Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to diagnosing and treating various mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Although a well-known science, psychiatry and psychiatrists have often been ethically questioned on their “inhumane” methods, dating back to its origins in the 1700s. To the nurses, in varied psychiatric institutions, it was customary to employ the practices of confining, restraining and isolating people with mental problems. In “The Most Shocking Psychiatry Documentary Ever” (MSPDE) the barbaric practices that psychiatry has tried and developed over the years in blatantly revealed and validly proves the need for reconstructing assorted tactics used to cure mental patients around the world.
Psychiatry
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has no external validating criteria, along with no laboratory tests to confirm or refute diagnostic evaluations, unlike many other physical sciences. Due to this impediment the diagnosis is solely a product of the judgment and knowledge of the individual psychiatrist. Consequently, the lack of external validating criteria has created an intrinsic and extrinsic problem for the psychiatric community. Because descriptions of many mental disorders failed to sufficiently distinguish certain disorders from others, many people were misdiagnosed and given unnecessary medications, as well as billed for them. This merely profited the psychiatrists. Throughout the “MSPDE” video the notion that psychiatrists have failed to find cures and “mindlessly hand out drugs” that gradually deteriorate brain function is profusely stated. Public outrage was the by-product of no humane advancements of novel methods. Bipolar Disorder is a condition in which an individual is in a mixed state, experiencing episodes of depression and mania.
In the “Up & Down: Bipolar Disorder Documentary” a group of diverse individuals from different age groups document their lives with Bipolar Disorder and discuss the effects of the disorder along with the different treatment methods that were tried. The main aspects of bipolar disorder are elevations in mood and depression, as expressed through many interviewed patients. The medications given assisted in keeping individuals stable but did not fully cure the disorder at hand; it alleviated the disorder for a period of time. The “Up & Down: Bipolar Disorder Documentary” exposed the public’s misconceptions about Bipolar Disorder, confusing them with miscellaneous disorders, such as schizophrenia. The validity of this video is more adherent, than the latter, due to the reason that it takes into account both the positives and negatives of the psychiatric treatments given. Whereas the “MSPDE” video focused on the negative aspects of psychiatry as a …show more content…
“pseudoscience.” The “Up & Down: Bipolar Disorder Documentary” and “The Most Shocking Psychiatry Documentary Ever” are similar in context.
They both discuss psychiatric methods of diagnosis and treatment and the efficiency to the psychiatric practices. however the two videos approach the topic of psychiatry with their own styles and diction, making one more therapeutic than the other. “The Most Shocking Psychiatry Documentary Ever” creates a sense of tension and unease by bluntly disclosing the views that former psychiatrists had on the mentally ill and people in general and shows various treatments that were used to heal patients. Mental patients were caged, tranquilized, chained to walls and were treated with many medications that ultimately hindered brain function. Psychiatrists redefined man as an soul-less animal, and stated that man could be easily manipulated, just as a dog can be trained to salivate at the sound of a bell as seen through Pavlov’s experiments. Within “The Most Shocking Psychiatry Documentary Ever” was stated that, “ Psychiatry succeeded in only inflicting mental and physical torture and death. A legacy that has been carried over to modern psychiatry.” The “Up & Down: Bipolar Disorder Documentary” has a greater therapeutic value due to the fact that it speaks of success stories by diversified people and exposes the treatments undergone by each patient. It does not describe psychiatrists as trapping individuals in the system of mass drugging to solely bill them and
rid them. If I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I would be concerned with modern day drugs that help to treat the disorder, and the comfort and care with which physicians and nurses treat me.
In the book “The Mad Among Us-A History of the Care of American’s Mentally Ill,” the author Gerald Grob, tells a very detailed accounting of how our mental health system in the United States has struggled to understand and treat the mentally ill population. It covers the many different approaches that leaders in the field of mental health at the time used but reading it was like trying to read a food label. It is regurgitated in a manner that while all of the facts are there, it lacks any sense humanity. While this may be more of a comment on the author or the style of the author, it also is telling of the method in which much of the policy and practice has come to be. It is hard to put together without some sense of a story to support the action.
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.
Szasz, Thomas. Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 2007. Print. Braslow, Joel T. Mental Ills and Bodily Cures: Psychiatric Treatment in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. California: University of California, 1997. Print.
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.
Bipolar disorder is a lifelong mood disorder characterized by periods of mania, depression, or a mixed manic-depressive state. The condition can seriously affect a person’s reasoning, understanding, awareness, and behavior. Acco...
