Unobjective, Unordered Scribbles

Abstract

We observe that many patients who are writing letters do not carry out their intention to give news about themselves to relatives and friends but fill their sheets of paper with seemingly senseless scribbles. We find furthermore that periodicals, newspapers, and whatever else the patient finds in the way of printed and plain paper is covered with disordered scribbles. A staff physician who values orderliness and has trained his personnel well will perhaps see this kind of material much less frequently than it is produced because it is thrown out. Interest is usually aroused only when the patient writes or draws reasonably sensibly. Just the same one sometimes finds sheets of paper preserved in patients’ histories which lack all rational sense. Here we shall look briefly at such artifacts, which are generally destroyed and survive only in minor fragments, evidence of the most tedious play with paper and pencil.