Essay On Mental Health

688 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Mental illnesses then and now

When it comes to mental illnesses people tend to assume the worst of the patients, what they don’t think about is the people who care for them. They don’t care what really goes on behind the walls of the facilities. The patients were treated like animals, and horrendous punishments were appointed whenever someone missbehaved. Instead of helping the patients with their mental health, the doctors and nurses were making the patients feel worse. Recovery was on the low percentage and thirty-eight percent of the patients in mental hospitals in the 1800s were reported dead. If we were to compare the time periods of 1600s-1800s and 2000s the differentiality would be beyond extremity. In the year “1752 the quakers in Philadelphia were the first in America to make an organized effort to care for the mentally ill” this effort of the quakers founded the idea of opening an actual institution for the mentally ill(Diseases of the Mind: Highlight). In 1856 the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane opened up. Before this the mentally ill were treated inhumane. In late 1600s Europe, the mentally ill were shackled to the walls of dungeons. They weren’t properly cared for, they weren’t given enough food, and were quite often left nude. Mentally ill people weren’t being treated properly. It wasn’t until the 1800s that patients were put in proper facilities, but even then the treatments that these people were forced through were ghastly. In 1800s United States, facilities opened up to help those who needed mental health treatment. The patients were given a room, a bed, clothes, and were allowed time outside in the sun if they behaved properly. In some facilities, patients were being humiliated as a way of therapy. They would be arranged for public... ... middle of paper ... ...y locked her up the way she felt was close to insanity(Ten Days in a Madhouse). Think about that, this woman didn't even have a real mental illness and these doctors treated her horribly, and caused her so much pain. Are these doctors not well trained to notice the difference between a real mental health patient and a fake one. The 1900s came with a new set of treatments and cause chaos in the psychiatric hospitals. The electroshock therapy was introduced in the 1950s, it was said that the reason for this was to control the brain waves and somehow help the patients recover much faster. The treatments had a constant cycle. Women were given the treatment on Mondays and Thursdays, and men on tuesdays and Fridays. The patients were woken up at the crack of dawn and were dragged “begging, pleading, crying, and resisting” to the treatment area(Quest for a Cure: Care).

Show More
Related

  • A History of Mental Care in America

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    The early history of mental illness is bleak. The belief that anyone with a mental illness was possessed by a demon or the family was being given a spiritual was the reason behind the horrific treatment of those with mental illness. These individuals were placed into institutions that were unhygienic and typically were kept in dark, cave like rooms away from people in the outside world. The institutions were not only dark and gross; they also used inhumane forms of treatment on their patients. Kimberly Leupo, discusses some of the practices that were used, these included may types of electro shocks, submitting patients to ice bath, as well as many other horrific events (Leupo). Lobotomies, which are surgical procedures that cut and scrape different connections in the brain, were very common practice. They were thought to help cure mental illness, but often ended up with more damage than good.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Psychiatric Asylums

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

     Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from, and eventually replaced the older lunatic asylums. The treatment of inmates in early lunatic asylums was sometimes brutal and focused on containment and restraint with successive waves of reform, and the introduction of effective evidence-based treatments, modern psychiatric hospitals provide a primary emphasis on treatment, and attempt where possible to help patients control their own lives in the outside world, with the use of a combination of psychiatric drugs and

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Dorothea Dix

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mentally ill was mistreated, beaten, thrown into unclean quarters, and even taken advantage of before the 1800's. They was viewed as helpless individuals. Society and the government viewed them as criminals and deemed them incurable. During the 1800's a pioneer named Dorothea Dix brought about a change dealing with the treatment of the mentally ill. She became the voice of them something they never had.

