I was contacted by an author who wanted to post some of her writing on my our blog. So here is the first piece of writing. I found it very interesting and I hope you do, too.
Carol anne
The Shaky Evolution of Mental Health Therapies
From trepanation (boring a hole in the head) to technology, a brief history of mental illness treatments
Then:
Before the Greeks: mental problems thought to be caused by “supernatural” demonic possession.
Primitive Therapies: The Ancients
• Bathing: Greeks used to cure depression
• Bloodletting: to cure psychosis
• Trepanation: drill a hole in the head to let the demons out
• Hysteria therapy: the wandering womb (Plato’s cure-all for women…soothe the womb, solve the problem)
From 1450-1750: 40,000 to 100,000 executed as witches throughout Europe. Approximately 80% were women
Pre-Modern: Weird Therapies (Cruel and Unusual Punishment?)
• Insulin coma therapy: load em up with insulin, then wake them up
• Rotational therapy (spin out that illness)
• Hydrotherapy (submerge the patient)
• Mesmerism (magnetize the illness out of the body)
• Malaria therapy (a feverish cure)
• Chemically induced seizures
• Phrenology (bumps on the skull indicated what was wrong)
• And…of course the ever popular….ice pick lobotomy (quite popular into the mid 20th century)
• 50,000: number of lobotomies total in U.S., most between 1949-1952
• 2,500: of the 50,000 estimated number of ice pick lobotomies in U.S.
NOW:
Mental Health: You think it’s not your problem? Think again.
• 1 in 5: American adults experienced a mental health issue: that’s 57.7 million Americans EVERY YEAR.
• 1 in 10: young people experienced a period of major depression
• 1 in 20 Americans lived with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression
• 10th leading cause of death in U.S.: Suicide.
• 38,000: number of suicide deaths in U.S. annually. That is 2X deaths in U.S. by homicide.
Moving into the Modern Age:
• Psychoanalysis: Enter Sigmund Freud…and “talking” therapy: Freud begat: [all broke from Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Carl
Rogers
• Electroconvulsive therapy. Shock treatment. First used,
1938.
450 million people worldwide have mental problems. 1 in every 16 person on
the planet.
50% of all mental problems begin before age 14; 75% before age 25.
20% of young adults have mental problems.
35% of teen girls (7 in 25) have eating disorders.