Mental Hygiene Flashcards
What is the concept of ‘mental hygiene’?
It is a concept about the prevention of mental illness in society as a whole. It involves theories about modern society and mental illness; and has a ‘utopian’ perspective on how psychiatry can be used to make a better world.
Although it is in the field of psychiatry, what area is mental hygiene grounded in?
Public health, as mental hygiene is the public health perspective of psychiatry.
What does the concept of mental hygiene focus on?
Prevention of mental illness.
What did the ‘mental hygiene’ movement do for psychiatry?
It expanded the domain of psychiatry.
Where did the impulse for the expansion of psychiatry come from?
From the mental hygiene movement.
When was the first mental hygiene exhibit? What did the poster say?
In 1912 and the poster said, ‘A Nation’s Greatness Depends upon the Efficiency of its Citizens.’
What was the original belief behind the first Mental Hygiene movement?
National efficiency depends on personal efficiency, a sound mind & sound body, and the organisation of good habits.
Who was Brock Chisholm?
- The first director-general of the World Health Organisation in 1948.
- The chief physician of the Canadian Army in WWII.
- In 1948 he had a big address/speech, called, ‘the maintenance of peace-time society.’
What did Brock Chisholm’s address in 1948, called ‘the maintenance of peace-time society’ say about psychiatry and the war?
Well, during this time there was great confidence in psychiatry. It was believed that war is caused by human aggression gone wrong and psychiatrists are the one’s who know all about aggression and the human mind.
Thus, he claimed we must rely on psychiatrists if we want to maintain peace.
What did Maslow (the humanist) have to say about psychiatry and peace? (similar to Brock Chisholm)
The world will be saved by psychology or not be saved at all.
How did Brock Chisholm claim that psychiatry could save the world?
By finding simple principles that would help large groups of people (similar to adding fluoride to water to prevent cavities).
Individual therapy would not work, the world needed to be remodelled.
Medicine has TWO perspectives, what are they and where does the mental hygiene theory lie?
In medicine there are two perspectives:
- curative medicine (deals with sick individuals)
- public health (deals with populations, statistics, epidemiology, prevalence of disease, etc.)
Mental hygiene is a ‘public health’ perspective on psychiatry.
What are the two main interests for public health? And what effect do these ideas have on psychiatry?
- Interest in prevention: curing disease, treating disease in its early stages, promoting health.
- Structural solutions: population-wide, structural initiatives.
These ideas expanded the domain of psychiatry.
Public health initiatives are often met with conspiracy theorists, what are some examples?
- to prevent dental decay they put fluoride in drinking water: a communist plot?
- immunisation was met with anti-VAXers.
This idea that the state should not dictate what we should do.
What are some determinants of health (in a population)?
Is it the number of physicians? Access to health care?
No… it’s the average wealth. People having accomodation and being able to afford adequate nutrition is the biggest determinant of health.
What was the McKeown thesis?
A thesis on why the rate of tuberculosis went down in England and Wales, and it was mostly due to social determinants, not the vaccine.
In psychiatry, the mental hygiene movement wants to reduce the prevalence of mental illness… what are some pathways?
Some clearer pathways are: less war, less sexual abuse of children, less violence on children, perhaps less poverty (severe forms of mental illness are suffered by those on the lower levels of socio-economic status).
BUT, despite the obvious, the pathways are not always clear.
How did ‘mental hygiene’ start?
With Clifford W. Beers, an undergraduate at Yale University. He wrote a book called ‘A Mind That Found Itself’ in 1908.
Who was Clifford W. Beers?
The man who started the ‘mental hygiene’ movement. He was an undergraduate at Yale university, he was gregarious, formed many societies. He moved to New York to work in an office where his mental health really declined. One day, he felt so bad he went back home to Newhaven where he eventually attempted suicide. He was taken to a mental hospital, where he became even more delusional and believed that people disguised as his family members were visiting him. Eventually he wrote a letter to his brother asking him to visit him, to see if it really would be his brother that came the next day. It was his brother, and Clifford became manic, he believed he found a solution to his illness. His friends from Yale visited him and helped him start this movement.
After Clifford W. Beers founded the mental hygiene movement in the early 20th century, who then took over?
Adolf Meyer, a migrant from Switzerland
Who was Adolf Meyer, and what did he do?
Adolf Meyer was a migrant from Switzerland who wanted to chance the conditions in psychiatry.
He tried to get more funding for mental hospitals and began researching the causes of mental illness.
He launched ‘dynamic psychiatry’.
What was ‘dynamic psychiatry’ (or the ‘psychiatry of adjustment’)?
It was a theory founded by Adolf Meyer that focuses on the relationship individuals have with their environment, or their ability to adjust and face the challenges of every day.
The ‘psychiatry of adjustment’, or ‘dynamic psychiatry’ moved the field of psychiatry from focusing just on mental illness to…?
- maladjustment.
- vagrancy.
- alcoholism.
- homelessness.
- crime.
- prostitution.
- vice, etc.
What did the mental hygiene movement do between 1910-1920?
Improved out-patient care that treated lesser forms of mental illness, helped reintegration into the community, informed GP’s, reformed medical education to include mental health.
BUT also! Eugenics became really popular during this time, the idea that people with mental illness should not procreate.
ALSO, to prevent migrants from mental illness from entering the US.
