Mental Illness In The Victorian Era

The most common definition of mental illness is a condition that affects a person’s behavior, mood, or thought processes. In the past century the field of psychology which studies and attempts to understand how humans think, has made tremendous progress and much needed improvement. Treatment of the mentally ill has also improved since Victorian times. As science becomes more advanced, further insight into the human mind is discovered and beliefs that used to hold true are disproved. The Victorian times are described as, “a period in which the sexual impulse was systematically repressed and deformed” (Rosenberg, Charles E 132). This is saying that during the Victorian times, anything related to sex was seen as immoral and was not allowed. Any

In the 19th century, there were strict rules that women had to follow, and women had certain roles and characteristics that were required of them. Women were expected to be submissive, passive, and feminine. Men at this time were believed to be the superior sex because they were allegedly more intelligent, rational, and because of this, they could be independent. Women were regarded as the inferior sex because they were seen as irrational and sensitive. During this time period a woman could be considered mentally ill or unbalanced due to causes such as: Menstruation-related anger, post-partum depression symptoms, pregnancy related sadness, disobedience, and anxiety. Some of these conditions are still today considered actual mental health conditions. Women in the 19th century could be placed into mental health institutions due to some conditions like disobedience or post-partum depression symptoms which doctors would simply label as “hysteria”. When women were disobedient, some were sent to institutions because their husband or father believed that there was something wrong with them just because they were not being subservient. Women had, “few, or no, rights, and disobedience was often met with severe punishment” (History of Mental Health Treatment). This goes back to the belief that men during the 19th century held about women in that they were superior and more intelligent, so women should not have as many rights as men had, and if a woman should disobey her husband, then she should be