In The 18th-Century Granz Josef Gall

Individual who were having illusions or were delusional had a hole drilled in their skull in order to get rid of the spirits. If that person was still alive, the procedure was successful

When contemplating the relationship between the mind and body, most philosophers advocate either dualism, the view that the mind and body belong to the mental and physical categories respectively, or physicalism, the stance that there is only the physical. (Gertler 108) Brie Gertler upholds the former perspective, and her essay In Defense of Mind-Body Dualism aims to disprove physicalism by establishing the possibility of experiencing pain without the firing of C-fibers, which physicalists believe is identical to pain. (110) She claims that thought experiments are best for determining matters of possibility, but only if such experiments utilize “sufficiently comprehensive” concepts. After first clarifying why Gertler emphasizes the need for

Very little is known about the nature of the human mind. The mental and social life of humans is based on the mind, yet not much is known about it and the extent to which it can go. In all cultures there is a belief about the mind, the heart, and the soul, with a variety of notions about these parts of the human being. Psyche in its ancient sense is extended to limits that go beyond the human body in many of the existing cultures. Surveys that have been done in most countries of the West, Britain, and the U.S have consistently shown that a significant portion of the populations in these regions believe in the occurrence of psychic phenomenon and more than fifty percent believe that they have at one point or another personally experienced it (Sheldrake 102). Considering these beliefs and experiences, it is senseless to claim that the mind is only restricted to the brain. This makes the advocates of mechanistic orthodoxy make an assertion that since paranormal phenomena lacks a scientific explanation, it is non-existent. According to scientific education, this is regarded as superstition but there still calls for need of more study and research into this widespread phenomenon.

Also during that time period a common treatment for such disorders included a procedure known as trephining. This procedure included chipping a hole into the skull of the afflicted person. This procedure has endured through time and is still used today in a more refined way to treat medical problems like migraines and skull fractures. When dealing with mental afflictions, Ancient Egyptians recommended modern methods like engaging in recreational activities like dancing, and painting. In the past it has also been common to lock up in jails or dungeons individuals who were mentally ill and who acted out. In the 17th century drugs like laudanum, unguents, opium grains were used as sedatives to ease the torment that mentally ill individuals would endure. At certain points in time, the mentally ill were housed in monasteries up until asylums were created and used to hold these individuals.

In Prehistoric societies, trephining was used to release the evil spirits. They believed that an evil spirit or spirits were causing the person to have a mental illness. They believed that the spirits were in the head, because that is where the person’s illness was. Therefore, they cut a hole in the skull to release the evil spirit and free the person (David Sue).

Unearthed skulls dating back to 6500 BCE have been discovered by archeologists to have large holes drilled into the sides of them. (1) The purpose of the drilling was to release the demon spirits that ruled inside these unfortunate beings. (2) The thought at the time was that strange, disruptive, or unexplainable behaviors demonstrated

Biological psychology is the study of how biology affects a number of psychological processes i.e. how the mind affects the body (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner & Hood 2015). The study of the mind has had many influential figures throughout history that often use each other’s ideas as a stepping stone to further advance psychology, some of the first being Plato and Aristotle. Plato believed in nativism and theorised some skills and characteristics are innate and a person is born with them (Schacter et al, 2015). Aristotle, however, was in favour of philosophical empiricism i.e. that all knowledge is acquired through experience, yet current scientists do not consider that nativism and empiricism are entirely accurate (Schacter et al, 2015). Aristotle also believed that the brain existed to cool the blood, as during that time people were sceptical that an organ could be responsible for behaviour (Kolb, Whishaw & Teskey 2016). The next major advancement in biological psychology was the introduction of phrenology by Francis Gall, Gall’s theory suggested that all psychological capabilities had a specific place in the brain (Schacter et al, 2015). This theory later turned out to be correct, although was overshadowed by Gall’s insistence that he could state a person’s character dependant on the size of lumps and indentations on a person’s skull, which he thought would represent the size of that brain region beneath (Schacter et al, 2015). Due to this, in spite of a large following, phrenology was quickly discredited. Biologist Pierre Flourens, unhappy with Gall’s research, began removing localized areas of the brain in various animals to observe their behaviour (Schacter et al, 2015). Flourens then found that animal’s movements differed to those with intact brains. This mirrored a situation for surgeon Paul Broca with whom one of his patients had damage to the left side of

