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Essay On The History Of Mental Health
Mental health illness in the late 19th century
Mental health illness in the late 19th century
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The establishment of houses of confinement, evaluated according to their functional value, were not successful. Early in the nineteenth century houses of confinement as places for accepting the poor vanished all over Europe and this fact permitted their absolute collapse. Foucault (1988) aptly describes them as "a transitory and ineffectual remedy, a social precaution clumsily formulated by a nascent industrialization" (p. 54). References: Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. New York, NY:
As a result, at the end of the 18th Century, Foucault mockingly tells the story of how our society became “humane” and the public cried out for punishment without torture. When the invention of prisons came about, most people chose to forget the disappearance of public executions. Foucault states: “Today we are rather inclined to ignore it: perhaps in its time, it gave r...
Madness: A History, a film by the Films Media Group, is the final installment of a five part series, Kill or Cure: A History of Medical Treatment. It presents a history of the medical science community and it’s relationship with those who suffer from mental illness. The program uses original manuscripts, photos, testimonials, and video footage from medical archives, detailing the historical progression of doctors and scientists’ understanding and treatment of mental illness. The film compares and contrasts the techniques utilized today, with the methods of the past. The film offers an often grim and disturbing recounting of the road we’ve taken from madness to illness.
In the tenements, two classes existed, the rich, and the poor. In this setting, the rich were greedy and in most cases, they exploited the poor by making them work more than they paid them[6]. For this reason, it is important to stress greed and impunity as some of the problems that the tenements faced. For example, the poor worked under tyrant masters because of their poor conditions and the rich took advantage of the poor conditions to pay them less than they should have. These horrible working conditions and treatment continued because there were not any consequences for the
Perhaps no other event in modern history has left us so perplexed and dumbfounded than the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, an entire population was simply robbed of their existence. In “Our Secret,” Susan Griffin tries to explain what could possibly lead an individual to execute such inhumane acts to a large group of people. She delves into Heinrich Himmler’s life and investigates all the events leading up to him joining the Nazi party. In“Panopticism,” Michel Foucault argues that modern society has been shaped by disciplinary mechanisms deriving from the plague as well as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a structure with a tower in the middle meant for surveillance. Susan Griffin tries to explain what happened in Germany through Himmler’s childhood while Foucault better explains these events by describing how society as a whole operates.
What is madness? Is madness a brain disorder or a chemical imbalance? On the other hand, is it an expressed behavior that is far different from what society would believe is "normal"? Lawrence Durrell addresses these questions when he explores society's response to madness in his short story pair "Zero and Asylum in the Snow," which resembles the nearly incoherent ramblings of a madman. In these stories, Durrell portrays how sane, or lucid, people cannot grasp and understand the concept of madness. This inability to understand madness leads society to fear behavior that is different from "normal," and subsequently, this fear dictates how they deal with it. These responses include putting a name to what they fear and locking it up in an effort to control it. Underlying all, however, Durrell repeatedly raises the question: who should define what is mad?
Stone, D. (2011, May 8). Psychological Musings: Historical Perspectives of Abnormal Psychology. Retrieved April 23, 2014, from http://psychological-musings.blogspot.com/2011/05/historical-perspectives-of-abnormal.html
In conclusion, “Civilization and Its Discontents” by Sigmund Freud was a book that sought to explain both organized religion and civilization in general. The book was largely influenced by the hostile environment of post World War I Germany and was a widely read and widely influential book.
The controversial topic of insanity manifests itself commonly in Romantic writing, and has been one much disputed over time. Some say that people who seem crazy are so above our own level of thought and understanding that we can’t possibly begin to identify with them and that we can find genius in the form of ordinary lunatics who connect to God and divinity in ways “normal” people don’t comprehend. Throughout works such as “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Castaway”, the authors question insanity with ideas that show the possible outcomes when one looks deep inside themselves for a divine spark or intuition. Both of these stories address madness in different forms, and madness itself is Godly experiences gone wrong; the person who receives the divine vision is unable to handle its raw truth.
“madness”, in some one of its meanings, has not at one time or another come dreadfully
Szasz, T., 1997. The Manufacture of Madness; A comparative study of the Inquisition and Mental Health Movement. 1st ed. s.l.:Syracuse University Press.
First of all, Foucault has addressed the movement of violent historical punishment to the emergence of the modern form of the prison as punishment in several different ways. He focuses on the use of discipline as well as surveillance which in modern society is used frequently. He ventures away from the thoughts of previous theorists in regards to class struggle in relation to punishment. Foucault’s states that there is a shift in the mode of punishment that occurs around 1750-1820. This is where he sees that punishment has shifted to be viewed in a more qualitative way as well as, punishment is now in place to target the soul of the offender. This basically can be inferred that there was a movement in which now the penal system wanted to understand
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.
McMurty, John. "Caging the Poor: The Case Against the Prison System." The Case For Penal Abolition. Ed. W. Gordon West and Ruth Morris. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000. 167-186.
Madness, according to the English Oxford Dictionary, can be defined as “the state of having a serious mental illness”; “a state of wild or chaotic activity”, or having an “extremely foolish behaviour”. Madness in literature may refer to writers who are known for having mental troubles, but might also refer to the fictional characters who are taking place in the writer’s story. It can also be seen as a psychological book; a book talking about the study of madness with a psychological approach. Here this essay will be focusing on the first definition of madness in literature, using the context of the post-war period in the United States. It will first demonstrate that madness is an important theme in literature at this time because it comes from the suffering of the writers; to eventually show that madness is a weapon for the author to denounce the society, and that madness cannot only be seen as a mental problem, because one can consider that madness and genius are intertwined. These two parts of argumentation will be demonstrated through the analysis of Allan Ginsberg’s and Robert Lowell’s writings.
3. Anger, Madness, and the Daimaonic; the pyschologists genesis of Violence, evil and creativitiy. Stephen A. Diamond 1996