The 1930s was a tough time for all of the mentally ill people. They were not treated the way that they do now. The mentally ill were called names like satans child, or they were not expected or very frowned upon in many religions. So because of all of the people who were mentally ill they started to create asylums. With these asylums they could hold almost all of the mentally ill people during that time. All of the asylums were overcrowded and sometimes there would be around 1 million patients. WIth all of the people in these asylums the staff and doctors became very understaffed so the patients living within the asylums were not treated how they should have been. Then doctors had found ways that they thought could cure these mentally ill people, whether it would be cruel to them or not. The treatments ran from major brain surgery to taking baths for multiple days.
One of the most famous forms of a cure during the 1930s was a surgery called Lobotomy. “Lobotomy, also known as leucotomy which mean cut/slice white in Greek, or its nickname of ice pick, is a neurosurgical operation that involves severing connection in the brain’s prefrontal lobe” according to Freeman. Lobotomy was performed by
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severing the white matter in the patient's brain from the gray matter. The Gray matter that is in a brain includes the neurons or the brain cells, but along with that it also contains the blood vessels and extensions. The white matter holds the axons or nerve fibers, which connects the areas of gray matter to carry the messages between them through electrical impulses. The very first lobotomies were performed by 2 neurologist by the names of Dr António Egas Moniz and Dr. Almeida Lima in 1935. When it first started the process was very different, they drilled 2 hole in the skull 1 on either side of the prefrontal cortex then after the holes were made the injected the connecting fibers with alcohol which destroyed them. After the procedure was over Dr. Moniz and Dr. Lima had found it resulted in too many complications, like other parts of the brain to become damaged. So both doctors knew they had to change something to get this procedure to work. So they then used a tooled called a leucotome. With this new tool the leucotome extended a wire or loop inside of the brain. The leucomtom extended and retracted which made the doctor be able to remove the cores of the white matter to make the procedure much more precise. After many years of changes or improvements lobotomy has gotten to a point where doctors do not need to drill any holes in the patient's skull. Some other ways that doctors were trying to find a cure was by doing different types of therapies. The first therapy is electroshock therapy. Electroshock therapy is a procedure in which small electric currents are sent to the brain, which triggers small and short seizures. But after doing this therapy they have found that if high doses of electricity is used without anesthesia it can lead to memory loss, fractured bones, or other very serious side effects. Another form of therapy that they used to try to cure the mentally ill was insulin shock therapy.
Insulin shock therapy was found in 1927 by a polish neurophysiologist Manfred J. Sakel. Insulin shock put the patient into a coma so that there brain can fix itself. Sakel said “My supposition was that some noxious agent weakened the resilience and the metabolism of the nerve cells ... a reduction in the energy spending of the cell, that is in invoking a minor or greater hibernation in it, by blocking the cell off with insulin will force it to conserve functional energy and store it to be available for the reinforcement of the cell." After many years of using insulin shock therapy Sakel has found out the this method had improved more than 70% of people after the
procedure. Another type of therapy that they used to find a fix for the mentally ill people was hydrotherapy baths. One of the main reasons that people liked this therapy because you could see the results quickly. Hydrotherapy is done within a bath, with warm or cold packs, or sprays. There are two types of hydrotherapy baths. The first one is used with cold water, this usually treated and helped with manic-depressive psychoses, or for people who were more excited and active than usual. The temperatures of the cold baths can range between 48°F and 70°F. Then the other kind of hydrotherapy is to use hot water. The temperatures of the warm baths can range from 92°F to 97°F. The warm baths were used to treat patients suffering from insomnia, suicidal thoughts. and these baths can last anywhere from 1 or 22 hours up to a bath that will last 1 day to even multiple days.
