What are some examples of inhumane mental health treatments?
The History of Inhumane Mental Health Treatments 1 Asylums. 2 Early Psychiatric Treatments. 3 Shock Therapies. 4 Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy. 5 Lobotomies. 6 Psychiatric Medications.
What happened to the victims of human torture?
But most of these miserable victims were slaughtered outright or died in the course of the tortures to which they were subjected ... To their murderers, these wretched people were not individuals at all. They came in wholesale lots and were treated worse than animals.
What is dehumanization and why is it important?
Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. In Less Than Human, David Livingstone Smith argues that it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.
What are some examples of subhuman animals in history?
David Livingstone Smith is co-founder and director of the Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of New England. During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.
What is the theme of Survival in Auschwitz?
Oppression, Power, and Cruelty As many thinkers have observed, power has the tendency to corrupt any individual, but Levi, the author and a former prisoner at Auschwitz labor camp, notes that this seems even more true when that individual has known what it is like to be powerless.
How did Primo Levi survive the Holocaust?
The work allowed him to stay indoors and survive the harsh winter. He nonetheless contracted scarlet fever and was transferred to the infirmary area. Unexpectedly, Levi survived thanks to the illness, since he was left behind shortly before the liberation of Auschwitz and was not taken on the death marches.
Is Primo Levi still alive?
April 11, 1987Primo Levi / Date of death
How do people survive Auschwitz?
During their stay in Auschwitz, prisoners received only one ragged uniform and a pair of shoes or crude, uncomfortable clogs that caused serious sores and illness. They were made to wear the same uniform—frequently lice-ridden—to work during the day and to sleep at night.
What helped Primo Levi survive?
Many factors contributed to Levi's survival, most of them matters of sheer luck, but chief among them, by his own account, was the will to bear witness: to transmit the experience, to a no doubt disbelieving world, with scrupulous exactitude. The effort clears his eyes and purifies his language.
How old was Primo Levi when he died?
67 years (1919–1987)Primo Levi / Age at deathPrimo Levi, whose autobiographical writings drew on his experiences as an Auschwitz survivor and his training as a chemist, died today in Turin. He was 67 years old. The authorities said they were treating the death as a suicide.
Where is Auschwitz?
southern PolandLocated in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor.
Did Primo Levi have kids?
Renzo LeviLisa LeviPrimo Levi/Children
How old was Primo Levi when he went to Auschwitz?
24 years oldFew quotes embody the spirit of their author like this one, from Primo Levi's autobiography, The Periodic Table. Levi was a chemist, something that is evident not only in the subject, but in the style of his measured, meticulous prose. He was also an Italian Jew, and he was 24 years old when he was sent to Auschwitz.
Did anyone survive concentration camps?
Between 250,000 and 300,000 Jews withstood the concentration camps and death marches, although tens of thousands of these survivors were too weak or sick to live more than a few days, weeks or months, notwithstanding the care that they received after liberation.
How long did the average person survive in Auschwitz?
We believe in the free flow of information Nearly all the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in occupied Poland, were murdered – either sent to the gas chambers or worked to death. Life expectancy in many of these camps was between six weeks and three months.
What is the longest anyone survived in a concentration camp?
A Jewish prisoner who survived the Auschwitz death camp for 18 months during World War Two has died aged 90. Mayer Hersh was one of the longest-serving inmates of the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, in which 1.1 million people were killed.
What is David Livingston Smith's new book?
David Livingston Smith has a new book, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, which offers a helpful review of the kinds of psychological and social structures that lead to dehumanization and mistreatment of others.
What does Smith mean by racism?
Smith gives a definition of racism as “the belief that races exist and that some races are intrinsically superior to others.” You don’t need to be hostile to be a racist, but you do need to rank groups. If you think members of a particular group are inferior, to have less intrinsic value than those of another group, you are exhibiting racism. Such racialized categorizations and rankings emphasize a hierarchy of value among peoples.
What is the most infamous treatment for mental illness?
One of the most infamous treatments for mental illness includes electroconvulsive shock therapy. Types of non-convulsive electric shock therapy can be traced back as early as the 1st century A.D., when, according to de Young, “the malaise and headaches of the Roman emperor Claudius were treated by the application of a torpedo fish — better known as an electric ray — on his forehead.” But their heydey in treating mental illness began in 1938.
Who was the journalist who went undercover at the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum?
Journalist Nellie Bly captured the asylum atmosphere firsthand when she went undercover at the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum in New York in 1887. Not only was Bly committed without much of an examination to determine her sanity, but the conditions were harsh, cruel, and inhumane.
What were the mechanical restraints used in asylums?
Asylums also relied heavily on mechanical restraints, using straight jackets, manacles, waistcoats, and leather wristlets, sometimes for hours or days at a time. Doctors claimed restraints kept patients safe, but as asylums filled up, the use of physical restraint was more a means of controlling overcrowded institutions.
How long does it take for a dead person to be revived?
After several hours, the living dead would be revived from the coma, and thought cured of their madness. This process would be repeated daily for months at a time, with doctors sometimes administering as many as 50 to 60 treatments per patient, according to Lieberman.
What is the best treatment for manic episodes?
Hydrotherapy proved to be a popular technique. Warm, or more commonly, cold water, allegedly reduced agitation, particularly for those experiencing manic episodes. People were either submerged in a bath for hours at a time, mummified in a wrapped “pack,” or sprayed with a deluge of shockingly cold water in showers.
When did asylums become notorious warehouses?
While terrifying mental health remedies can be traced back to prehistoric times, it’s the dawn of the asylum era in the mid-1700s that marks a period of some of the most inhumane mental health treatments. This is when asylums themselves became notorious warehouses for the mentally ill.
When did mental health facilities close?
