What is the history of the treatment of mental illness?
Treatment of emotional or psychological problems can be traced to antiquity. The ancient Greeks were the first to identify mental illness as a medical condition, rather than a sign of malevolent deities.
Who was responsible for treating the mentally ill in the Middle Ages?
In the Middle Ages, the clergy were largely responsible for treatment because possession was considered causal. In fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europe, witchcraft became another related explanation for which torture, burning, and other such methods were used. Recent historical analyses, however, suggest that the mentally ill may not
Who discovered the link between mental state and medicine?
As time went on, physicians of the age, like Galen and Hippocrates, further explored the link between mental state and medicine, rejecting beliefs that medical conditions stemmed from otherworldly influences. But the insights gained by the Greeks took a step back when the Roman Empire fell and the Dark Ages began.
Who is the father of psychotherapy?
Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) received some of the earliest recognition as a founder of psychotherapy. Known for his process of “mesmerism,” he focused on treating patients by using hypnosis.
Who began the 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.
When was the first treatment of mental disorders using humane methods?
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.
Who made mental hospitals more humane?
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 did Philippe Pinel do for the mentally ill?
Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) is often said to be the father of modern clinical psychiatry. He is most famous for being a committed pioneer and advocate of humanitarian methods in the treatment of the mentally ill, and for the development of a mode of psychological therapy known as moral treatment.
Who was Philippe Pinel and Dorothea Dix?
Philippe Pinel and Dorothea Dix argued for more humane treatment of people with psychological disorders. In the mid-1960s, the deinstitutionalization movement gained support and asylums were closed, enabling people with mental illness to return home and receive treatment in their own communities.
Who started moral treatment?
Category 1: The Moral Treatment Movement This school of philosophy was founded by a British philosopher John Locke and helped change attitudes toward mental illness.
Why did Dorothea Dix help the mentally ill?
She wanted to earmark money to aid the mentally ill, the blind, the deaf and the mute, as well as for abused prison and jail inmates. Between 1848 and 1854, Dix made multiple appeals to Congress, only to be turned down each time.
Who were the top leader of mental health movement?
Dorothea Dix (1802–1887) was an important figure in the development of the "mental hygiene" movement. Dix was a school teacher who endeavored to help people with mental disorders and to expose the sub-standard conditions into which they were put. This became known as the "mental hygiene movement".
Who was responsible for much of the reform of the mental health care system in the 19th century?
Dorothea Dix. Dorothea Dix was a vigorous crusader for the humane treatment of clients with mental illness and was responsible for much of the reform of the mental health care system in the 19th century. Her solution was the creation of state hospitals.
Who was the first psychiatrist who suggested the term mental hygiene?
By the late 19th century, moral treatment had given way to the mental hygiene movement, founded by former patient Clifford Beers with the publication of his 1908 memoir A Mind That Found Itself.
Who is the father of mental hygiene?
The founder of the mental hygiene movement, Clifford Whittingham Beers, wrote an autobiography in 1908 titled A Mind That Found Itself. It dealt frankly with his mental health struggles and called for reform in the field of mental health treatment.
Which of the following happened when Philippe Pinel a physician unchained the patients at La Salpêtrière in Paris?
In the context of the humanitarian reform movements during the 18th century, which of the following happened when Philippe Pinel, a physician, unchained the patients at La Salpêtrière in Paris? Patients profited from kindness and freedom.
Who were the first to identify mental illness as a medical condition?
The ancient Greeks were the first to identify mental illness as a medical condition, rather than as a sign of malevolent deities or gods. While their understanding of the nature of the mental illness was not always correct (e.g., they believed that hysteria affected only women, due to a wandering uterus !), and their treatments rather unusual (e.g., bathing for depression, blood-letting for psychosis), they did recognize the treatment value of encouraging and consoling words.
What is the history of psychotherapy?
History of Psychotherapy. We tend to think of psychotherapy — the treatment of emotional or psychological problems — as a modern, 20th century invention. Yet people wanting to help others’ emotional trauma and difficulties can be traced back far further in history.
How many different types of psychotherapy were there in the 1960s?
By the late 1960s there were over 60 different types of psychotherapies, ranging from psychodrama (using drama techniques) to guided imagery (using mental pictures and stories). The next major style of psychotherapy was developed not as the result of new ideas, but due to economic issues.
What did Freud do to the world?
Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis around the turn of the century, and made profound contributions to the field with his descriptions of the unconscious, infantile sexuality, the use of dreams, and his model of the human mind.
When was psychotherapeia first used?
While there were scattered references to the value of “talking” in the treatment of emotional problems, the English psychiatrist Walter Cooper Dendy first introduced the term “psycho-therapeia” in 1853.
What is behavioral psychology?
The practice of behavioral psychology borrowed principles from animal psychology to treat emotional and behavioral problems. Over the years, behavior therapy has been enhanced to include emphasis on the thoughts and feelings of the person.
Who was the first superintendent of Hanwell Asylum?
William Ellis (1780–1839) was the first Superintendent at Hanwell Asylum. Influenced by the Moral Treatment system, he introduced the idea of meaningful work as form of therapy to Hanwell. Wellcome Collection, CC-BY. John Conolly (1794–1866) was the third Superintendent at Hanwell Asylum.