As a result of the lack of regulation in state mental institutions, most patients were not just abused and harassed, but also did not experience the treatment they came to these places for. While the maltreatment of patients did end with the downsizing and closing of these institutions in the 1970’s, the mental health care system in America merely shifted from patients being locked up in mental institutions to patients being locked up in actual prisons. The funds that were supposed to be saved from closing these mental institutions was never really pumped back into treating the mentally ill community. As a result, many mentally ill people were rushed out of mental institutions and exposed back into the real world with no help where they ended up either homeless, dead, or in trouble with the law. Judges even today are still forced to sentence those in the latter category to prison since there are few better options for mentally ill individuals to receive the treatment they need. The fact that America, even today, has not found a proper answer to treat the mentally ill really speaks about the flaws in our
Lobotomies were traditionally used to remedy patients with psychological illnesses and behavioral disorders; in the 1950s, they were mainly phased out and substituted with medications, talk therapy, and other methods of dealing. As an overall decree, lobotomies are not carried out today, and many people reason that they are essentially quite brutal. When performed effectively, a lobotomy could bring about significant behavioral modifications for the patient. For psychotic patients, lobotomies were sometimes favorable, relaxing the patient so that he or she could live a somewhat average life. Lobotomies are also notorious for producing a lifeless affect and general reduced responsiveness; this was viewed as an advantage of the lobotomy over all by some supporters of the surgery. Nonetheless, lobotomies can in addition go very wrong. The brain is a tremendously elusive and very intricate organ, and in the era when lobotomies were performed, people were not familiar with much about the brain, as they did not have the assistance of a wide variety of scientific equipment to visualize the brain and its behaviors. At its worst, a lobotomy could be fatal, but it could also cause severe brain damage, ensuing in what was in essence mental retardation of the patient. Patients could also fall into comas and persistent vegetative states after lobotomies. The lobotomy is now thought
During the year 1889, two researchers, Joseph Von Mering and Oskar Minkowski, discovered the disease that is known today as diabetes. Diabetes is a disease in which the insulin levels (a hormone produced in unique cells called the islets of Langerhans found in the pancreas) in the bloodstream are irregular and therefore affect the way the body uses sugars, as well as other nutrients. Up until the 1920’s, it was known that being diagnosed with diabetes was a death sentence which usually affected “children and adults under 30.” Those who were diagnosed were usually very hungry and thirsty, which are two of the symptoms associated with diabetes. However, no matter how much they ate, their bodies wouldn’t be able to use the nutrients due to the lack of insulin.
In other words, the patient was sick because of his or her time in the institution. I find this interesting because without a more human telling of the story by Grob, it is hard to gauge if the psychosis of patients deteriorated in general with the length of stay in the institution and if because of this, did that impact the policies or methods of practice? I believe it would be similar to what they are finding now with the orphans of Romania in the 1980’s who were raised in institutions with only basic and minimal human contact and now are mostly homeless and unable to function in society or inmates in prison who have spent years behind bars and then are let go into the general population. History has proven that people struggle with trying to acclimate back into the general population. As a result of this by the 1980’s one-third of the homeless population in the United States were said to be seriously mentally ill. (PBS, "Timeline: Treatments for Mental
The film gives a historical overview of how the mentally ill have been treated throughout history and chronicles the advancements and missteps the medical community has made along the way. Whittaker recounts the history of psychiatric treatment in America until 1950, he then moves on to describe the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia. He critically summarizes that it is doctors, rather than the patients, who have always calculated the evaluation of the merits of medical treatment, as the “mad” continue to be dismissed as unreliable witnesses. When in fact it is the patient being treated, and their subjective experience, that should be foremost in the evaluation. The film backs up this analysis with interviews of people, living viable lives in the town of Geel, Belgium. I would recommend this film to anyone interested in the history of medicine and specifically to those examining mental illness. It provides a balanced recounting of historical approaches to mental illness, along with success stories of the people of Geel, Belgium. And although I had to look away during the viewing of a lobotomy procedure, I give credit to the power of the visual impact the footage
In the 1800’s people with mental illnesses were frowned upon and weren't treated like human beings. Mental illnesses were claimed to be “demonic possessions” people with mental illnesses were thrown into jail cells, chained to their beds,used for entertainment and even killed. Some were even slaves, they were starved and forced to work in cold or extremely hot weather with chains on their feet. Until 1851, the first state mental hospital was built and there was only one physician on staff responsible for the medical, moral and physical treatment of each inmate. Who had said "Violent hands shall never be laid on a patient, under any provocation.
