Mental Illnesses In The 19th Century

During the 1700’s the jails were not only used to confine criminals, but they confined people with mental illness as well. People with mental illness were subjected to inhumane treatment, even when the individual was admitted

The 1950s was a very prevalent time in history; this was due it being seen as a time of recovery and rebuilding after World War II. However, the 1950s is also very heavily known for the surge of development within areas, such as science and mathematics or ‘STEM’, due to the Cold War. This surge did cause major discoveries to be made and advancements, such as the occurrence of the first rocket ship launch in 1950. However, with this surge an area that dearly suffered was the enforcement of medical sciences within schools due to the tracking programs. This has generally caused stigma within internal illnesses, especially mental illnesses, because of the lack of knowledge about the subject. Nevertheless, there have been multiple reasons why mental

Illness is one of the few experiences that all humans have in common and generally is met with empathy. However, people who suffer from mental illness are not privy to this treatment. For centuries, mental disorders have been demonized and stigmatized even in the modern era where humans have a much better understand of the mechanisms of the mind. Before the advent of psychiatry in the eighteenth-century people believed that mental illness was actually demonic possession resulting in the ostracization and murder of the mentally ill in the name of God. The Victorian era was met with a different view of mental illness, in that it was understood that it was a malady of the mind and people needed constant medical treatment, thus federally mandated asylums were created. Since mental illness was not understood there was a lot of misconceptions and fear surrounding the field. It is no surprise that the master of macabre and the creator of Horror, Edgar Allen Poe, decided to explore themes of mental illness in his stories. Poe’s most famous story about mental illness was The Fall of the House of Usher, where the main characters are plagued with an undisclosed mental malady. Through Poe’s use of point of view, style, tone, and tropes, he painted a perfect picture of the Victorian view of the mentally ill and the mind of the artist which was believed to be different faces of the same coin.

The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.

During the 1800s, treating individuals with psychological issues was a problematic and disturbing issue. Society didn’t understand mental illness very well, so the mentally ill individuals were sent to asylums primarily to get them off the streets. Patients in asylums were usually subjected to conditions that today we would consider horrific and inhumane due to the lack of knowledge on mental illnesses.

Before the reform movement, prisoners and the mentally ill were treated cruelly under the prison system. Up until the 1800s, it was believed that mental illnesses meant some form of “religious punishment or demonic possession”. Most people had negative feelings toward the mentally ill during the years up to the reform movement. Hippocrates actually was well known to treat the mentally ill. He’d change their lives to change their feeling or he’d use certain substances to help these people. In the times of the middle ages, most people believed that the mentally ill were in need of religion. In the 1800s, people could be hanged for a variety of reasons, ranging from murder, to arson, to forgery, or even for being an single mother hiding a stillborn child. Almost all the mentally ill people were jailed in 1800s America. Others were hidden by family members (Brief). In this time period, the New York

Being socially acceptable was a necessity for maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the early 1800s but for the mentally ill, the cruelness of society took hold. In 1808, Europe constructed the first insane asylum, and their definition of “moral principles” were drastically different than they are today. In order for a clinical psychologist's work ethic to help with the improvement of others’ mental health, they should view the mentally ill as their equals, construct proper institutional care, and provide the use of effective medication. For the sake of the mentally ill’s recovery, well balanced citizens who lived in Europe during the 1800s had to treat everyone, no matter their mental state, with dignity and respect.

Historians have traced mental health care back to as early as the 1500’s. At this time, families with mentally ill members kept them at home. They were treated as unwanted, out-of-place prisoners.

By the 1800s, physicians were able to establish that mental illness was connected to a biological disorder and that it could be triggered by different stressors in the individual’s life. They were also able to determine that there was more than one type of mental illness. After this discovery, people started shifting from mental asylums to mental hospitals that would allow the patients to receive specialized treatment that would positively benefit them in accordance to the specific mental afflictions they suffered from. Then, a psychiatrist was assigned to the patient so they could try to identify the stressors in their patient’s life and establish resolutions to eliminate the stressors.

For centuries societies have been superstitious and afraid towards mental illness; mainly due to a lack of knowledge. While there were “cures and treatments” for individuals that were deemed insane many were sent to either prisons or asylums. The conditions of these facilities were unsanitary, the physical and sexual abuse was frequent, and the staff was not properly trained to care for patients. Patients were also chained, caged, or restrained to beds in rooms that were often unheated.

My theme is being a teenager in the 1300’s-1500’s verses being a teenager today. I will discuss mental illness during the Renaissance time and how it was treated, to mental illness today and how it is treated. I am also going to be talking about Romeo and Juliet, and how mental illness related to their situation. Mental illness is different today from mental illness in the 1300’s-1500’s, but The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare still shows us that mental illness played a huge role in the actions of Romeo and Juliet.

In the 1800s, asylums were built as a means to house the seriously mentally ill, often taking persons from their homes and families to die alone in often deplorable and inhumane conditions. The process of “locking up” persons who were deemed seriously mentally ill continued until the 1950s after the public demand for humane treatment towards the seriously mentally ill

The mentally ill were cared for at home by their families until the state recognized that it was a problem that was not going to go away. In response, the state built asylums. These asylums were horrendous; people were chained in basements and treated with cruelty. Though it was the asylums that were to blame for the inhumane treatment of the patients, it was perceived that the mentally ill were untamed crazy beasts that needed to be isolated and dealt with accordingly. In the opinion of the average citizen, the mentally ill only had themselves to blame (Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999). Unfortunately, that view has haunted society and left a lasting impression on the minds of Americans. In the era of "moral treatment", that view was repetitively attempted to be altered. Asylums became "mental hospitals" in hope of driving away the stigma yet nothing really changed. They still were built for the untreatable chronic patients and due to the extensive stay and seemingly failed treatments of many of the patients, the rest of the society believed that once you went away, you were gone for good. Then the era of "mental hygiene" began late in the nineteenth century. This combined new concepts of public health, scientific medicine, and social awareness. Yet despite these advancements, another change had to be made. The era was called "community mental health" and

Today mental illness is treated scientifically and as human disease and not as in ancient times that was awarded to supernatural powers. Primitive Cultures 10,000 BC In

During the mid-1800’s the mentally ill were either homeless or locked in a cell under deplorable conditions. Introduction of asylums was a way to get the mentally ill better care and better- living conditions. Over a period of years, the admissions grew, but staff to take care of their needs did not. Asylums became overcrowded and treatments that were thought to cure, were basically medieval and unethical