Historical Perspective Flashcards
Hippocrates (460-377 bc)
- natural causes: brain pathology, heredity/predisposition, head injuries
- imbalance between body fluids/forces
- shaped personality - recommended humane treatments
Prehistoric times
- mental illness are caused by good or bad spirits
- trepanation: hole in skull to release demons, person usually died
- good spirit: awe and respect
- bad spirit: magic, potions, fear
Hippocrates: bodily fluids
- they shaped and classified personality
- 4 humors
1. Melancholic: black bile, earth, cold and dry, sorrowful
2. Choleric: yellow bile, fire, hot and dry, egocentric
3. Sanguine: blood, air, hot and wet, lively
4. Phlegmatic: phlegm, water, cold and wet, private
Hippocrates: treatments
- humane
- regular peaceful life
- sobriety and refraining from excess and extremes
- vegetarianism and celibacy
- exercise
- bleeding
Plato (429-347 BC)
- not responsible for acts, shouldn’t be punished
- care in community and specialty hospitals
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
-changed in ways of thinking could be curative
Later greek and roman thought
- pleasant surroundings
- constant activities –> stimulation, not constant rest
- pleasant physical therapies
Early chinese thought
- natural, not supernatural causes
- restore balance: yin and yang
- stress can contribute
- drugs and regaining emotional balance
Middle ages
- russia, arabia, muslim empire
- deserve humane treatment
- first psychiatric hospital in baghdad - europe
- superstition, supernatural phenomenon
- lots of plagues –> at the mercy of uncontrollable events
- mass madness –> group behaviors, ex large group dancing and not stopping
16th to 18th centuries
- disease rather than demonic possession
- asylums were established –> effort to provide sanctuary
- became more like warehouses
- Bedlem “madhouse” in London charged admissions for spectators
- less severely ill were beggars
- severe treatments designed to intimidate patients into choosing rationality over insanity
End of 18th century, europe
- humanitarian reform
- phillipe pinel in France and william tuke in england
- changes in attitudes, treatments, leaderships, laws
- patients were fed and clothed better
End of 18th century, america
- Moral treatment movement
- mental hygiene movement
Moral treatment movement
-End of 18th century, america
benjamin rush –> humane care and morality
-focus on moral strength –> build up someones moral strength so they can recover –> this is flawed bc it blames people too much
-had issues with upper vs lower class and moral spirituality
Mental hygiene movement
- end of 18th century, america
- dorthea dix: clean asylums, raise money for new asylums, better heating and warm showers
19th Century
- the “great confinement”/ “asylum era”
- expansion in the number and size of psychiatric institutions
- giant asylums: look like mansions, hold a ton of people, very large buildings
- began with moral treatment in mind, but became too large and imprisonable
- heavy drugging, purging
- docs became administrators and didn’t treat
- untrained laypersons administered treatment
