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Millennium Celebrations Don't Ignite Jerusalem Syndrome
Jan. 4, 2000 (Cleveland) -- As the clock ticked down to midnight in Jerusalem, a special crisis intervention team watched and waited for an onslaught of white-robed would-be prophets who never appeared. Just as the world breathed a collective sigh of relief when Y2K computer glitches failed to materialize, the staff at Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center in Jerusalem is relieved that the New Year didn't spark the temporary psychosis called Jerusalem syndrome.
The syndrome, described as a type of ecstasy that overcomes the visitor to the city, is reviewed in a report in the January 2000 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. It was the cause of six to eight admissions per month at Kfar Shaul in the waning months of 1999, Rimona Durst, MD, tells WebMD. At that rate, admissions were much higher than normal, and so the staff was prepared for worse over the New Year's holiday.
Durst, a senior lecturer at Kfar Shaul and co-author of the paper, says the center opened a "a new emergency room with 12 beds a few months ago in anticipation of an increase in these cases with the coming of the new millennium." Although she says that she and her colleagues were relieved by the relatively quiet New Year -- only two suspected cases of Jerusalem syndrome were seen over the weekend and in both cases the patients were released after an initial assessment -- the worst may be yet to come.
"When we talk about 'the millennium' we are really referring to the period up to Passover or Easter," she says. With Passover starting at sundown April 12 and Easter this year falling on April 16, the staff at Kfar Shaul will be on the alert throughout the first quarter of the year, she says.
The syndrome can actually be divided into three main types, says Durst. The first type occurs in people with a history of mental illness who visit Jerusalem because they identify with a biblical character or see themselves as a religious or political savior. This type also includes patients who are obsessed with magical thinking, as was the case with the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, an early victim of Jerusalem syndrome. After Gogol's writing career was cut short by mental illness, he had a " vision" suggesting that his muse would return in Jerusalem. Durst says he traveled "to Israel in 1848, but starved himself to death four years later."
A second subtype of Jerusalem syndrome is found among individuals belonging to a group that may have apocalyptic teachings. Usually these groups are associated with fundamentalist Christian teachings, but in some instances Jewish groups have also been identified, Durst and colleagues write. Surprisingly, they are unlikely to come to the attention of psychiatric services. Durst says she and her colleagues anticipate that there may be incidents associated with members of these groups in the period before Easter. In some cases, members of these groups believe that they can initiate an action that will result in "the resurrection of the dead or the reappearance of Jesus Christ," the authors write.
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