The year was 1984. A new disease had emerged in 1981 and was soon dubbed AIDS, the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. In the United States, AIDS risk groups included gay men, injection drug users and haemophiliacs. Thousands of cases had been diagnosed by 1984, with roughly half having died. New York and California were the early centers of the outbreak.
We now know that AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus. HIV was discovered in 1983 and by 1984, it was widely accepted as the cause of AIDS. A few scientists held to alternative theories but even they accepted that AIDS was a new disease with a biological cause.
Then, in July 1984, a New York psychoanalyst called Casper G. Schmidt published a paper called The Group-Fantasy Origins of AIDS. It might be one of the most astonishing articles ever to appear in the field of psychology - which is saying quite a lot.
