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

A accounting of the Treatment of Insanity Over the course of history, insanity has been subjected to a wide variety of treatments. Attempts to cure the mentally bilious or exclusively relieve normal society of the problems caused by insanity have ranged from straight-out cruelty to higher degrees of humanity in todays society. This paper gives a apprize overview of insanity--its believed causes and subsequent treatments--from primitive times up to the nineteenth century. There argon two known traditions for diagnosis and treatment of mental airsickness eldritch/religious and naturalistic/scientific. According to the spiritual/religious tradition, supernatural forces ar 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 obscure chipping holes in a victims skull to release the evil spirits that were liable f or the persons mental illness. Other ancient peoples attributed insanity to the mischief of demons or the evoke of the gods, namely the Chinese, Egyptian, and Hebrew societies. The Greek phisician Hippocrates believed insanity to be rooted in a lack of balance within the body. More specifically, he argued that a balance of four body fluids (or the four humors) was the key to mental health. An prodigality or deficiency of blood, phlegm, black bile, or yellow bile could prolong to psychopathology. Those trained in the Hippocratic tradition were instructed to treat the mentally ill with attempts send offed to restore the balance of the bodily fluids. These treatments were called heroic because they were drastic and a good deal 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 direct is to designate the criteria to diagnose a patient 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 narration of Western and Eastern Psychotherapies. Albany Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1997. 2. Emery, Robert E., and Oltmanns, doubting Thomas F. Abnormal Psychology. New Jersey Simon & Schuster, 1998. 3. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York Pantheon Books, 1965. 4. Rosen,. George. Madness in rescript Chapters in the Historical Sociology of Mental Illness. Chicago The University of Chicago Press, 1968.