    Read More

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

    1055 Words  | 3 Pages

    As medical advances are being made, it makes the treating of diseases easier and easier. Mental hospitals have changed the way the treat a patient’s illness considerably compared to the hospital described in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

    Read More

  • On The Construction, Organization And General Arrangements Of Hospitals For The Insane (1854)

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Mental Illnesses In The 1800's

    269 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the 1800’s people with mental illnesses were frowned upon and weren't treated like human beings. Mental illnesses were claimed to be “demonic possessions” people with mental illnesses were thrown into jail cells, chained to their beds,used for entertainment and even killed. Some were even slaves, they were starved and forced to work in cold or extremely hot weather with chains on their feet. Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation.

    Read More

  • The Treatment and Lives of the Mentally Handicapped During the Great Depression

    1151 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Film Madness: A History

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Dorothea Dix: The Insane For The Mentally Ill

    1445 Words  | 3 Pages

    Asylums were thought of as a best place for the mentally ill in the 1900s, but over the years stories of abuses lead people to use drugs and outpatient care instead of sending the insane to asylums. In 1955, nearly 560,000 patients were put in mental hospitals, however, there are now only 35,000 in the twentieth century. There has been a ninety percent decrease in mental health facilities (Campbell 1). In the past, there were no asylums or institutions for the insane to be sent, so they were thrown in jail and were treated as criminals. Dorothea Dix could not stand the unfair treatment and took upon herself to spread mental hospitals around the world. Throughout Dorothea Lynde Dix’s life, she was sedulous to helping people; she built an academy

    Read More

  • The History of Insane Asylums

    1706 Words  | 4 Pages

    The mentally ill were treated very inhumanly in the early insane asylums. Some of the treatment the patients had to undergo was extremely painful and evil. The asylums were really prisons and not centers for treatment. The inmates were chained and the rooms were dark and filthy dungeons. The patients were treated like animals, not humans (Gray).

    Read More

  • Mental: A History Of The Madhouse Analysis

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The History of Treating Mental Illness

    1895 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the 1600s, Europeans began to isolate the mentally ill, where they were kept with the handicapped and delinquents ("Timeline: Treatments for," ). The mentally ill who were seen as insane were treated cruelly, they were often chained to walls and kept away in dungeons ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). In the late 1700s, After the French Revolution, French physician Phillippe Pinel took over the Bicêtre insane asylum and changed the rules ("Timeline: Treatments for,”). He forbid the use of shackles, took patients out of the dungeons, gave them sunny rooms, and let them roam the ground for exercise ("Timeline: Treatments for," ). Although Pinel changed the rules of Bicêtre, mistreatment still persisted in other places in Europe ("Timeline: Treatments for,”).

    Read More

  • History and Overview of Insane Asylums

    1763 Words  | 4 Pages

    For many decades the mentally ill or insane have been hated, shunned, and discriminated against by the world. They have been thrown into cruel facilities, said to help cure their mental illnesses, where they were tortured, treated unfairly, and given belittling names such as retards, insane, demons, and psychos. However, reformers such as Dorothea Dix thought differently of these people and sought to help them instead. She saw the inhumanity in these facilities known as insane asylums or mental institutions, and showed the world the evil that wandered inside these asylums. Although movements have been made to improve conditions in insane asylums, and were said to help and treat the mentally ill, these brutally abusive places were full of disease and disorder, and were more like concentration camps similar to those in Europe during WWII than hospitals.

    Read More

  • Essay On Social Care And Privatisation

    1836 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1950s the construction of new psychiatric centres took place in order to treat people with mental disorders. Local authorities provided financial resources to sustain these establishments of psychiatry. Apparently those psychiatric centres were treating the patients in unappropriated ways and inhuman acts as well as demanding them to remain inside the psychiatric centres for the rest of

    Read More

  • Mental Health Nursing Essay

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1960’s individuals’ with mental illness were supported or cared for in asylums ,by mostly untrained staff, which were at that time called keepers. (Boschma, 2003). During the 1960’s a report called the Ely Report was written. This report stated that there was ill treatment of patients,

    Read More

More about Essay On Mental Health

Open Document