Lecture 3 Flashcards
The psychological-behavioural model suggests that mental illness is a disease caused by biological dysfunctions
true or fals
false
According to the WHO, approximately how many people globally are estimated to live with depression?
- 322 million
What are blood tests or scanning technologies primarily used for?
- to rule out other medical conditions
- not to confirm diagnostic tests or to develop treatment plans
What does somatic mean?
- physical or biological
What is the whig history approach
- critiqued as misrepresentative of actual history and an oversimplification
- human progress is assumed to be inevitable and positive, evolving but always improving, focus on key figures and events
- “in this type of recounting, humans of the past lived their lives shrouded in a metaphorical darkness; over time, however, scientific advances shed increasing amounts of light”
- life does not necessarily get better, although improvements happen
- women often underrepresented
What is the social history approach?
- considers not only key things, but also the daily lives of ordinary people and how they may have experienced cultural or scientific change
What was the belief of madness before the 18th century?
- belief that strange cognitive and behavioural symptoms might be caused by disease
- historical understandings of madness and its causes and characteristics have always been very diverse
What are the 4 ways madness was explain in relation to diverse causes
- demonic possession (spirits)
- misfortune in love (negative tragic experience)
- head injuries (physical cause)
- bodily humours (ancient humoural theory)
What are 4 ways societies treated madness?
- trepanning
- religious ceremonies
- beatings
- counterspells
What is trepanning?
a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull.
When and where were hospitals to house those deemed “mad” first developed?
- in early Islamic societies starting in the 19th century, and later appeared in Europe
When did madness became to be known as mental illness?
late 18th century
What does medicalization refer to
- refers to the process where a condition becomes understood as something that should be treated by physicians
- mental illness became medicalized through a long process
- although mental illness was considered to be a medical problem, non-medical treatments continued to be used and to eveolve
What are the factors contributing to the medicalization of mental illness?
- challenges to the authority and power of the Church in Europe (was losing influence)
- the Scientific Revolution (idea that science could solve problems and explain the natural world - so many discoveries, dissection of humans, can actually see the disease, science giving reason and evidence)
- the Enlightenment - skepticism about religion (focus on rationality/reason)
- increased urbanization - led to increased visibility of people who appeared “mad” and perceived as “dangerous” (public attention increased and states increasingly incarcerated, institutional care increased - charitable homes, for-profit “madhouses”)
What did the transformation into mental illness do?
- shift to increasinly seeing madness as a medical problem
- people increasingly being seen as victims of madness and not to be blamed
- medicalization challenged religious explanations for madness
Explain the rise of physicians
- scientists and physicians became more respected in society
- doctors formed professional organizations and bodies
- physicians were seen to function as a protection against wrongful confinement
What were the physicians made to be responsible for?
- inspecting and licensing asylums (regulation_
- also public attention to poor conditions of madhouses increased
What are the 2 different major arguments posed by historians to understand the rise of the asylum era?
- moral treatment and social control
explain moral treatment
- reason for emergence of the asylum era
- often pointed as the foundation of the asylum movement in the treatment of mental illness
- philosophy that emphasized humane treatment rather than restraint and punishment and attempted to restore mental health
- supposed to be a temporary situation
What was the goal of the moral treatment?
- ending dehumanizing treatment in madhouses
- to build asylums providing active treatment
- calm environment for people to learn new skills, work, engage in recreational activities
- aspirational (an ideal), as few asylums lived up to this standard
- deemed a noble but failed experiment to better manage mental illness
What was the failure of asylums blamed on?
- overcrowding, insufficient funding and understaffing
Explain social control as a reason for emergence of the sylum era
- critical perspective by Foucault and Scull in efforts to remove “problematic people” from society
- individuals deemed problematic due to behaviour that violated social norms were defined as mentally ill, and needed to be confined and “corrected” in workhouses, prisons and asylums
- Foucault points to the practice of moving “undesirable” peopel to workhouses and prisons as a form of “social control”
How did these theorists see psychiatrists
- as agents of control, rather than providers of care, whose role was to enact discipline on unruly bodies
What did social control frame
- framed the problem of mental illness that asylums are not a solution to growing population of mentally ill people,,but precursor
- once established, they were filled as unwanted behaviours were increasingly defined as reimagined and relabeled as “mental illness”
What is the critique of asylums at the end of 19th century
- places of confinement rather than curing
- this view says it is not a failure but indication that the confinement movement was achieving its initial purpose
- a hidden agenda that was succeeding
