Read a strange article today on the history of psychiatry in Papua New Guinea. Strange because fitting psychiatry into this cultural context seems a mighty stretch. But it covered the psychotic-ness of whites as well, including this interesting fact: in WWII, “Among the Americans the evacuation of psychotics was of an order greater than among the Australians, with the psychosis exit rate much higher from war-time New Guinea than from either the Mediterranean or European theatres”.
Another interesting fact was that, after WWII, a psychiatric hospital was opened in the vicinity of Jayapura (capt. of now-West Papua), but quite close to the the border with PNG. At first it was "an exteremly poor old style mental asylum" - and it was known as "Irene" (no explanation given). I shudder to think what it must have been like. It's not hard to believe being sent to "Irene", in the freaking where, would send anyone crazy.
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