What is the history of moral treatment?
Moral treatment developed in the context of the Enlightenment and its focus on social welfare and individual rights. At the start of the 18th century, the "insane" were typically viewed as wild animals who had lost their reason.
Who is the father of 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.
What is the moral treatment movement in psychology?
The moral treatment movement was initially opposed by those in the mental health profession. By the mid-19th century, however, many psychologists had adopted the strategy. They became advocates of moral treatment, but argued that since the mentally ill often had separate physical/organic problems, medical approaches were also necessary.
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 is the father of 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.
When did the moral treatment begin?
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.
What was the moral treatment system?
Moral treatment, a therapeutic approach that emphasized character and spiritual development, and called for kindness on the part of all who came in contact with the patient, flourished in American mental hospitals during the first half of the 19th century.
Who started humane treatment of the mentally ill?
Philippe Pinel, (born April 20, 1745, Saint-André, Tarn, Fr. —died Oct. 25, 1826, Paris), French physician who pioneered in the humane treatment of the mentally ill.
What was Dorothea Dix known for?
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.
Who brought the reforms of moral therapy to the United States?
The man who brought the reforms of moral therapy to the United States was: Benjamin Rush. The "moral treatment" movement rapidly declined in the late nineteenth century because: hospitals became underfunded and overcrowded.
What was Philippe Pinel criticized for?
Pinel undertook comparisons of skull sizes, and considered possible physiological substrates, but he was criticized for his emphasis on psychology and the social environment. Opponents were bolstered by the discovery of tertiary syphilis as the cause of some mental disorder.
How did Dorothea Dix help the mentally ill?
Dix successfully lobbied state governments to build and pay for mental asylums, and her efforts led to a bill enlarging the state mental institution in Worcester. She then moved to Rhode Island and later to New York to continue her work on prison and mental health reform.
When was the moral treatment movement?
The Moral Treatment Movement (1800–1850) The moral treatment movement was introduced in the United States by mental health workers who either had studied or had visited Europe where they became acquainted with moral treatment principles. However, unlike Pinel's version of the moral treatment movement, which made no reference to religious morality, ...
Who was the father of moral treatment?
Chief among those who spearheaded introduction of the moral treatment movement in the United States were Benjamin Rush , Dorothea Lynde Dix, Thomas Scattergood, and Thomas Story Kirkbride. Benjamin Rush was a physician and also Surgeon General of the Continental Armies. 47 He is also recognized today as the father of American psychiatry.
What were the first principles of occupational therapy?
The above analysis indicates that the first principles of occupational therapy, as developed by Dunton, were derived from the moral treatment movement, the arts and crafts movement, pragmatism, and medicine.
What is the character of the new profession?
The character of the new profession was derived from the moral treatment, arts and crafts, and mental hygiene movements, and the philosophy of pragmatism, particularly the philosophical propositions of James, Dewey, and Mead.
What did Kirkbride believe?
He expressed his belief that “patients responded to greater freedom with better behavior.” 44. Later, Kirkbride became the founding member of the Association of Medical Superintendents ...
Where was the first hospital in the United States built?
This hospital was called the Friends Asylum and was constructed in Frankford, Pennsylvania.
Who were the leaders of mental health reform?
Leading among these reformers were the Quakers, and their efforts were to a large extent guided by principles developed by William Tuke in England.
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.
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.
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.
What did Dix insisted on?
Dix insisted that hospitals for the insane be spacious, well ventilated, and have beautiful grounds. In such settings, Dix envisioned troubled people regaining their sanity. In the 1840s and 1850s there was much optimism for the cure of insanity through kind treatment without restraints.
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.
Who founded the York Retreat?
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.
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 ).
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 ).
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.
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.
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.
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).
Who was responsible for moral treatment?
The person most responsible for the early spread of moral treatment Template:Citation needed 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 with patients, reading and talking to them and taking them on regular walks. He also suggested that it would be therapeutic for doctors to give small gifts to their patients every so often. However, Rush's treatment methods included bloodletting (bleeding), purging, hot and cold baths, mercury, and strapping patients to spinning boards and "tranquilizer" chairs. [1]
What is 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 with reform and development of the asylum system in Western Europe at that time. It fell into decline as a distinct method by the 20th century, however, due to overcrowding and misuse of asylums and the predominance of biomedical methods. The movement is widely seen as influencing certain areas of psychiatric practice up to the present day. There has been criticism that the approach blamed or oppressed patients according to the standards of a particular social class or religion.
What was the moral treatment of the Enlightenment?
Moral treatment developed in the context of the Enlightenment and its focus on social welfare and individual rights. At the start of the 18th century, the "insane" were typically viewed as wild animals who had lost their reason. They were not held morally responsible but were subject to scorn and ridicule by the public, sometimes kept in madhouses in appalling conditions, often in chains and neglected for years or subject to numerous tortuous "treatments" including whipping, beating, bloodletting, shocking, starvation, irritant chemicals, and isolation. There were some attempts to argue for more psychological understandings and curative environments. For example, in England John Locke popularized the idea that there is a degree of madness in most people because emotions can cause people to incorrectly associate ideas and perceptions, and William Battie suggested a more psychological understanding, but conditions generally remained poor. The treatment of King George III also led to increased optimism about the possibility of therapeutic interventions.
Who was the Italian physician who ruled the world in 1785?
Under the Enlightened concern of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo in Florence, Italian physician Vincenzo Chiarugi instituted humanitarian reforms. Between 1785 and 1788 he managed to outlaw chains as a means of restraint at the Santa Dorotea hospital, building on prior attempts made there since the 1750s. From 1788 at the newly renovated St. Bonifacio Hospital he did the same, and led the development of new rules establishing a more humane regime.
