A Short History of Mental Illness Treatment

A Short History of Mental Illness Treatment

The Virtual Psychology Classroom notes that, as late as the 17th century, treatment for those “under the devil’s control” was worse than the ailment: “ . . . many individuals suffering from mental illness were tortured in an attempt to drive out the demon.” When this didn’t work—and of course, it usually didn’t—the victim was thought to be eternally possessed and in need of execution. Death provided a permanent release from mental torment.

By the 18th century, a slightly more enlightened attitude began to take hold. The idea that someone’s mind was under the control of a fiendish spirit faded.

Sufferers were put into lunatic asylums, as they were called. They could be grim places, and those inside were treated more as prisoners than patients.

Although it was now recognized that diseases of the mind could not be driven out with a sound whipping there wasn’t much that medicine could do to lessen the suffering. Inmates were mostly just warehoused to keep them away from the general population.

The Virtual Psychology Classroom notes that, as late as the 17th century, treatment for those “under the devil’s control” was worse than the ailment: “ . . . many individuals suffering from mental illness were tortured in an attempt to drive out the demon.” When this didn’t work—and of course, it usually didn’t—the victim was thought to be eternally possessed and in need of execution. Death provided a permanent release from mental torment.

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First Asylums Opened By the 18th century, a slightly more enlightened attitude began to take hold. The idea that someone’s mind was under the control of a fiendish spirit faded.

Sufferers were put into lunatic asylums, as they were called. They could be grim places, and those inside were treated more as prisoners than patients.

Although it was now recognized that diseases of the mind could not be driven out with a sound whipping there wasn’t much that medicine could do to lessen the suffering. Inmates were mostly just warehoused to keep them away from the general population.

Bethlem Royal Hospital One famous (although infamous is a more accurate description) insane asylum was the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, England.

(It became known as Bedlam, and the word “bedlam” passed into the English language to describe any out-of-control situation).

Bethlem was Europe’s first mental hospital. It opened in 1247 as a shelter for the homeless. Over the centuries, it moved location several times and started to take in mental patients. Many of these poor wretches simply lay shackled in their own filth.

Various potions were tried as treatments along with blood letting and forced vomiting. Hot and cold baths were also administered, which did little in the way of curing insanity but at least gave inmates a chance to clean up a bit.

Meanwhile, members of the general public were charged admission to visit the mad house, as though the patients were exhibits in a zoo, which, of course, they were.

Word spread about conditions inside Bethlem and a committee, under Member of Parliament Edward Wakefield, visited the place and exposed the horrors going on behind its walls. His 1815 report caused public outrage.

Mr. Wakefield and his colleagues wrote: “One of the side rooms contained about ten [female] patients, each chained by one arm to the wall; the chain allowing them merely to stand up by the bench or form fixed to the wall, or sit down on it. The nakedness of each patient was covered by a blanket only . . . Many other unfortunate women were locked up in their cells, naked and chained on straw . . . In the men’s wing, in the side room, six patients were chained close to the wall by the right arm as well as by the right leg . . . Their nakedness and their mode of confinement gave the room the complete appearance of a dog kennel.”

But, it was the plight of one James Norris that caused the biggest ruckus. Thrown into Bethlem for some unnamed insanity he had endured ten years of solitary confinement, his upper body held in a metal cage that was chained to a post.

Parliament enacted laws that attempted to provide more humane treatment for asylum inmates.

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