Perspectives of Mental Health

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Perspectives of Mental Health

• The Past A Short History

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Labels for the Mentally Ill

• -Witches
• -Evildoers
• -Lunatics

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How ancients dealt with abnormal behavior

• Rituals were performed by shamans, magicians,
  priests
• Potions were given to rid the body of evil
  spirits
• Exorcisms were carried out

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What does archeological evidence demonstrate?
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Trepanation
A procedure whereby a hole is drilled in skull to
release the evil spirits.
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Ancient Greeks believed

• -Mentally ill were possessed being punished
  by gods for wrongdoing
• -Prayer could cure possession

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Greek physician, Hippocrates

• Believed that the origin of mental disorders
  are an imbalance of body fluids
• -blood
• -phlegm
• -yellow bile
• -black bile

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Depressionaccording to Hippocrates

• -Resulted from excess of black bile
• -Used the term melancholy to refer to
  depression
• melan black chole bile

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• Middle AgesWide-spread belief that witchcraft
  and demonic possession were causes of insanity.

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Abnormal behavior was evidence of devils
worktreatment was responsibility of the church
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During the Renaissance Ancients believed that
movements of the moon stars caused madness.
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During the 1500s special institutions, insane
asylums, were built to house the mentally ill.
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Chaotic unsanitary living conditions in asylums
Infamous London robber, Jack Sheppard, visiting
his mother in notorious Bethlehem asylum.
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The Bethlehem asylum was nicknamed Bedlam for
its chaotic, unsanitary living conditions.
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In 1840s, French physician, Philippe Pinel
supervises unchaining of hospital inmates.
Pinels mental health reforms led to the
widespread movement called moral therapy.
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In colonial times, people who behaved abnormally
were thought to be in league with the devil!
Only a dunking test could resolve the
allegation.
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If the possessed woman did not drown, she was
thought to be in league with the devil.
Dunking test. . .the ultimate no-win situation.
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1840s Dorthea Dix American Schoolteacher

• -Campaigned for humane treatment of mentally
  disturbed
• -Persuaded legislature to provide state funds for
  improvement of mental institutions

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In 1883, Emil Kraepelin, German psychiatrist,
developed a system for diagnosing classifying
mental illness.
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Kraepelin was one of the most influential
psychiatrists of his time. His classification
system for mental illness influenced subsequent
classifications.
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-Kraeplein went traveling as far as India,Mexico,
and the U.S.
-He was planning a journey to Ceylor with one of
his pupils when he died in 1926.
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The journey continues . . .