Who developed the theory of talking cures?
A major figure in that progression was Sigmund Freud. The famous Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist developed his theory of psychoanalysis, which gave rise to the practice of “talking cures” and free association, encouraging patients to talk about whatever came to mind. Freud’s theory was that the avenues of conversation would open a door to the patient’s unconscious mind, granting access to any kind of repressed thoughts and feelings that might have compelled the mental instability.
Where did the first mental health reform take place?
But it was in Paris, in 1792, where one of the most important reforms in the treatment of mental health took place. Science Museum calls Pinel “the founder of moral treatment,” which it describes as “the cornerstone of mental health care in the 1800s.” 9,10 Pinel developed a hypothesis that mentally unhealthy patients needed care and kindness in order for their conditions to improve; to that effect, he took ownership of the famous Hospice de Bicêtre, located in the southern suburbs of Paris. He ordered that the facility be cleaned, patients be unchained and put in rooms with sunlight, allowed to exercise freely within hospital grounds, and that their quality of care be improved.
What did Freud do to help people with mental health problems?
Mainstream psychology may not have thought much of psychoanalysis, but the attention Freud’s work received opened other doors of mental health treatment, such as psychosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychopharmacology. These treatments originated from the biological model of mental illness, which put forward that mental health problems were caused by biochemical imbalances in the body (an evolution of the “four humors” theory) and needed to be treated like physical diseases; hence, for example, psychosurgery (surgery on the brain) to treat the symptoms of a mental health imbalance.
How did Freud use dream analysis?
Part of Freud’s approach involved dream analysis, which encouraged patients to keep a journal of what their unconscious mind was trying to tell them through their dreams. The psychiatrist would study the contents of the journal, discerning messages and patterns that would unlock the mental illness. Remnants of his methodology are found in how the cognitive behavioral therapists of today engage in “talk therapy” with their clients, encouraging them to keep journals of their thoughts and feelings, and then devising a treatment plan based on the subtext of what is written.
What is the oldest medical book?
Two papyri, dated as far back as the 6th century BCE, have been called “the oldest medical books in the world,” for being among the first such documents to have identified the brain as the source of mental functioning (as well as covering other topics like how to treat wounds and perform basic surgery). 4.
What were the causes of mental illness in ancient times?
Ancient theories about mental illness were often the result of beliefs that supernatural causes, such as demonic possession, curses, sorcery, or a vengeful god, were behind the strange symptoms. Remedies, therefore, ran the gamut from the mystical to the brutal.
When did Freud's psychoanalysis become popular?
Freud’s psychoanalysis eventually went the way of the moral treatment method, being widely criticized and eventually discarded for lacking verifiability and falsifiability, but it proved a popular form of mental health treatment until the mid-1900s.
Who published the moral treatment of the insane?
The Moral Treatment of the Insane. By Amariah Brigham, Published in American Journal of Insanity, March 1847. Introduction: Amariah Brigham was the first superintendent of the New York State Asylum for the Insane in Utica. A leader in the field of moral treatment and the editor of “The Journal of Insanity,” Brigham here outlines his vision ...
What does Leuret believe about moral treatment?
Most writers previous to Leuret, had considered the moral treatment as auxiliary to the medical, but Leuret considers the latter as of trivial importance compared with the former. He proposes to cure all cases of uncomplicated insanity, solely by moral means.
When was the first insanity book published?
His first work on insanity, Traite Medico-Philosophique, was published in 1801, and we do not hesitate to say, that we know not of any work on insanity superior to this, especially as improved by Pinel in the last edition; — none more worthy of our daily study.
How was Saul cured?
Saul was troubled by an evil spirit, and Job by a demon. Hence recourse was had to various moral means of cure. Thus Saul was cured by the music of David.
What did Brigham mean by rational amusements?
He envisioned them as fulfilling a task that would later be done by psychotherapists. Brigham emphasized “rational” amusements as part of treatment. The Utica institution had an extensive library, and the patients took part in various theatrical and musical presentations.
Can medicine be improved by exercising the faculties of the mind?
In these cues, medicine is generally of no use, and they cannot often be much improved, but by exercising the faculties of the mind.
Who is the editor of the journal of insanity?
A leader in the field of moral treatment and the editor of “The Journal of Insanity,” Brigham here outlines his vision of care for people with psychiatric disabilities. Under the instigation of Brigham , the patients at Utica launched The Opal, a literary journal which frequently described asylum life in glowing terms.
What was moral therapy?
Moral therapy included everything from exercise and religion training to lessons on good hygiene and activities that were tailored to each person’s interests, such as writing or music. As stated above, asylums also used medical treatments like bloodletting, cold baths and morphine.
Who was the first person to tour hospitals and other institutions where poor individuals with mental illness were housed?
Patients were regularly abused and neglected. In 1841, Dorothea Dix , who was a pivotal figure in mental health reform, began touring hospitals and other institutions where poor individuals with mental illness were housed.
What did Dix's writings lead to?
Dix would travel to almost all the states, and her writings led to reforms and improvements in the living conditions of poor people with mental illness.
Who is the father of modern psychiatry?
Benjamin Rush, a physician who has been referred to as “the father of modern psychiatry” largely due to his book, Medical Inquiries and Observations on the Diseases of the Mind, worked at the hospital. He believed in treating mentally ill patients with bloodletting, a treatment that was used by Ancient civilizations.
When was the first mental asylum opened?
The Birth of the Mental Asylum. The first hospital in the U.S. opened its doors in 1753 in Philadelphia. While it treated a variety of patients, six of its first patients suffered from mental illness. In fact, Pennsylvania Hospital would have a pivotal impact on psychiatry.
