Mental Health Timeline

Greece & Rome

Greeks (12-9 BC): They saw mentally ill people as cursed by the gods or tormented by evil entities.

Roman Emperor Caligula (37-41 AD): He is notorious for his irrational decision-making, such as promoting his horse to a senator. Historians think that he suffered from a disease called encephalitis, which lead to personality change and abnormal behavior.

Egypt & Persia

Egypt (31-30BCE): They tried to integrate the mentally ill into their society rather than cast them out. They also were the first to realize that all the mental functions come from the brain.

Persia (330-336BC): Similar to the Jews, they thought mental illness was a punishment from God. The believed that one needs to purify themselves through good deeds and good thoughts.

Other Treatment

Trephining (no specific date; was used in Ancient Greece)-

This treatment was first seen in this time period. The procedure involved cutting out a small portion of the skull and often led to death or further injuries.

Israel- They believe that any kind of illness, mental or not, resulted from that person or their parent's sins. With this in mind, the mentally incompetent were outcasts of society.

Babylon (2000-1600 BC): Evidence suggests that mental illnesses like phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, and so forth can be traced back to this time period. The Babyloniean were very observant of human behaviors. However, they did not have much information on anatomy, so they treated mental illnesses by performing exorcisms.

Israel & Babylon

Treatments

Blood letting (1600): Some people believed that illnesses are a result of imbalanced fluids and chemicals, so they take blood out through leeches, cutting, and other means.

Shock treatment (sometime during the Medival Times): People would throw mentally ill people in cold water to shock back tp their senses.

Outcast/abuse (throughout the entire Middle Ages): Because people did not understand people with mental illnesses, mentally ill people were easy targets for abuse, such as being thrown out of society, isolated, and even executed.

Placed

Madman towers (no specific starting date): This is where mentally ill people were isolated from the communities. Only some towns had this.

Bagdad (792): The first town to have a mental hospitals and lead other towns to have the same.

Geel citizens (no specific starting point): They built a shrine to Saint Dympha and became a place where the mentally ill could reside in. Once that reached full capacity, villagers took them in.

Word Origin

Lunatic- This word came from this time period because some oeople thought that moon phases caused erratic and peculiar behaviors in certain people.

Influental People

Richard Napier (1597-1634): He is astrologer and clergyman that treated many people through methods ranging from humane to inhumane. Some treated through listening and human interventions while others were mistreated and isolated.

Helkiah Crooke (1619-1633): He is Bethlem asylum's first medically qualified keeper. However, it was later discovered that he often mistreated the patients and stole donations. He was the dismissed and started tp change the attitudes of those who intend to help the mentally ill.

Phillipe Pinel (late 1700): He advocated for more humane treatment of the mentally ill. In 1775, Pinei's more humane treatment allowed a lot of his patients leace the hospital.

Significant Events

King James I (1603-1625): He instructed that the family and or friends of a mentally ill person are responsible for them.

Tudor England (no specified starting date): They established a successfull medical marketplace that provided treatment for a lot of illnesses including mental ones. They could be treated by many different practitioners such as astrologers, bone setters and herbalists.

Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693): It started with three girls who fell to hysteria. One of them admited to witchcraft, which lead the accusation of over 200 people and 20 deaths. Some historians think that one of the underlaying cause of this hysteria was caused by some kind of disease like encephalitis, ergot posioning, epilpsy. Those diseases if severe enough could change personality and how the mind functions.

New Treatment Facility

Asylums (No Specified starting date): These are places where mentally ill people could seek treatment or are forced to be isolated from the community. The treatments within these buildings were most of the time inhumane. Bizzare and horrifying treatments were tested on them, they could be starved, they could be abused by other inmates or even doctors, etc.

Therapies

Insulin Coma Therapy (1927-1960): Some scientist believed that significantly lowering insulin levels would change how the brain functions, so they would lower the patient's blood sugar until it rendered them unconscious.

Lobotomy (1940-1950): This treatment was reserved for very extreme psychiatric disorders. The doctors would surgically remove the connection between the pre-frontal cortex and frontal lobe. It helped some, but also caused more impairments for others.

Metrazol Therapy (1896-1964): Doctors would inject metrazol to induce seizures. It was ineffective and led to severe side effects such as fractured bones. It is no longer used today, but electrocompulsive therapy would be used in it's place.

Treatments

Ted Bundy (1970s): He is serial killer and rapist and also a necrophiliac. Psychologists believe that he displays traits of antisocial disorder (both psychopath and sociopath), bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and so on.

Charles Manson (1969): He, like Ted Bundy, was also categorized under antisocial disorder. He lead the "Manson Family" cult and convinced his followers to kill a bunch of people in Los Angeles.

Mentally Ill Criminals

Psychiatric Genocide (1939-1945): Germany's economy was suffering because of the amount of people that were in psychiatric care. Then when Hitler came to power, he had the plan to get rid of these "worthless lives" and killed them with carbon monoxide poisoning. It is estimated that 220-269 thousand schizophrenics were killed or sterilized.

New Jersey State Lunatic Asylums

Asylum & Elimination

Improvements

In Depth Research: Due to technological advances, scientists can easily access and share information regarding their research. It also increases their methods that they use to gather information. For example, surveys can reach more people and the results will come in quicker.

Awareness/Understanding: Along with in depth research, regular people can also access the researcher's findings. As a result, people are more likely to understand and be imformed of mental disorders and treatments.

Humane Treatments: There are now organizations and laws that protect and help mentally ill people. Also, when people are informed about mental illnesses, they will not only understand better but also are more likely to show compassion for those people.

Evolution of Treatments

Medication: The are now a variety medications that can effectively help people cope with mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, etc.

Counseling/Therapy: There are many types of counselors and therapists one can go to. It all depends on there issue as well as preference. There are family counselors, marriage counselors, psychodynamic therapy, and so forth. Depending on what type of therapy or counselor one goes, there methods that they use to help their patients such as talk therapy, hypnosis, etc.

Psychiatriac hospitals and rehabilitation centers: These are places that someone goes mostly for extreme mental illnesses. They are much nicer than the asylums and have more educated doctors and psychologists that work there. Their treatment is also more humane and effective.

Cost- There are many issues and things that can still be improved when taking care of mentally ill people, but the most common one is cost. Although these treatment may be more effective, they won't work for everyone. And depending on the treatment, a lot of them cost a lot of money like psychoanalytic therapy. And that means that some people won't be able to afford the treatments, which could become a problem for those who really need treatment.

Issues