Renfield Syndrome

annimi — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:05:49 +0000

The official status of clinical vampirism, otherwise called Renfield Syndrome, is currently popularized, though rarely emulated by criminals. Unfortunately, because of its rare appearance in society, it doesn’t actually appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The current version, the DSM-IV is a list of all mental disorders, that includes the criteria necessary for diagnosis; in other words, Renfield Syndrome aka clinical vampirism, is not recognized as an official illness, despite the active term being applied to occasional cases of psychiatric interest. The cases the term is applied to are usual those of serial killers and violent criminals who drink their victims’ blood. However, there are psychiatric references made to the disease.

For example, you may find the works of Richard Noll especially intriguing; he coined the term Renfield Syndrome, and discusses it in his book, Bizarre Diseases of the Mind. Noll named the disease after Dracula’s deranged victim, Dr. Renfield, who spent his time in the story locked within a prison-like mental facility, eating insects because he craved their life force. Noll claims that males are most often affected by the disease, and that it runs in stages. The first stage is an event in the male’s life before puberty, in which he is sexually excited by a bloody injury, or ingestion of the blood. The second stage is sexual fantasies about drinking blood during puberty, which eventually becomes auto-vampirism, –drinking one’s own blood. Inevitably, the individual suffering from Renfield Syndrome is tempted to try this on animals, which leads to drinking the blood of human beings.

There are only a few case files with which to study, making the disease rare, and hard to investigate, in terms of psychological interest. The book also touched on other extremely rare personality disorders, such as possession, and split- or multiple personalities, disease that modern psychiatry knows very little about. The sad fact is that for Renfield Syndrome to be more identifiable, and more easily diagnosed, there would have to be more cases of the illness to study. The more disturbing question lies in the modern vampire community; are these people suffering from a mental illness, or are they simply following a lifestyle that makes them happy? This editor plans to bring back a favorite interview subject; the vampire Merticus, to answer that question, and discover how the modern vampire community feels about the disease.

Vampire Subculture: Sanguinarians

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:31:06 +0000

The vampire lifestyle, or subculture has existed for many years, although it’s been growing over the last few decades. Many believe that the lifestyle has grown out of and stemmed from the Goth subculture, while still retaining elements and mannerisms of those participating in the S/M lifestyle. The two types of vampires in the subculture are psychic vampires, or energy vampires, and sanguinarian vampires. Sanguinarian derives from a Latin term, that means bloodthirsty; so the sanguinarians feed on small doses of human blood. They believe that they need the blood in order to sustain their health. In the sanguinarian division of the vampire lifestyle, there are donors, vampires, and those who practice autovampirism. Autovampirism is the act of drinking one’s own blood.

Other members of the vampire community, or lifestyle, frown on the act of autovampirism because they believe that it possesses no benefits that can be passed to the drinker. It’s also viewed as a type of physical self abuse, by those in the community, and also by the majority of those outside the vampire lifestyle. Other members of the sanguinarian division of the vampire subculture are the donors. Just as the term implies, a donor is a person either romantically linked, or not to a vampire who allows he or she to drink blood from them. Usually no more than a couple teaspoons worth is taken. Often, there will be a vampire/donor contract drawn up to help set the perimeters of the relationship, as well as protect against any wrongful accusations of assault that may occur.

There are other groups, usually consisting of teenagers who claim to be vampires, roleplaying games, and many other media outlets for the vampire of history. Some are debilitating, and dangerous, such as the much debated Renfield’s syndrome while others just healthy outlets for a creative imagination. Vampires have held us, as a species, fascinated, horrified, and romanticised for hundreds of years. A world without them… would be bloodless.

Vampires » renfield

Renfield Syndrome

Related Reading:

Vampire Subculture: Sanguinarians

Related Reading: