What is moral treatment in psychology?
Jump to navigation Jump to search. Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly from religious or moral concerns.
Is moral treatment really a new form of moral oppression?
In the 1960s, Michel Foucault renewed the argument that moral treatment had really been a new form of moral oppression, replacing physical oppression, and his arguments were widely adopted within the antipsychiatry movement.
Who was the chief proponent of moral treatment?
In the USA, the chief proponent of the moral treatment, Benjamin Rush, was so ardent a supporter of the American Revolution that he even figured among the signatories of the Declaration of Independence (Binger 1966).
How do we study moral behaviors?
I then turn to moral behaviors, which has been studied predominately through the theoretical lenses of parenting styles and practices, attachment theory, and social-cognitive learning theories.
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.
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.
Who was the person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the United States?
The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment in the U.S. was Benjamin Rush (1745-1813).
How did the perception of patients with psychological problems change during the spread of moral treatment group of answer choices?
The spread of moral treatment. Patients with psychological problems were increasingly perceived as potential he broken down under stress. They were considered deserving of individual care, including discussions of their problems, useful activities, work, companionship, and quiet.
Why was moral treatment important?
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.
Why is moral treatment important in occupational therapy?
The influence from the arts and crafts movement was to increase leisure and productivity through "hand and mind = health". The moral treatment movement helped facilitate the holistic point of view by actively involving the patients into the treatment.
What is moral treatment in occupational therapy?
While the previous treatment model was associated with punishment, brutality and idleness, the moral treatment movement sought to encourage kindness and the therapeutic value of engagement in purposeful activities.
Who insisted on 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 moral treatment movement fail?
They found that overcrowding, insufficient funds, a decline in public opinion, and the emergence of new treatment theories led to the shift from moral treatment to mistreatment in American asylums.
What is moral therapy in psychology?
a form of psychotherapy from the 19th century based on the belief that a person with a mental disorder could be helped by being treated with compassion, kindness, and dignity in a clean, comfortable environment that provided freedom of movement, opportunities for occupational and social activity, and reassuring talks ...
How did Dorothea Dix change the treatment of the mentally ill in the United States?
Dorothea Dix played an instrumental role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill. She was a leading figure in those national and international movements that challenged the idea that people with mental disturbances could not be cured or helped.
What is the role of morality?
They generally agree that to be moral is to treat others fairly and with a concern for their welfare.
What is moral development?
Moral development is a concept in moral psychology that has received at least as much attention in the past few decades from psychologists as from philosophers.
What is the practice of virtues?
The practice of these virtues involves the exercise of the basic competencies critical to managerial resourcefulness and, as a consequence, strengthens the basic competencies. However, the continued exercise of the basic competencies does not guarantee that these will be done in a virtuous manner.
What are the key indicators of moral development?
Feelings of guilt and shame have been considered key indicators of affective moral development. Likewise, positively valenced self-evaluative emotions such as pride have been described as morally significant. Additionally, other-oriented emotions such as empathy/sympathy have been considered moral emotions.
What is moral emotion?
Moral emotions are an umbrella term, and its definitions have been correspondingly broad. A commonly shared feature of these definitions is that these emotions are described as self-conscious or self-evaluative emotions, because they are evoked by the individual's evaluation of the self.
What is the theory of virtue?
Virtue theory claims that human behaviour and actions are in accordance with morality if they are in accordance with the virtues. Virtues are described as good or admirable traits of character, expressed in action, desire, attitude, thought and reasoning [ 11 ]. They include compassion, courage, honesty, patience and other such traits. Virtues are refined through training, education and the moulding of one's character and desires in the correct way. A virtuous person, according to Aristotle, will fare better in life and ultimately attain the highest good, which he calls eudaimonia. Some authors see virtues as a state of character: if a person is virtuous, exercising the virtues comes naturally and easily to her. Others see the virtues as dispositions that allow one to become virtuous through performing virtuous acts, especially in demanding situations.
What do authors see virtues as?
Some authors see virtues as a state of character: if a person is virtuous, exercising the virtues comes naturally and easily to her. Others see the virtues as dispositions that allow one to become virtuous through performing virtuous acts, especially in demanding situations. View chapter Purchase book.
What is moral treatment?
Moral treatment. Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly from religious or moral concerns. The movement is particularly associated ...
Who was the first physician to use moral treatment?
A key figure in the early spread of moral treatment in the United States was Benjamin Rush (1745–1813), an eminent physician at Pennsylvania Hospital. He limited his practice to mental illness and developed innovative, humane approaches to treatment. He required that the hospital hire intelligent and sensitive attendants to work closely ...
What does "moral" mean in French?
At that time "moral", in French and internationally, had a mixed meaning of either psychological/emotional (mental) or moral (ethical). Pinel distanced himself from the more religious work that was developed by the Tukes, and in fact considered that excessive religiosity could be harmful.
How did moral treatment affect asylum?
The moral treatment movement had a huge influence on asylum construction and practice . Many countries were introducing legislation requiring local authorities to provide asylums for the local population, and they were increasingly designed and run along moral treatment lines.
What does Foucault say about moral asylum?
Thus Foucault argues that the "moral" asylum is "not a free realm of observation, diagnosis, and therapeutics; it is a juridical space where one is accused, judged, and condemned.".
What are the four moral syntheses in the asylum?
A patient in the asylum had to go through four moral syntheses: silence, recognition in the mirror, perpetual judgment, and the apotheosis of the medical personage. The mad were ignored and verbally isolated. They were made to see madness in others and then in themselves until they felt guilt and remorse.
What were Rush's treatment methods?
However, Rush's treatment methods included bloodletting (bleeding), purging, hot and cold baths, mercury, and strapping patients to spinning boards and "tranquilizer" chairs. A Boston schoolteacher, Dorothea Dix (1802–1887), also helped make humane care a public and a political concern in the US.
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.
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).