A History of the Treatment of Insanity Essay examples -- Exploratory E

A History of the Treatment of Insanity everywhere the course of history, aberration has been subjected to a wide variety of words. Attempts to cure the mentally ill or simply relieve normal society of the problems caused by insanity have ranged from outright cruelty to higher degrees of humanity in todays society. This paper gives a brief overview of insanity--its believed causes and subsequent treatments--from vulgar times up to the nineteenth century. There are two known usances for diagnosis and treatment of mental illness sacred/religious and naturalistic/scientific. According to the sacred/religious tradition, supernatural forces are the cause of insanity. One of the earliest examples of spiritual/religious treatment is a practice called trephining. Archeaologists have discovered skulls exhibiting this primitive form of psychiatric surgery. Trephining involved chipping holes in a victims skull to blowhole the evil spirits that were responsible for the souls mental illne ss. Other ancient peoples attributed insanity to the mischief of demons or the anger of the gods, namely the Chinese, Egyptian, and Hebrew societies. The Greek phisician Hippocrates believed insanity to be rooted in a lack of balance at bottom the body. More specifically, he argued that a balance of quartet body fluids (or the four humors) was the key to mental health. An excess or deficiency of blood, phlegm, black bile, or yellow bile could lead to psychopathology. Those trained in the Hippocratic tradition were instructed to treat the mentally ill with attempts designed to restore the balance of the corporal fluids. These treatments were called heroic because they were drastic and often painful. Among them were bloodletting, purging, an... ...can Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII) was founded in 1844. It later became the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Its purpose is to designate the criteria to diagnose a uncomplaining as mentally ill (the current list of criteria is called the DSM-IV) and commit the person to an institution or design a course of treatment suited to the problem. Sources1. Bankart, C. Peter. Talking Cures A History of Western and Eastern Psychotherapies. Albany countenance/Cole Publishing Company, 1997. 2. Emery, Robert E., and Oltmanns, Thomas F. Abnormal Psychology. smart Jersey Simon & Schuster, 1998. 3. Foucault, Michel. violence and Civilization A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York Pantheon Books, 1965. 4. Rosen,. George. Madness in Society Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness. scratch The University of Chicago Press, 1968.