Kobiece oblicza: czarostwo i melancholia. Kilka refleksji na temat postrzegania psychoz społecznych dawniej i dziś
Female faces: witchcraft and melancholy. Some reflections about the perception of psychotic conditions in the past and present

Summary/Abstract: The author of the article presents an interpretation of the early modern discourses on witchcraft and mental disorders from the perspective of exclusion and inclusion processes regulating social dynamic in specific historical conditions. An intellectual basis for the early modern discourses on witchcraft and mental disorders was a traditional assumption about an alleged weakness and tendency of the female nature to conditions associated with melancholy, which was seen as both a natural (temperamental) condition and a supernatural one caused by the devil (melancholia diabolica). Popular misogynic opinions in the discourse on witchcraft were also present in the discourse on melancholy perceived as mainly a female illness, and encouraging the concept of the “majority” of Christian society being threatened by the “minority” of women accused of witchcraft and additionally marginalized by the association with a religious and ethnic “otherness”.

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