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Running Header: How has mental health changed and grown?
Mental health treatment has grown so heavily that we have evolved from drilling
a hole in to a person’s skull, to exorcizing the demons out of their soul; eventually to
psychosocial therapy and psychopharmacology. “Abnormal behaviour has come to be
viewed in our culture as the product of physical and psychological factors, not demonic
possession” (Nevid, Greene, Johnson, Taylor, and Macnab. P.9 2013). This clearly
states that we have seen all kinds of treatments in the 21st century with the way science
and our medical resources are expanding. But how often do we look at just how much
we have evolved medically since the 15th century? All the proof we need is what’s been
uncovered over the years in order to see how far we have come.
Medical practice used to be simple. If a person didn’t seem mentally all there, the
first thing they did was assume schizophrenia and fix it by trephining; a way of releasing
evil spirits by drilling a hole directly into their skull. This idea was proven true in
Essentials of Abnormal Psychology in a Changing World: “Archaeologists have
unearthed human skeletons from the stone age with egg-sized cavities in their skulls”
(Nevid et. al. p 9. 2013. Even the church viewed mental illness as a serious form of
possession, and believed the only way to defeat it was exorcism. While these methods
were disturbing and inhumane, it proves that mental illness was recognized and treated
seriously. It also gave medical practitioners reason to invest more time into mental
health. This is what led to asylums and mental hospital developments.
Fifteenth century Europe started introducing asylums. They were humiliating,
demoralizing and still a step forward from trephining. “Asylums often gave refude to
beggars as well as the disturbed” (Nevid et al, 2013, p.11). Nevid talks about how
asylums served a purpose to keep the ill safe from physical harm. However asylums, or
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Running Header: How has mental health changed and grown?
madhouses, were unkempt and patients were secured to their beds or locked awa.
Also, in 2013, Nevid’s team of authors state in Essentials of Abnormal Psychology, “In
the 19th century it was standard operating procedure at many Ontario asylums to open
to the public.” Which means every day for four hours, people were able to view the
residents as a form of entertainment. It was then that the Catholic Church recognized
things needed to change and thus introduced Moral Therapy and the Reform Movement
from Philippe Pinel and Jean-Baptiste Pussin starting 1784.
The Reform Movement saw a lifetime of change in the medical field. In 1973,
Philippe Pinel “spent hours talking to inmates, in the belief that showing understanding
and concern would help restore them to normal functioning” (Nevid et. al. 2013 pp 1112). Pinel believed that with proper care and a stable environment that a patient could
be restored to good health. In 2013, D. Swingler said in the South African Journal of
Psychiatry, “an integrated treatment plan including pharmacological, psychosocial and
social interventions should be formulated in terms of available resources” (p. 153). And,
Jean-Baptiste Pussin “was actually the first official to unchain a group of the incurably
insane” (Nevid et. al. 2013. p.11). Pinel, and Pussin are just two of the individuals who
changed the way we treat the mentally ill. Looking back, we see how scary and painful it
used to be to admit you were mentally unstable. Now we’ve seen how much it’s grown.
It’s now 2014 and we have looked as far back as the middle of the 1500s.
Torture, abandonment, acceptance and finally, change and growth. We’ve witnessed
changed, and there are many different ways to treat illnesses like schizophrenia. But
first, we have to acknowledge that it is a real illness. Then we have to treat it
accordingly. Something that doctor’s never considered in the last 300 years.