In March of 1841, a thirty eight year old woman named Dorothea Dix, arrived at the East Cambridge Jail after volunteering to teach Sunday Classes to female prisoners. She found mentally ill individuals housed alongside felons, in unheated or cooled, dirty, and cramped conditions, seemingly excused by the prison staff due to the notion that “the insane do not feel heat or cold.” At this point in time, the mentally ill were often imprisoned for a multitude of reasons. They relied on families for care, and were seen as a burden to society if they didn’t have an adequate or willing family. Mental illness was viewed by some as a crime, though predominantly just as a burden on society. There was little to no objection to their imprisonment, and Dorothea Dix was one of the few who observed the inhumane treatment and conditions of the aforementioned individuals, and the most successful activist in the campaign for the humanization of treatment and views on the mentally ill.
One of Dorothea Dix’s most effective ways of changing prejudice against mental illness was one in which she didn’t possess a singular role. The initial creation and use of moral treatment in America is credited to Benjamin Rush, “Father of American Psychiatry”. Moral therapy is a process in which people with mental illnesses undergo one of the first forms of therapy, including recreational activities and lessons on societal interaction and behavior. Benjamin Rush believed mental illness to be just that, an illness, instead of a demonic possession or perverted behavior. His brand of moral therapy, though revolutionary (at the time), involved multiple physical treatments; blood letting-a practice in which physicians opened a vein and released blood in hope of drainin...
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...Hospital History: Stories - Influencing the Field of Psychiatry." Pennsylvania Hospital History: Stories - Influencing the Field of Psychiatry. Penn Medicine, 2013. Web. 08 Jan. 2014.Information on Benjamin Rush's approach to mental illness and his form of moral treatment.
Viney, Wayne, and Steven Zorich. "Contributions to the History of Psychology XXIX: Dorothea Dix." Comp. Jenn Bumb. Psychological Reports. 1st ed. Vol. 50. N.p.: n.p., 1982. 211-18. Print. Psychological Reports.
Dix, Dorothea. “Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusettes.” 1843. Disability History Museum. 2001. Web. 10 January 2014.
Wagner, David. "Poor Relief and the Almshouse." Disability History Museum--: Disability History Museum. Disability History Museum, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. .Definition and role of almshouse/poorhouse.
In the Earley book, the author started to talk about the history of mental illness in prison. The mentally ill people were commonly kept in local jails, where they were treated worse than animals. State mental hospitals were typically overcrowded and underfunded. Doctors had very little oversight and often abused their authority. Dangerous experimental treatments were often tested on inmates.
Baddock, David, and Susan Parish. "An Institutional History of Disability." Handbook of Disability Studies. California: SAGE, 2001. 11-38. Print.
Before Kirkbride's standardized methods for mental hospitals, those with mental illness suffered crude and inhuman treatment. Beginning in Colonial America society, people suffering from mental illness were referred to as lunatics. Colonists viewed lunatics as being possessed by the devil, and usually were removed from societ...
Throughout the Great Depression the mentally disabled were treated harshly and were almost constantly being harassed by society. The mentally ill were treated in this cruel manner because they were seen as the cause of some of society’s problems of that day in age. Also, society viewed them as less capable of human being. A physician of that time by the name of Alexis Carrel stated, “The mentally ill should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanistic institutions supplied with the proper gases” (Freeman; “Treatment of the…”). Not only did Alexis Carrel feel this way, but so did many other people of the United States way
The film gives a historical overview of how the mentally ill have been treated throughout history and chronicles the advancements and missteps the medical community has made along the way. Whittaker recounts the history of psychiatric treatment in America until 1950, he then moves on to describe the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. He critically summarizes that it is doctors, rather than the patients, who have always calculated the evaluation of the merits of medical treatment, as the “mad” continue to be dismissed as unreliable witnesses. When in fact it is the patient being treated, and their subjective experience, that should be foremost in the evaluation. The film backs up this analysis with interviews of people, living viable lives in the town of Geel, Belgium. I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the history of medicine and specifically to those examining mental illness. It provides a balanced recounting of historical approaches to mental illness, along with success stories of the people of Geel, Belgium. And although I had to look away during the viewing of a lobotomy procedure, I give credit to the power of the visual impact the footage
Moral treatment is a treatment that uses “psychological methods” to treat mental diseases (Packet Two, 26). In general, moral treatment was a relatively benevolent and humane approach to treat mental disorders. Before the introduction of moral treatment, insane people were regarded by the general public as wild animals whose brains were physically impaired and usually incurable (Packet One, 11). Therefore, regardless of patients’ specific symptoms, physicians generally labeled patients as lunatics and treated them with the same method (Packet One, 11). Because of the perceived impossibility of curing mental illness, physicians put far greater emphasis on restraining patients’ potential danger behaviors than striving to bring them back to sanity. Cruel methods such as bloodletting were widely used, but their effectiveness was really poor. Moral treatment was a response to this ineffective and brutal traditional treatment. The advocates of moral treatment insisted that mental diseases were curable. By providing a friendly environment that contributed to reviving, moral treatment could help patients to...
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.
Known as an American philanthropist and reformer, Dorothea Dix transformed living conditions in prisons and established institutions for the mentally insane in 20 states, as well as Canada (“DIX”). Through her crusade for fair treatment of the mentally insane, Dorothea Dix exemplifies the ideals of her time – to protect the rights of all human beings, no matter their age, race, or mental capacity.
Webb, Wilse. History Of Psychology. Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology 9.1 (1989): 44-45. PsycARTICLES. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
Prior to taking this course, I generally believed that people were rightly in prison due to their actions. Now, I have become aware of the discrepancies and flaws within the Criminal Justice system. One of the biggest discrepancies aside from the imprisonment rate between black and white men, is mental illness. Something I wished we covered more in class. The conversation about mental illness is one that we are just recently beginning to have. For quite a while, mental illness was not something people talked about publicly. This conversation has a shorter history in American prisons. Throughout the semester I have read articles regarding the Criminal Justice system and mental illness in the United States. Below I will attempt to describe how the Criminal Justice system fails when they are encountered by people with mental illnesses.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
In the 1840s, Dorothea Dix observed the mentally ill in Massachusetts and saw how cruelly they were being treated ("Timeline: Treatments ...
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