Why were parrots added to asylums?
Caged parrots and birds were added to asylums to brighten them up. It's likely that the birds' care and feeding would have been entrusted to one of the asylum’s long-term patients. Science Museum Group Collection More information. about A bird cage from Sussex Lunatic Asylum, 1859-1939.
What is the story of Hanwell?
The story of Hanwell Mental Asylum reveals that they were kinder places than we might think. The Victorian mental asylum has the reputation of a place of misery where inmates were locked up and left to the mercy of their keepers. But when the first large asylums were built in the early 1800s, they were part of a new, ...
Why were restraints used in asylums?
There were several justifications for the use of such restraints: Restraints could control anti-social behaviour such as tearing clothes and exhibiting lewd or sexual behaviour .
Where was the restraint collar found?
Replica of a restraint collar from the 1800s. The original was found in a chest in Hanwell Hospital in the 1930s. Science Museum Group Collection. A prisoner at Wakefield prison is held in a chair by a restraint collar and straps. Mechanical restraints originated in custodial institutions such as prisons.
What is mental asylum?
The mental asylum was the historical equivalent of the modern psychiatric hospital. The word asylum came from the earliest (religious) institutions which provided asylum in the sense of refuge to the mentally ill.
When were asylums built?
But when the first large asylums were built in the early 1800s, they were part of a new, more humane attitude towards mental healthcare. The Middlesex County Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell, on the outskirts of London, was one of the first of the new state asylums, and it set many of the standards for mental healthcare in the Victorian age.
Abstract
This article outlines when, how and in what kind of contexts the phenomenon of mental illness was recognized in the ancient philosophical texts, how mental illness was understood in terms of the body–mind interaction, and how mental disorders of the medical kind were distinguished from non-medical psychic disturbances.
Introduction
In ancient medicine, known to us primarily through the ample corpus of Greek and Latin medical writing that extends from the earliest Hippocratic treatises to the Byzantine medical compilations, there is no established term for ‘mental illness’.
Recognition of Mental Illness in Ancient Philosophy
Plato in his academy, drawing after a painting by Swedish painter Carl Johan Wahlbom (1879). / Wikimedia Commons
The Physical Nature of Mental Illness, and How to Cure It
So far, I have described how mental illness was recognized by major ancient philosophical writers. In this section, I explore how the philosophers understood the physical nature of mental illness, and what kind of cures were suggested and referenced.
But Would It Affect US?
Plato is depicted in Raphael’s The School of Athens anachronistically carrying a bound copy of Timaeus. / Wikimedia Commons
Conclusions
I have explored how the phenomenon of mental illness was recognized and how such disorders were explained in ancient philosophy.
Appendix
Of diseases recognized in ancient medicine, mania, melancholy and phrenitis, in particular, involved notable mental symptoms.
What was the mental health of the first colonists?
The history of the treatment (or lack thereof) of the mentally ill in the United States is a checkered one. The first colonists blamed mental illness on witchcraft and demonic possession, and the mentally ill were often imprisoned, sent to poor houses, or remained untreated at home. Conditions in these prisons were appalling. In 1841, Dorothea Dix volunteered to teach a Sunday-school class for female inmates; she was outraged by the conditions she witnessed. Dix went on to become a renowned advocate for the mentally ill, urging more humane treatment-based care than that given to the mentally ill in prisons. In 1847 she urged the Illinois legislature to provide “appropriate care and support for the curable and incurable indigent insane.” In 1851, Jacksonville Insane Asylum was opened.
What was it like to be in an insane asylum?
While asylum patients struggled with real mental illnesses that we recognize today, some people wound up in the mental asylums that had no real reason to be there, according to today's standards.
What it Meant to be a Mental Patient in the 19th Century?
In the 1900s, Psychiatric hospitals were known as lunatic asylums or insane asylums. And officials there would lock up patients against their will, despite having few ideas about how to properly treat their problems.
1. Patients Were Sent to Hospitals Involuntarily
In the early days of psychiatric hospitals, not everyone chose to enter on their own free will. In fact, up until the 1960s, the majority of the patients in the US mental health facilities were admitted involuntarily.
2. Hospitals Treated Patients Like Prisoners
Given how awful the care was, some people with mental health issues tried to hide their condition to avoid being sent to an asylum. And it’s hard to blame them.
3. Doctors Intentionally Infected People With Malaria Treatment
By the early 20th century, many mental hospitals routinely tested patients for syphilis. We now know syphilis would remain incurable, until the advent of antibiotics.
4. Branding, Spinning, and Swinging Were Common Treatments
The earliest treatments for mental illness were, to put it mildly, absolutely brutal. In the early 19th century, asylums in England used a wheel to spin patients at high speed.
5. Treating Children in Small Rooms
Mental hospitals around the 1900s just didn’t treat adults, they also admitted children. Between 1854 and 1900, the Worcester County Asylum screened hundreds of children who were 16 or younger to determine whether they needed treatment.
6. Stripped and Tested for Diseases
In 1900, the lousy treatment at psychiatric hospitals wasn’t solely reserved for long-term residents. In fact, newly admitted patients were often immediately subjected to dehumanizing tests.