Historical Views Of Mental Illness

Question 1

Name a supernatural explanation of mental illness

Answer 1

Demonic possesion

Question 2

Describe demonic possession

Answer 2

• believed ‘madness’ was due to evil spirits taking over the individual and controlling their behaviour
• could be possessed by: animals, ancestors, gods, heroes + victims who were wronged and their death unresolved
• could enter a person by: their own cunning, work of a magical evildoer or through the individuals lack of belief
• treated by: trepanning -> drill a hole into the persons skull to provide an exit for the spirits or demons

Question 3

Name the somatogenic explanation of mental illness

Answer 3

• Humourism (Hippocrates)
• Animalism
• Moral treatment

Question 4

Describe Humourism

Answer 4

• mental health dependent on a balance among the 4 humours
  (too much)…
• phlegm = sluggish + dull
• black bile = melancholia
• yellow bile= irritability + anxiousness
• blood = changeable temperament
  –> would balance 4 humours through diets, purgatives and blood letting

Question 5

Describe animalism

Answer 5

• in st Marys of Bethlehem in London- patients chained to the walls or kept on long leashes
• pennsylvania hospital in 1756 set a section aside for ‘lunatics’
  –> people consigned to a cellar, scalps shaved + blistered, bled to the point of unconciousness. constantly purged and chained by the waist or ankle to a cell wall.
  –> believed madness was due to animalism (the ‘insane’ had lost reason, meaning their behaviour was ‘beast like’)
  – treatments through fear said to restore their distorted mind

Question 6

describe moral treatment

Answer 6

• Philippe Pinel petitioned to the Revolutionary committee to remove the chains from some of the patients in a french asylum and allow them to exercise in open air
  –> was effective, changed conditions of the hospital + discontinued the common methods of treatment (bloodletting, purging + physical abuse)
• Pinel believed mental disorders caused by psychological or social stress, cognitive conditions, or physiological injuries. argued for humane treatment of mental patients + friendly behaviour between doctor + patient

Question 7

which of these historical views can be argued under ‘psychology as a science’

Answer 7

• humourism = objective - measure levels of the 4 humours in the body
• Demonic possession- falsifiable- not falsifiable as can’t prove demons exist
• Animalism- falsifiable- not as can’t prove people have lost ‘reason’