I read the article, “Secrets of the Brain”, found in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic written by Carl Zimmer. I chose this subject because I have been fascinated with the brain and how it works. The research of the brain has been ongoing for many centuries now. The history in this article is interesting. It explained how scientists used to understand the brain and its inner workings. For example, “in the ancient world physicians believed that the brain was made of phlegm. Aristotle looked on it as a refrigerator, cooling of the fiery heart. From his time through the Renaissance, anatomists declared with great authority that our perceptions, emotions, reasoning, and actions were all the result of “animal spirits”—mysterious, unknowable vapors that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our bodies.” (Zimmer, p. 38)

In early American history, individuals with mental illnesses have been neglected and suffered inhuman treatments. Some were beaten, lobotomized, sterilized, restrained, in addition to other kinds of abuse. Mental illness was thought to be the cause of supernatural dreadful curse from the Gods or a demonic possession. Trepanning (the opening of the skull) is the earliest known treatment for individuals with mental illness. This practice was believed to release evil spirits (Kemp, 2007). Laws were passed giving power to take custody over the mentally ill including selling their possessions and properties and be imprisoned (Kofman, 2012). The first psychiatric hospital in the U.S. was the Pennsylvania Hospital where mentally ill patients were left in cold basements because they were considered not affected by cold or hot environments and restraint with iron shackles. They were put on display like zoo animals to the public for sell by the doctors (Kofmen, 2012). These individuals were punished and isolated and kept far out of the eyes of society, hidden as if they did not exist. They were either maintained by living with their families and considered a source of embarrassment or institutionalized

Franz Joseph Gall created the first comprehensive theory of brain localization in 1796. Phrenology is a pseudoscientific theory that asserts an individual’s personality and mental capacities can be determined by the shape of their skull (Cooter, 1984). “Organology” was the original term that Gall used to describe his science; it was Gall’s follower, T.I.M Forster, who coined the term phrenology (Van Wyhe, 1999). Gall’s contemporary, Joseph Franz Spurzheim, was responsible for the dissemination of Gall’s ideas to the United Kingdom and the United States (Selby, 1993). Gall inspired many “egotistical” men to promulgate phrenology, and it “attracted such men because of its promise of superlative intellectual authority with minimal effort” (Van Wyhe, 1999). Phrenology

This, I led me too a love of psychology. How wonderful was it that there was a whole science devoted just to that one mystical organ? Studying the brain, we can unlock the doors to human

During the early to mid 20th century, not much was known about mental illnesses or what caused them, which was the way it had been for many years before. One of the somewhat common perceptions about mental illness was that these disorders were caused by possession or negative spirits. This can be most likely be attributed to the wide influence of the catholic church and the belief that exorcisms or psychosurgery could possibly cure incurable or intractable mental illnesses. Psychosurgery developed into the more common procedure known as a lobotomy, where the connections between the prefrontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex are cut with the intention of freeing the patient from delusions and side effects of other mental illnesses. Lobotomies began as a surgical procedure which needed to be performed in an operating room, as it required holes to be drilled through the scalp and into the skull. This meant that though the procedure was seen to show some

The human brain is a mystery that has been studied for centuries in attempt to understand how it functions. Scientists first thought that the brain was a structure that functioned a whole. It was in the early 1600’s where the first ideas of localisation of function in the brain started. At this time Rene Descartes discovered a tiny structure called the pineal

Armstrong begins his paper with a question for the reader of what it means to have a mind. It is well understood that man has the ability to perceive, to think, to feel, and so on, but what does it mean to perceive, to think, and to feel? The answer, he believes, lies in science. Seeing that science is constantly and rapidly gaining ground, he asserts that “...we can give a complete account of man in purely physico-chemical terms” (295?) Pointing out the fact that this view has been accepted by various scientists throughout time, he explains it is the most reliable way to approach the mind-body problem.

Descartes had a very mechanistic view of the brain. He believed the body works similar to machines as it is material and follows laws of physics. He suggests that mind and body interact at the pineal gland. He predicted that there are tube-like structures inside our bodies that tighten under