Ricardian science

Ricardian Science refers to the unorthodox psychiatric theories and practices that originated at Saint Richard's Asylum in Tiegang during the late 17th century after Norton. It represented a radical rejection of contemporary "Hyperborean" medical models of treating mental illness in favour of experimental, experiential and at times unconventional methods.

Foundations

Saint Richard's Asylum was founded in 1692 by proponents of the Anti-Hyperborean school, which disavowed the use of any medications to manage psychological conditions. Instead, the asylum believed that integrating residents into society through occupational therapy, structured activities and moderate alcohol consumption were the proper "treatments."

This anti-medicalism laid the philosophical basis for what became known as Ricardian Science. The asylum contended that those suffering from mental afflictions had heightened insights into the nature of the human psyche itself. Physicians were banned from the premises, as the residents were considered the true experts on their own abnormal mental states.

Methodologies

Two core practices defined the Ricardian approach. The first involved narrative immersion, where inmates would be instructed to engage in prolonged acts of collaborative writing to construct elaborate fictional worlds. Any deviation from the established narrative would be punished through disciplinary measures like electric shocks to enforce conformity.

The second method was observational experimentation, where residents displaying particularly divergent psychological traits would be subjected to invasive study by "anatomists and keepers of measuring instruments." This allowed the asylum's practitioners to explore the physical characteristics and biological sources of aberrant psychology.