By 1994, that number decreased to just over 70,000. Starting in the 1960s, institutions were gradually closed and the care of mental illness was transferred largely to independent community centers as treatments became both more sophisticated and humane.
Why did doctors abandon their patients?
Doctors abandoned their patients for fear of infection, and priests even refused to give last rites to the dying—an appalling dereliction given medieval fears of eternal damnation. Even animals like sheep, cows and pigs fell victim to the disease.
What is the advantage of DeWitte's grave-combing bioarchaeological research methods?
The advantage of DeWitte’s grave-combing bioarchaeological research methods is that they encompass a much more representative swath of the medieval population. “This provides information about the people who are missing from historical documents, including women and children,” says DeWitte.
What was the life like in medieval times?
Life during the medieval ages was nasty, brutish and short. That was especially true during what became known as the Black Death. The widespread outbreak of plague struck between 1347 and 1351, killing tens of millions of people, resulting in the loss of 30 to 50% of the region’s population. The disease itself was horrific.
What was life like after the Black Death?
So for survivors, life after the Black Death would have been at least a little less nasty, brutish and short than life before it. But that doesn’t mean the survivors were really the lucky ones. The Black Death was a period of unremitting horror and terror, the likes of which we can’t imagine. No one knew how the disease spread, or how to treat it.
Did the Black Death make you healthier?
The Medieval Black Death Made You Healthier—If You Survived. Game of Thrones doesn’t tell you the half of it. Life during the medieval ages was nasty, brutish and short. That was especially true during what became known as the Black Death. The widespread outbreak of plague struck between 1347 and 1351, killing tens of millions of people, ...
Was the plague natural selection?
The plague was natural selection in action. In a way, that’s a marker of how brutal the medieval era was. It took a serial killer of a plague to actually bring about an improvement in living conditions. If that sounds counterintuitive, think about how life might have changed after half of Europe’s population died off.
Was the Black Death healthier than before?
But the clearest evidence that people were healthier after the Black Death than they were before it comes in the bodies themselves. DeWitte looked at skeletal samples taken from medieval cemeteries in London both before the plague and after it. She found that post-Black Death samples had a higher proportion of older adults, ...
What happens to the human being when exposed to dehumanization?
Exposure to perpetual dehumanization inevitably leads one to be dehumanized, forcing one to resort to mental, physical, and social adaptation in order to retain one’s life and personality. It is in this adaptation that the line separating right and wrong begins to blur. In the face of stark hopelessness and certainty of death, ...
What does Levi mean by "to dwell on injustice"?
To dwell on the injustice being committed would be a pointless attempt as the word “just” has no application in the Lager, a German word Levi uses to refer to the concentration camps, literally meaning "warehouse". Levi demonstrates in the text that in order to retain one’s mental sanity, one must focus on small distractions.
What does Levi say about carrying out the bucket of waste at night?
However, in a passage about carrying out the bucket of waste at night, Levi states that “it is always preferable that we, and not our neighbor, be ordered to do it ” (62). In order to survive one must forego the notion that it is a basic human right that a person should not have to endure humiliating un-cleanliness.
What is the justice in the Eumenides?
Justice in The Eumenides is established as an objective entity and it is in The Eumenides that it is solidified as a concept which has causal power over the material world. This metaphysical abstraction seeks to gain purchase through interpersonal... Read Article »
What is the significance of the Demon-Lover?
The Demon-Lover functions as a significant motif in English Gothic ballad tradition, which scholar Hugh Shields articulates as a “supernatural intrusion into a narrative which is of this world” (Shields p. 107). While this intrusion... Read Article »
Why do writers use biting clapbacks?
Often thought to be a recent development of pop culture, writers have been using biting clapbacks in response to criticism since antiquity. This essay will explore how poet and scholar Sir Philip Sidney effectively manipulated poetic devices in... Read Article »
How does hopelessness become lessened?
By focusing the power of one’s mind on less severe issues, hopelessness becomes mentally lessened and one is assisted in forfeiting the notion of justice. It is only in a world of queer morals, like the Lager, that to enter insane would be considered a survivor’s advantage.
Asylums
Early Psychiatric Treatments
- Although Benjamin Rush, who’s considered to be the father of American psychiatry, was first to abandon the theory that demon possession caused insanity, this didn’t stop him from using old “humoral treatments” on asylum patients to cure their minds. Instead of letting out demons, as the treatment was originally intended, he thought the body’s fluids were out of balance. As such, “he …
Shock Therapies
- By then, however, the professional community was ready to move on to the next fad — insulin shock therapy. Brought to the United States by Manfred Sakel, a German neurologist, insulin shock therapy injected high levels of insulin into patients to cause convulsions and a coma. After several hours, the living dead would be revived from the coma, and thought cured of their madne…
Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy
- Buzz box, shock factory, power cocktail, stun shop, the penicillin of psychiatry. One of the most infamous treatments for mental illness includes electroconvulsive shock therapy. Types of non-convulsive electric shock therapy can be traced back as early as the 1st century A.D., when, according to de Young, “the malaise and headaches of the Roman emperor Claudius were treate…
Lobotomies
- Around the same time, doctors overseas performed the first lobotomies. The practice was brought to the United States thanks to Walter Freeman, who began experimenting with lobotomies in the mid-1940s, which required damaging neural connections in the prefrontal cortex area of the brain thought to cause mental illness. “The behaviors [doctors] were trying to fix, they thought, w…
Psychiatric Medications
- Drugs had been used in treating the mentally ill as far back as the mid-1800s. Their purpose then was to sedate patients to keep overcrowded asylums more manageable, a kind of chemical restraint to replace the physical restraints of earlier years. Doctors administered drugs such as opium and morphine, both of which carried side effects and the risk of addiction. Toxic mercury …