Signs of Mental Illness
October 13, 2007
by Mitchell E. Gibson, M.D. 1998 Llewellyn Publications
Heralded on the cover as “An Astrological and Psychiatric Breakthrough”, “Signs of Mental Illness is a scholarly work attempting to lay bare significant markers for mental illness through the birth chart.
The hope and the promise of this book is that it would provide some insight of use to practicing astrologers when dealing with client’s issues. While astrologers are not psychologists, nor pretend to be, it would be helpful to have some definitive information on the mental health of an individual we are working with. However, with this book, we are not there yet.
It must be noted, first, the Dr. Gibson’s work, uses standard scientific technique in designing a research study. The size of his experimental and control groups are all within generally accepted parameters for scientific research work. When it comes to the astrology, it is another matter.
He writes, “Most of the significant astrological correlations that I have found in the birth charts of the clients with mental illnesses have been discovered in the declinations. I will now outline the major terms and definitions that will act as guideposts during our journey in to the uncharted territory. . . . Many of these terms . . . are new and are the result of new research findings during the course of my work.
Dr. Gibson uses declinations, a technique that some, but not all astrologers use. He places the information on longitude, latitude chart, in the manner somewhat like that of a Astro*cart*graphy chart, another technique not generally used among astrologers and coins new terms. This hardly makes it accessible material for the average astrologer to sift and evaluate.
Still, one researcher, Terri McCartney, at Lois Rodden’s Astrodata Bank, tried to reproduce Dr. Gibson’s results for markers of alcohol abuse. Siting as weakness in Dr. Gibson’s study the small size of his experimental and control groups, Terri was unable to reproduce Dr. Gibson’s results in a larger study group. Only one marker, Moon opposition Neptune, reproduced in McCartney’s study.
Terri writes, “While it’s disappointing that I wasn’t able to replicate Gibson’s results with 19 of the markers, knowing what doesn’t contribute to the behavior under investigation is equally beneficial to knowing what does.”
Dr. Gibson’s book is a great spring board for astrological researchers and for those who want to investigate some experimental techniques, but the general reader, beginning and intermediate astrologers would not find this book useful.
astrology, mental illness, astrological research
October 13th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Well written, informative review. Thanks!
November 17th, 2007 at 9:23 am
[...] illness is “outside the province of the astrologer”. As pointed out previously in another post, we don’t yet have definitive diagnostic tools to pinpoint mental illness by interpreting a [...]