Throughout the Great Depression the mentally disabled were treated harshly and were almost constantly being harassed by society. The mentally ill were treated in this cruel manner because they were seen as the cause of some of society’s problems of that day in age. Also, society viewed them as less capable of human being. A physician of that time by the name of Alexis Carrel stated, “The mentally ill should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanistic institutions supplied with the proper gases” (Freeman; “Treatment of the…”). Not only did Alexis Carrel feel this way, but so did many other people of the United States way
In the 1950’s, it was common so see people with frightened, uneasy, rejecting, and even arrogant attitudes towards people with mental illnesses. They considered those who were mentally ill as psychotic, violent and frightening. In the today, people are more accepting and understanding when it comes to mental illness, but some people are still ignorant with their responses, just like back then. In the 1950’s mental health treatment was typically provided in large state hospitals and other intuitions. Back then, topics like mental health were kept hush hush; people much rather putting those who were mentally in away in a state facility where someone else could monitor them. Today, people are more understanding.
For many decades the mentally ill or insane have been hated, shunned, and discriminated against by the world. They have been thrown into cruel facilities, said to help cure their mental illnesses, where they were tortured, treated unfairly, and given belittling names such as retards, insane, demons, and psychos. However, reformers such as Dorothea Dix thought differently of these people and sought to help them instead. She saw the inhumanity in these facilities known as insane asylums or mental institutions, and showed the world the evil that wandered inside these asylums. Although movements have been made to improve conditions in insane asylums, and were said to help and treat the mentally ill, these brutally abusive places were full of disease and disorder, and were more like concentration camps similar to those in Europe during WWII than hospitals.
The early history of mental illness is bleak. The belief that anyone with a mental illness was possessed by a demon or the family was being given a spiritual was the reason behind the horrific treatment of those with mental illness. These individuals were placed into institutions that were unhygienic and typically were kept in dark, cave like rooms away from people in the outside world. The institutions were not only dark and gross; they also used inhumane forms of treatment on their patients. Kimberly Leupo, discusses some of the practices that were used, these included may types of electro shocks, submitting patients to ice bath, as well as many other horrific events (Leupo). Lobotomies, which are surgical procedures that cut and scrape different connections in the brain, were very common practice. They were thought to help cure mental illness, but often ended up with more damage than good.
A lot of thoughts and observations come to mind while watching The New Asylums. This is a documentary about life in prison for people who have mental diseases, so some of the thoughts and observations are actually quite sad. Many of the prisoners shown in the documentary look sad and defeated, and they have a right to, because having a mental disease even in the real world is very hard. In prison, they are allowed to refuse their medication, although at least there are people who will try to help them. Still, it looks miserable, even more miserable than prison looks for people who aren't suffering from a disease like schizophrenia. Mental illness is often used as the punch line of a joke, but like most other punch lines, it isn't that funny because it offends and demeans a whole subgroup of people. Subgroups are actually what stick out the most and make up the previously mentioned thoughts and observations. While watching all of this sadness on the screen, it's hard not to notice that there are some trends. The documentary was filmed in an all-male prison, so trends in gender aren't shown by the movie, but even the casual observer will notice that most of the inmates who are interviewed or showcased are people of color. This could indicate one of two things: there is a higher number of people of color who are affected by mental disorders or there is a higher number of people of color who are persecuted and tried by the law, ending up in prisons such as the one in the movie. Studying criminology is important because those questions matter, not just to the ruling group of the legal system, but to the individuals affected by disease and persecution, to their families, and to their communities. Investigating an obvious trend helps ans...
The community care for mentally ill people was one of the biggest improvements in the development of the NHS. During the Victorian Era the quantity of mentally ill people was alarming; charities, churches and philanthropists were the financial support for people with mental disorders during that period.
The prison and asylum reform was the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, establish a more effective penal system, and implement an alternative to incarceration, because the prison system wasn’t working as effectively as it could for example prisoners committing the same offense after released and being incarcerated again, and also the fact that the only prisons considered “good” at this time were in Pennsylvania and Europe.
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
In this essay, I will be talking about social work problems faced in the UK and how they are addressed. I will be focusing on asylum seekers particularly Unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC). These are children who are under 18yrs of age and applying for asylum in their own rights. I aim to highlight key areas in understanding the needs of these children while recognising that these are by no means homogenous, and therefore explain how these needs are addressed by social policies, legislature and social workers.