Mental Illness In The Middle Ages Essay

This article begins by discussing the history of mental illness, going as far back as the 1700s. It goes over professionals in the field, the incidence rate, and treatments, all of this from the different time periods throughout the United States. The author also makes a point to acknowledge the different perceptions there were in the past of mental

How the psychological disorders were viewed in society was religious people thought that mentally insane people were the spawn of satan,the family that had a mentally insane person, were looked down upon in society, the life of a “mentally retarded” person was thought 20 years old, people called them names and started fist fights with them,and no one ever bothered

There was still a large lack of understanding that what caused mental illness the 1930’s, however people still wanted to treat mental illness so this brought more therapeutic ideas on how to cure it. In 1933, two neurologists at Yale Primate Laboratory, Dr. Fulton and Jacobson, performed experiments on two monkeys. They tested the intelligence of the monkeys before and after the removal of half the brains’ frontal lobes. They seemed to retain their skills and intelligence. Fulton and Jacobson wanted to take this a little further, they removed the other half of the frontal lobe. They discovered that the monkeys no longer became violent and frustrated when they didn't immediately get their treats after completing the intelligence test [9].

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.

Mental illness becomes a bigger issue with a long lasting cultural stereotyped due to the manner in which it has long been labelled (Miles, 1988). Although mental illness is very much connected to instabilities in one’s mental health state, as previously mentioned, a person can be mentally healthy but still suffer from a mental illness. What is understood by mental illness is that it

Before the 1400s psychological issues, mental health problems, were viewed as a connection with the devil. The public viewed people with health problems as being possessed by a demon (Dualdiagnosis). Mental health wasn’t known in this time period, so people acting strange from the general public stood out. These people were treated in a few different ways: exorcism, murder, imprisonment, and trephining skulls; trephined skull is when a small hole is made in the skull to release spirits. (Lumen Learning). Everyone of these ways are very horrendous, but still very true to how mental ill people were treated. As a result, all of the treatments involved the mentally ill person dying or suffering. Mental ill people wasn’t understood at all in this

For many centuries there has been multiple arguments about what causes mental illness. Hebrews believed that mental illness was a punishment from god for those who sinned. The way they cured one another was spiritually and through health. They believed that if you had a healthy diet that it would prevent you from any diseases. The physicians were also priests who had “special ways” to heal with higher powers. The biggest theory was that whoever had a mental illness was caused from supernatural forces. There had been many different treatments to help cure ones suffering. Dating back to 5000 BCE was the first treatment preformed on record, showing that one would chip a hole into the human skull to release evil spirits. Later on, the Ancient Egyptians

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.

“It was believed that the body has four humors- Phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile. In a healthy person these were in balance, while illness was caused by too much or too little of one of them. ”(barber 5). Any type of illness was explained by the four humors. In that time period, they didn't know any other way to explain mental or physical illness, so they relied of thing are now proven wrong to explain them.

After people began to see the horrors of the mental asylums, the ideas of how to care for the mentally ill had to change. As treatments improved to pharmaceuticals and other methods, the common names of disorders began to emerge. Disorders such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia came to be public knowledge. The idea that the problem of mental illness had an actual reason caused others to realize other than supernatural reasons were realized for a reason why all of the people who had mentally disorders were considered crazy. Many neurobiologists have found that these mental illnesses came from a mix of reasons like chemical imbalances, life experiences, the environment the fetus lived in, or inherited traits. From the 1800’s to the present day, many people did not, and still do not, go to the proper places to

Emotional sickness has been a mind boggling point since the development of its known presence. While the meaning of dysfunctional behavior has developed, and been re-imagined for quite a long time, it can be best marked as a mutable, or a regularly changing thought that for all intents and purposes changes the result for treatment. (DeYoung 259) In early developments, up until about the nineteenth century, having an emotional instability was rejected as a man being under an obscure stupor which could bring about those being secured away mental homes forever. The other more radical conclusion had a tendency to be individuals who were rationally unwell were controlled by some kind of wicked compel and the best way to evacuate this underhanded drive was by expulsion or conceivable murder. While human blunder and

Mental Illnesses during the Renaissance During the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, most mental illnesses were not attributed to witchcraft or demonic possession as has been widely believed. Witch-hunts or more precisely, trials for witchcraft, were relatively rare prior to the fifteenth century and, in fact, appear to have been most frequent in late sixteen and seventeenth centuries (Cohn 225). In most cases mental illnesses were believed to have physical causes (Kemp 1). Contrary to what has been written on the subject, supernatural causes of mental illness during the Middle Ages and Renaissance were most likely only applied to a narrow range of disorders.

During the Middle Ages Europe had a society dominated by religion, specifically Christianity. This extreme case of following doctrine also led to a new definition of insanity. Many thought that those who had refused the forgiving power of God must surely be mad. “It was believed that when someone acted in accordance with the church, it was because of their God-given soul; however, if they did not, it was believed something had happened to their soul.” (Tyrell 1) At least, that’s how the minds of men worked in such an

Everyone is different in society. There are special individuals, which are affected by mental health illnesses. Mental health issues can affect society both negatively and positively. There are cultures that treat these individuals like the reincarnations of gods. On the other side, there are cultures that isolate these individuals and look for cures to these pathologies. Mental health illnesses are important because they have to be studied to understand their cause, whether it may be biological or environmental. These issues are important because like every type of illness they have to be delicately studied, focusing on treatments to either cure them or reduce the symptoms of the pathology. These people were either conflicted with the ideals of society or they were praised by it. Cultures, which didn’t accept them, closed them up into asylums. Patients inside these facilities were brutally used as guinea pigs for their experiments. The way these people were treated shows how cruel and ignorant people were to the unknown. By learning from histories mistakes we can move forward in improving our society and achieve greatness.

Throughout the 1800s there was a major increase in lunacy. The number of ‘lunatics’ rose from 2000 in 1807 to 20,000 in 1844, and then rose again in 1890 to 86,000. By 1845 the medical profession had secured powerful support for the idea that insanity was a disease, which was considered to be contagious, and that people in the medical profession were the only legitimate practitioners. Reasons for the vast increase in lunacy could be explained by a number of things; one being that psychiatrists would go around telling people they were mad, to which family member would