As science has evolved, so have treatments for mental illnesses have over time. The medical model is described as the view that psychological disorders are medical diseases with a biological origin (King, 2010, pg. 413). Abnormal behavior that categorizes some disorders can be impacted by biological factors such as genes, psychological factors such as childhood experiences, and even sociocultural factors such as gender and race (King, 2010). Treatments such as psychosurgery (lobotomy) , drug therapy (pharmaceuticals), electroconclusive therapy, and psychoanalysis are used to treat a wide range of psychological disorders. Back then, the public’s negative views on mental illnesses also went as far to associate with the people who treated it; psychiatrists. “Nunnally (1961) found that the public evaluated professionals who treated mental disorders significantly more negatively than those who treat physical disorders,” (Phelan, Link, Stueve, & Pescosolido, 2000, pg. 189). People back then didn’t see the point in “paying to be told that they were crazy”. However, in today’s society, it is now acceptable to seek help from psychiatric professionals; we are seeing more and more people seek mental health treatment. “In terms of facility-based records of utilization (Manderscheid and Henderson 1998), the data suggest that the rate of utilization of professional mental health services has at least doubled and maybe tripled, between the 1950’s and today,” (Phelan, Link, Stueve, & Pescosolido, 2000, pg. 189). In the 1950’s, neuroleptic drugs like Thorazine were introduced to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia. These drugs block a neurotransmitter called dopamine from getting to the brain, which in turn reduce schizophrenic symptoms, however there are some side effects such as substantial twitching of the neck, arms, and legs, and even dysphoria or lack of pleasure. (King, 2010, pg.
Crowe, M. (2011). Feeling out of control: A qualitative analysis of the impact of bipolar
Moral treatment is a treatment that uses “psychological methods” to treat mental diseases (Packet Two, 26). In general, moral treatment was a relatively benevolent and humane approach to treat mental disorders. Before the introduction of moral treatment, insane people were regarded by the general public as wild animals whose brains were physically impaired and usually incurable (Packet One, 11). Therefore, regardless of patients’ specific symptoms, physicians generally labeled patients as lunatics and treated them with the same method (Packet One, 11). Because of the perceived impossibility of curing mental illness, physicians put far greater emphasis on restraining patients’ potential danger behaviors than striving to bring them back to sanity. Cruel methods such as bloodletting were widely used, but their effectiveness was really poor. Moral treatment was a response to this ineffective and brutal traditional treatment. The advocates of moral treatment insisted that mental diseases were curable. By providing a friendly environment that contributed to reviving, moral treatment could help patients to...
Continuing budget cuts on mental health care create negative and detrimental impacts on society due to increased improper care for mentally ill, public violence, and overcrowding in jails and emergency rooms. Origins, of mental health as people know it today, began in 1908. The movement initiated was known as “mental hygiene”, which was defined as referring to all things preserving mental health, including maintaining harmonious relation with others, and to participate in constructive changes in one’s social and physical environment (Bertolote 1). As a result of the current spending cuts approaching mental health care, proper treatment has declined drastically. The expanse of improper care to mentally ill peoples has elevated harmful threats of heightened public violence to society.
This practice is widespread; any population the fits today’s guidelines of “civilization” has some kind of drug that provides the escape route, if not a variety of them. The idea of drug induced escape is so ground in that medical professions give in to it today. Psychiatrists are capable of prescribing drugs that soothe the mind, and ease the pain in the troubled patient.
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
The documentary “The Medicated Child” gave me a lot of insight into the lives of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When we hear and learn about bipolar disorder, we do not normally think of children. However, there are many children diagnosed with bipolar disorder ranging from all ages. As we saw in the documentary, bipolar disorder can be very hard on both the child and the family, so finding a cure that is effective and safe is important. The video also highlighted how little research there has been on the effectiveness of antidepressants on children.
The severe mood fluctuations of bipolar or manic-depressive disorders have been around since the 16-century and affect little more than 2% of the population in both sexes, all races, and all parts of the world (Harmon 3). Researchers think that the cause is genetic, but it is still unknown. The one fact of which we are painfully aware of is that bipolar disorder severely undermines its victims ability to obtain and maintain social and occupational success. Because the symptoms of bipolar disorder are so debilitation, it is crucial that we search for possible treatments and cures.
Doward, J. (2013), Medicine's big new battleground: does mental illness really exist? The Observer 12 May.
In this class I learned about a lot more of the background and complications in regard to psychiatry than I had known in the past. I already knew quite a bit about psychiatry from my psychology class a couple of semesters ago and I have always had an interest in psychology in the past and had done a lot of research about it, but had never really paid much attention to the history of it before. While I of course knew that it had a history, but had just never paid attention to it, I had never considered the philosophy of it. I had never even considered that there may be different viewpoints or that there may be differing ethical/moral concerns. It turns out that most of psychiatry is extremely controversial and very few agree on each individual viewpoint and no