Week 11 Storytelling: Patient Report

Nivedita Psychiatric Hospital

Patient 4106 Kali: source: wikimedia

Patient Number: 4106

Patient Name: Kali (aliases include: Mahakali, Parvati, Durga)

Physical Description: Long, black hair, often tangled and unkempt; Red blood-shot eyes; Dark black complexion; Patient has four arms; Patient often sticks out her tongue (of unusual length)

Clothing and Other Artifacts upon Admission: 1 curved sword, 1 trident, 1 white cup, a large number of human heads arranged into a necklace (No other clothing)

Behavioral Report: Patient often prone to violent tendencies, including murder and decapitation. This is often with slight provocation, and patient can only be calmed by dancing on or with her husband. Patient also tends to display a number of strong maternal instincts, including the nourishment and protection of her followers and family. Patient often vacillates between these two extremes.

Diagnosis and Treatment: It's clear that the patient has very strong manic-depressive mood swings, and can often fall into a rage without notice. At the beginning of her time here, the patient was much more prone to these sudden changes in behavior, and we believe this was a coping mechanism that she developed to protect her husband and family. We have been hesitant to try pharmaceutical solutions as the patient's digestive tract seems to only accept blood of enemies she has slain. However, the patient has recently made great strides in controlling this rage. Our team of counselors here at Nivedita Hospital have focused on positive reinforcement strategies to augment the patient's natural maternal behaviors. This seems to be proving a success in helping reform the patient, who has fully accepted a new motherly identity.

Future Recommendations: While it is unlikely that the patient will ever fully relinquish her violent impulses, these will continue to function in the scope of her role as "Mother of the World." Our goal has been to elicit more peaceful behavior with the hopes of eliminating the patient's deeply ingrained rage, however this seems to be key to the patient's personal ideology of motherhood. Patient should be ready for discharge within a few weeks. 

Author's Note: This is a re-imagining of the goddess Kali as she is depicted in Sister Nivedita's Kali the Mother (found here). From other, more traditional stories I had heard of Kali, she is often depicted as a sort of wildling, with unruly hair and bloody weapons. She was often shown to be provoked into a rage where she kills a number of evil forces and has to then be calmed by her husband Shiva. I tried to incorporate these details into the story in a lot of ways. I also tried to reference the other forms that Kali has been shown to take in various other stories, and her patient number is based on the number of arms she has in each form (4 for Kali, 10 for Mahakali, and 6 for Durga). I thought Sister Nivedita's representations of Kali were so interesting because they provide a much softer, gentler side of Kali. I did a bit of research and it turns out that most contemporary devotional movements based around Kali show her as a much stronger maternal figure, like Hera in Greek mythology. This change was so fascinating because it kind of shows the necessary duality to motherhood: a mother is often caring and nourishing for her family, but can be wildly protective if that family is threatened. Nivedita talks about this a bit in one of the sections in her writings and I saw it as a really interesting concept.