Talk:Mowgli syndrome

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No sources for "Mowgli syndrome"[edit]

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty seems to have coined the term "Mowgli syndrome" in Other Peoples' Myths: The Cave of Echoes (1995) to describe "the boy who realized the deep human dream of learning the language of the animals, breaking down the barrier between the wild and the tame, nature and culture, but who could neither become an animal nor remain merely a human."[1] Doniger though didn't use the term to describe either physiological or psychological human pathology, and didn't use the word "feral" at all. The reference to Doniger then doesn't support any of the statements in this article.

A PubMed search for "Mowgli syndrome" returned no results. "Mowgli syndrome" isn't in the DSM-IV. Google Books [2] and Google Scholar [3] each return one nonfiction work besides Doniger's that includes the term "Mowgli syndrome". According to herbalist Casey Adams (2008), Mowgli syndrome describes a child "emulating the chief caregiver - be that animal or handicapped parent" and is "also applicable to a child trained in a terrorist camp-school."[4] According to journalist Ada Gorbachyova [5] (2005), Mowgli syndrome is a "[l]ack of communication and affection [that] results in arrested physical, intellectual and emotional development" of HIV orphans.[6] No source is cited for either statement.

The term "Mowgli syndrome" had been part of the Wikipedia article Feral child since 2002 [[7] and would have been available to either Adams or Gorbachyova. However, the article Mowgli syndrome wasn't created until July 28, 2006 [8] and couldn't have suggested to Gorbachyova that HIV orphans exhibited signs of "Mowgli syndrome", so there may be an unidentified source published before 2005 known to one or both authors, and perhaps also to the author of this article. However, the available references only support the statement that "Mowgli Syndrome is not an official diagnosis and that it is merely a rarely used descriptive term." The rest is original research. Yappy2bhere (talk) 07:31, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


This article could be improved, if the people reading it knew if Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty is a real scientist or not. It would also be logical if there were realistic cases listed in this article. And if this even slightly a diagnose to be concerned about, more people should be informed of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meowgoeskatelyn23 (talkcontribs) 20:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Mowgli syndrome. Favonian (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Mowgli SyndromeMowgli syndrome

WP as a rule does not cap items such as syndrome. Per WP:MOSCAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles. Tony (talk) 12:00, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.