Question

Describe the impact that the following periods, movements, and reforms had on the treatment of mental illness: the Enlightenment Period, the asylum movement, and early reforms of asylums.
500 words

Answer 1

• With the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment in the sixteenth century, scientific and medical doctrine was becoming more sophisticated and less credence was given to the supernatural as a cause of mental illness.
• The mentally ill were regarded less as being possessed, evil or practicing as witches, but suffering from some mysterious disease process. Unfortunately, abuse and inhumane treatment continued as many were locked away in small, filthy rooms and dungeons where they were whipped, beaten and chained to the walls and floors if they were not cooperative.
• Bedlam was one of the most notorious in the land for subjecting the "patients" to some of the most horrifying means of treatment.They were confined in badly ventilated apartments where they were never discharged but by death.
• The quiet, the noisy and the violent were all congregated together, and a majority were chained to beds by their wrists and ankles. No contemplation of human misery ever affected us so much: the howlings, execrations and clanking of chains gave to the place the appearance of the infernal regions.For the most part, they were left to wander the countryside or committed to institutions.
• Yet as the public’s awareness of such conditions grew, improvements in care and treatment began to appear. In 1789 Vincenzo Chiarugi, superintendent of a mental hospital in Florence, Italy, introduced hospital regulations that provided patients with high standards of hygiene, recreation and work opportunities, and minimal restraint.
• At nearly the same time, Jean-Baptiste Pussin, superintendent of a ward for “incurable” mental patients at La Bicetre hospital in Paris, France, forbade staff to beat patients and released patients from shackles.(Age of Enlightenment)
• Philippe Pinel continued these reforms upon becoming chief physician of La Bicetre’s ward for the mentally ill in 1793. Pinel began to keep case histories of patients and developed the concept of “moral treatment,” which involved treating patients with kindness and sensitivity, and without cruelty or violence.
• The retreat enabled people with mental illnesses to rest peacefully, talk about their problems, and work. Eventually these humane techniques became widespread in Europe. (Age of Enlightenment)
• The asylum movement was a national reform movement that began in the 1840s in an effort to change the way that people approached the mentally ill and improved the way that the mentally ill were treated. Its purpose was to emphasize treatment and rehabilitation. Prior to this movement, the mentally ill were viewed as a result of sin or of demonic possession.
• As Enlightenment thinkers started to rationalize mental illnesses by using science to explain it, people slowly but surely changed their perception of these people.
• In the USA, the asylum movement quickly gained traction via Quaker contacts. The Friends Asylum near Frankford, Pennsylvania, established in 1817, was influenced by the York Retreat, an asylum in England run by a group of Quakers.
• That same year, Hartford Retreat, located in Connecticut, was established. In 1818, in the city of Boston, the McLean Asylum for the Insane was established.
• These institutions set the standards for public institutions such as the Massachusetts State Lunatic Hospital, which was established in 1833.
• By the start of the Civil War, less mental ill were in jails with prisoners and violent criminals, instead they lived in the humane conditions of state-established mental institutions and were able to receive treatment.
• Due to the efforts of Dorothea Dix, and other reformers, this movement succeeded in changing the lives of the mentally ill, but it also brought to light the values of our nation, and our perceptions of the human individual.
• From the harmful environment causing his or her sickness. Asylums emphasized clean, comfortable living conditions in a tranquil, rural setting. Moral treatment entailed regular habits of exercise, work, and recreation, as well as strictly enforced rules of self-restraint and politeness.