Theoretically, moral treatment rejected the physical control of one person by another, and it emphasized gentler forms of social controls, constructed around an idealized vision of a “family united in the bonds of love, [rather] than of a receptacle for lunatics.”1,2 In practice, physical restraints were seen as “necessary evil” and were used to prevent patients from being destructive or noisy, and they were sometimes used to prevent the patient from running away.3,4 Patients who were deemed “harmless,” “quiet,” or “convalescent” were housed in the upper stories of the building; patients who were “violent,” “noisy,” and “incurable” were housed in the lower stories of the building.5 The separation was to keep the noisy patients from disturbing the quiet patients and the Asylum staff who lived in the upper stories of the building.
Full Answer
Was moral treatment designed for men only?
Scholar Danielle Terbenche states that moral treatment was designed for men and only adapted for women [12], a viewpoint that is relevant to the experiences of female patients at Rockwood, living under this system.
What are some examples of moral treatment?
Ideally a patient undergoing moral treatment would hold a job at the institution, take part in a variety of recreational “amusements”, exercise frequently, eat a healthy diet, attend religious services, and cultivate appropriate interests.
What is moral treatment for the mentally ill?
Moral treatment is today considered by some to be the first practical effort for responsible care of the mentally ill. [11]
What was moral treatment in the 1800s?
[1] Physicians and alienists (a nineteenth century term for psychiatrists) who believed in moral treatment disapproved of restraining and sedating patients, common occurrences in the first part of the 1800s. Moral treatment was intended to be holistic, and incorporate healing into every part of a patient’s life.
Is moral treatment used today?
The moral treatment movement is widely seen as influencing psychiatric practice up to the present day, including specifically therapeutic communities (although they were intended to be less repressive); occupational therapy and Soteria houses.
How was moral treatment used?
This principle was strongly expounded in the early asylums in which moral treatment principles were used. In these asylums, all efforts were made to encourage patients to engage in occupations, take responsibility, and recognize and acknowledge consequences of their behavior.
What is the moral treatment approach?
An approach to treating mental illness in the 19th century influenced by humanistic philosophy and a belief that a rational, caring approach would enable patients to normalize their thoughts and actions.
Why was moral treatment significant?
Its most important contribution, certainly, was fighting the dehumanisation of the mentally ill – by recognising the rationality of sufferers and the power of compassion in helping them, moral treatment changed the face of mental health care forever.
Was moral treatment successful?
Moral treatment was short-lived, enjoying popularity for less than fifty years. Despite this fleeting success, it is evident that the movement from constraint and repression to kind treatment and perceiving the mad as rational beings was a fundamental transition in the history of psychiatry.
Moral Treatment: A New Therapeutic Model
Organized sports and bicycling were also popular. These activities were believed to assist recovery, as they broke up the monotony of asylum life.
Bibliography
Baehre, Karl Rainer. The Ill-Regulated Mind: A Study in the Making of Psychiatry in Ontario, 1830-1921. ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis (1985).
What is moral treatment?
Introduction to Moral Treatment. Moral treatment was the main way that the Asylum treated patients. As an 1825 history of the Asylum explained, “Although the use of drugs and medicaments is allowed, in almost every case, to be indispensible, less weight is attached to it in the Friends’ Asylum, than to moral treatment” ( Waln 15 ).
Why is moral treatment considered cruel?
Moral treatment was widely believed to be kinder than other types of treatment available to the mentally ill because it limited the use of physical restraint and did not condone corporal punsishment.
Why are Quakers supposed to focus on moral treatment?
Quakers are supposed to focus on the importance of inward changes of heart and making one’s behavior match one's inner life. For Godlee, moral treatment’s focus on the comfort of other people, as opposed to the cure of the patients, made moral treatment seem deeply un-Quaker.
What does it mean to treat patients like rational beings?
Treating the patients like rational beings meant using restraint only as a last resort, to ensure the safety of the patient and those around him or her, not as a punishment. Under moral treatment, the superintendent and keepers treated the patients as individuals, and helped them to try to regain control of themselves.
Who said moral treatment is a way to help mentally ill Quakers?
Historian Anne Digby countered that Quakers have always placed great importance on self-control, and she argued that moral treatment's coercive tactics would have seemed like a natural and familiar way to help mentally ill Quakers regain that self-control ( 68 ).
Was moral treatment at the Asylum non-violent?
Although moral treatment at the Asylum was non-violent and focused on getting the patients to try to take control of their lives again, some of moral treatment’s manifestations could be cruel. For some examples of the cruel side of moral treatment, see the stories of Nathan Y. and Abraham S. in the Case Studies.
What is moral treatment?
Moral treatment was a product of the Enlightenment of the late eighteenth century. Before then people with psychiatric conditions, referred to as the insane, were usually treated in inhumane and brutal ways. In France, England, and the United States, people who cared for the insane began to advocate for more kindly treatment. In France Philippe Pinel instituted what he called traitement moral at the Bicêtre hospital in Paris. According to Pinel, insane people did not need to be chained, beaten, or otherwise physically abused. Instead, he called for kindness and patience, along with recreation, walks, and pleasant conversation. Around the same time that Pinel called for his reforms, William Tuke, an English Quaker, founded the York Retreat for the care of the insane. Rejecting traditional medical intervention, Tuke emphasized the rural quiet retreat where insane people could engage in reading, light manual labor, and conversation. Never having more than thirty residents, the York Retreat remained small and hence able to focus on the individual needs of its residents.
Who was the first person to advocate moral treatment?
In the United States, the first proponent of moral treatment was Benjamin Rush. A Philadelphia physician, Rush had been one of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence. For Rush, the hustle and bustle of modern life contributed to mental diseases.
Why did the dream of moral treatment die?
The dream of moral treatment died because of a combination of overcrowded hospitals along with the advent of eugenics and Freud around the turn of the twentieth century.
Who advocated for more kindly treatment?
In France, England, and the United States, people who cared for the insane began to advocate for more kindly treatment. In France Philippe Pinel instituted what he called traitement moral at the Bicêtre hospital in Paris.
What was the perspective of the second half of the nineteenth century?
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the optimism surrounding moral treatment began to wane.
