The Deluded Judge: His Memoirs changed everything.
The Man
Daniel Paul Schreber was a remarkable man. Born in Saxony in 1842, highly educated and very intelligent, he trained as a lawyer and was made a judge in the High Court at Dresden, North Germany, by the time he was 25 years old. In 1884 he sought election to the Reichstag but was unsuccessful. The pressures he experienced resulted in a breakdown over the next year or so. He recovered and continued his work until 1893 when, for a second time, he suffered a breakdown and was admitted to an asylum. He remained incarcerated for seven years and was held under the German legal provision known as tutelage, which permitted him to be restricted. He was moved between private and public asylums but spent most of his time in the Sonnenstein public asylum.
In a determined effort to secure his discharge, Schreber wrote a lengthy memoir to document his psychic experiences. The memoir formed a key part of his legal appeal against detention, and its content revealed profound insights into a psychotic mind and what it might mean to recover.
In addition to the significant content of the memoir, however, were the preceding and subsequent events which add immensely to interpretations of the writings and knowledge about serious mental illness.
