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The Beginnings of Psychiatry

Psychiatry has certainly not always been what it is today. There was a time when mental illness was so far from being understood that it was only feared and rejected. While a good deal of the population still fears what is different, there have been enough scientific advances to improve the treatment of mentally ill patients. Not only is there increased understanding of abnormal conditions, there are also effective medications and psychotherapeutic treatments that bring relief and even healing to the patients. Even those people with conditions that still cannot be treated can enjoy a more comfortable and safe life.

Inhuman or Inhumane

Truly, several hundred years ago, and even more recently than that, people who suffered from mental illness were thought of and treated as if they were not human. Families that included a mentally ill member suffered immense embarrassment. Early on, those families would lock the person up and hide him. He may have been offered food as much as once a day, but it was rare that he would be offered clean living quarters or even a bed to lie on. Being locked in a small cage or being chained to the house were not unheard of practices in times gone by. A development in the treatment of mentally ill persons was to turn them out into the street. In those cases, the homeless would depend on the community for their sustenance and shelter.

Asylums and New Order

As a few independent thinking doctors began to discover the inhumane treatment of suffering humans, asylums were born. The homeless and imprisoned became patients. This is not to say that the doctors immediately became psychiatrists. Rather, they allowed for the humane care of the mentally ill and insane. They allowed for humane treatment, to an extent. Patients were still often chained or put into straight jackets, but they were fed, sheltered and bathed. The psychiatric patients were not treated for their illnesses yet either. Doctors did not have enough information to make any significant proactive steps.

Many doctors waited for the patients to get better on their own so they could be released from the asylums. Eventually, the patients were directed in activities to add structure to their lives. As doctors worked together and began to form theories, treatments began. Social therapy was perhaps one of the first effective treatments for some mental illnesses. Patients and doctors formed a community in which they did things together such as sharing family meals.

Psychotherapy and Beyond

Freud was a different kind of psychiatrist. He created and implemented psychotherapy. Suddenly, trips to the psychiatrist became fashionable, right along with mental disorders. People were interested in discovering reasons for their own idiosyncrasies. It has not been until much more recently that effective psychiatric treatments have come into use for those who are actually mentally ill or who are suffering from some psychiatric disorder.

Psychiatry started with misunderstanding and fear, but has progressed to become a science of its own. Psychotherapies and medications are currently effectively in use for all kinds of disorders. The research is also continuous, offering hope for the treatment of even more disabling disorders of the mind.

Shorter, Edward. A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.