia and Brexit

The lead-up to and the aftermath of the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union have been characterized by particular psychic reactions and affective states: shock, perplexity, anxiety, guilt, paranoia, anger, depression, delusion, and manic elation. The debate over Brexit has played out largely in an affective register. Scholars and journalists in search of explanations have reached for psychological concepts such as amnesia and have cited feelings, specifically nostalgia and anger, as major factors. Paul Gilroy’s Postcolonial Melancholia provides a more useful analytical framework for constructing histories of Brexit beyond the usual narratives of reversal, unexpected rupture, or liberation, and for unearthing the psychic attachments and affective dynamics underlying such narratives. Gilroy’s conception of postimperial melancholia allows us to see the links between Brexit, anti-immigrant racism, and the obsession with national identity, and the unacknowledged and ongoing legacies of empire and decolonization in contemporary Britain.

Personal Psychologic Pecularities of Aborted Women

It is established that the significant part of aborted women is susceptable to pronounced negative psychic reactions (personal alarm, psychotism, neurotism) which have stable nature. Women with such personal psychologic characteristics present a group of highW risk of abortion propagation, various disorders of reproductive function and reproductive behaviour. In women dispensaries and in family planning service institutions it is necessary to introduce the psychologic testing to reveal persons of this risk group and to perform the corresponding psychologic correction for prevention of undesirable pregnancy.

Psychological Obstacles to Genetic Education

Medical knowledge and psychic reactions were studied in families affected by a progressive autosomal recessive disease, aspartylglucosaminuria. The information was given mainly in simple but written form. The subjects appeared to accept little correct information. Conversation did not appear to be of much value and intense emotional reactions were provoked. Attitudes towards the disease and patients could be divided into three groups: rational (30%), defensive (50%), and hostile (20%). The importance of early and repeated personal communication is emphasized.