From a standard textbook of psychiatry*:

Patients with erotomania [a delusional conviction that another person, usually of higher status, is in love with him or her] frequently show certain characteristics: They are generally unattractive women in low-level jobs who lead withdrawn, lonely lives; they are single and have few sexual contacts. They select secret lovers who differ substantially from them. They exhibit what has been called paradoxical conduct, the delusional phenomenon of interpreting all denials of love, no matter how clear, as secret affirmations of love. The course may be chronic, recurrent, or brief. Separation from the love object may be the only satisfactory intervention.

Emphasis mine—and what a painful emphasis that is! Can that get any more pejorative? Not only are these women delusional, but they are also ugly, work crappy jobs, and hide away in tiny apartments all by their lonesome selves.

Good heavens. So much for warmth and empathy.

* Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry, 10th ed. Published in 2007!

The back story behind the previous entry, “Therapeutic“:

• Yes, the account is entirely fictional. (Any resemblance to any person, alive or fictional, is purely coincidental, blah blah blah….)
• I shared brunch with some good friends and colleagues this weekend. One of them mentioned that Dr. Phil (of Oprah and Britney fame) previously engaged in sexual misconduct with a patient and subsequently lost his psychology license. I did not know this. Wikipedia suggests that this may be true.
• I finished Psychoanalytic Diagnosis last year and, upon hearing about Dr. Phil’s alleged escapade, I recalled the chapter on hysterical patients. According to the text, patients with a diagnosis of hysteria behave “seductively” and, in the 1970s, some male therapists fervently believed that sexual intercourse was therapeutic for these patients. Reading this made me recoil with anger. When anger is dressed as a story, it looks better.
• The “long, slender fingers” rotating the coffee cup came from Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Both are smarmy men.
• The general lack of subject words in the first paragraph reflects a letter I received from another medblogger this weekend: There were absolutely no subject words in his three-sentence e-mail. (To be clear, there is no further parallel between this medblogger and the character. I was just stealing linguistic cadence, that’s all.)