Topical Blog Week #13 (Due Thursday)

I would like to learn more about the mental institutions of the past. More specifically, I would like to learn about some of the old procedures, how things shifted, why the old methods were used, and how the new ones came about. This fits into the chapter as the chapter talked about Pinel and about the mental health institutions and how horrible they were at the time. They included chains and sounded like prisons. It all sounded horrific.

I would also like to learn more about why anyone thought it would be a good idea to treat people like this in the first place. What kinds of people were working at these institutions? Were there any research experiments that were performed on people in these institutions? Did they attempt to find cures? As I apply to grad programs in mental health counseling, I can imagine how much more these methods would have damaged individuals and how far we have come from these ways of “treating” the mentally ill. I am fascinated in taking a more in depth look back at the history of mental health institutions.

I feel like this fits in the chapter as it talks about Pinel as well as the transition from finding and learning about mental illness to actually coming up with treatments and cures. For example the moral treatment ideas and ethical implications that Pinel brought into play. This chapter alludes to the turning point in caring for the mentally ill. This is why I am taking a more in depth look at the change in material from the book and a personal interest.

Moral treatment was developed as a result of the horrific treatment of the mentally ill. Pinel is one of the implicators of moral treatment. Pinel helped to do away with the chains and “normal” methods of treatment at the time. Pinel had interest in mental health as a result of having a manic friend who committed suicide. Pinel is considered the father of “modern psychiatry” because he began to take jobs with mentally ill individuals as well as create “moral treatment” and ethics guidelines. Pinel also came up with ways to organize various illnesses which lead to the creation of medicines and other treatments that could be specialized to the disorders.

As I learned more about “moral treatment” I found that it meant less about right vs. wrong (how I originally interpreted it) but rather more about the moral or psych/internal mind perspective. He also referred to the moral in a way that seemed to talk about an individual’s decision as to whether or not to indulge in various passions or addictive/destructive/socially unacceptable or pleasurable behaviors. Moral in this case referred to the individual’s morals and how the one who is mentally ill acts (rather than how others treat them). Pinel seemed to think that mentally ill individuals who did not receive correct “moral treatment” would act in excess with alcohol, gluttony, and sexual deviances. He also believed that individuals who did these things had poor mental health.

It was interesting to see that even though Pinel may have worked to take the mentally ill individuals out of chains, he seemed to chain them with religion or tradition as he saw it. They may not have been tied up, but his “science” in this situation was not really empirically supported. He simply encouraged the mentally ill and stable to maximize their mental health by avoiding excessive emotions/passions (this could include jealous to ambition or even excessive devotion to a faith).

In my opinion, the best thing that Pinel did for the mentally ill was get rid of what we today view as cruelties (bleeding, blistering, purging). He encouraged the use of punishment and reinforcement. He looked more at using treatments that modify individual’s behavior. Pinel was the first to have people take notes of how individuals are doing. He wanted them to sit with the individuals and document their struggles with their illness. Pinel seemed to be a behaviorist. He also encouraged mentally ill individuals to practice good hygiene, exercise, and purposeful tasks. He wanted to boost self-esteem and build discipline.

In exploring my interest in the old practices or horrific treatment to the mentally ill, I found an incredibly interest in Pinel. I really enjoyed reading and learning about him. I feel like I know a lot more about the transition between the old and new treatments of the mentally ill. Pinel, the father of modern psychiatry is a million times cooler than the father of modern psychology (aka Freud).

http://www.montevallo.edu/mcnair/Docs/CurrentStudents/Summer%202011%20Abstracts/A.%20Echols.pdf -An article about how treatment of the mental health changed from brutal to more like it is today. References Philippe Pinel

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/philippepinel.aspx -Biography on Philippe Pinel and his work with the mentally ill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_treatment -an encyclopedia entry about moral treatment, what it is, and how Pinel worked with addressing it.

One of the topics that I found extremely interesting that the book illuded to but still mentioned was the extreme treatment of psychiatric and mentally ill patients at the beginning of mental "treatment". I was very struck by the mention that it was revolutionary for Pinel to simply let his patients out of chains that I decided to dive more into the story before Pinel to get some background knowledge on the chapter.
What I found was a sort of dark side to psychology's treatment of patients with mental illness. Something that I have heard little about in my psychology courses so far.
The recognition of people with mental illnesses began when people started to believe that these individuals may be possessed by something similar to satin or that they had demonic possessions. One belief similar to this was the belief that God was punishing these individuals for doign something in their past lives that they had no control over so instead in their present lives they were punished with this debilitating disorder. Because of this the individuals affected by mental illness were often shunned and a lot of the time they were hid from their families, especially in collectivist cultures that valued honor and respect in the family line such as China. Since at that time there was no where else to put them, individuals with mental illness were cared for by family and often kept in basements or out of sight, many were unknown to close family or friends for fear of abandonment.
The thought that mental illnesses didn't come from the devil first came from Hippocrates. He started the trend that stated that these people were not simply possessed by the devil or being punished, but instead that they had something biologically wrong with them, he didn't believe that they could be treated but at least it was a step in the correct direction of the cause of mental illness.
Skipping ahead to when institutions first began, it was unheared of to think of these individuals as treatable or anything but deliquents who couldn't be saved. Instead the institutions were simply housing these people to releave them from their families. It was also brought up as a way to make profit for the insitutions that they could put these individuals on display as a sort of freak show where people would pay money to see. This eventually became the norm for mental institutions, when the patients weren't chained to their walls, living with little and inadequate food and water, standing in their own waste, they were put on display for people to gawk at.
At the infamous mental institution, nicknamed "Bedlam" the violent prisoners were put on display during the day in their homes between the walls of the viewing rooms of the institution. The nonviolent prisoners also lived in the spaces between the walls but instead they were asked to go out on the street during the day to beg for money to be returned to the institution.
When the staff did attempt to treat the patients, it was often in an intimidating way of bloodletting was the most common, like mentioned in the book it was the process of getting all the "bad blood" out of the individuals system so that their body could return to a state of normalacy. The train of thought was that these individuals needed to choose rationality over insanity for the treatment to work. This is what led to the tretaments of intimidation in attempts to frighten or threaten these patitents into their right minds.
This brings us to the time of Pinel, who started the revolution of seeing these people as not possessed, or punished, or choosing to be this way, instead he viewed them as sick individuals who need help. His letting the chains off of some of his patients may have seemed irrational to most at the time but it started a chain reaction of humane practices in mental institutions.

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/2/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills
-Good article on the history of the treatment of mental illnesses
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Confronting+chaos%3A+today+we+view+early+psychiatric+treatments+as...-a0151380657
-good articles about practices of mental treatment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_treatment
-wikipedia on moral treatment and Pinel

For my topical blog I chose to research Benjamin Rush’s tranquilizing chair because I found it very interesting some of the ideas they had about patients with a mental disorder. The tranquilizer, which was a chair with straps for restraining arms and legs, and boxlike device that fit tightly over the head, by eliminating movement the goal, was to reduce the pulse rate. Rush believed that mental diseases were caused by irritation of the blood vessels in the brain. It was believed at the time that mental illness was “madness" an arterial disease, and an inflammation of the brain. The chair was supposed to control the flow of blood toward the brain and, by lessening muscular action or reducing motor activity, reduced the force and frequency of the pulse. Both of Rush's devices were supposed to exert an influence in some way to circulation, which was believed to be essential to the successful treatment of the insane. In actuality, they did neither harm nor good. This instrument provided a form of shock therapy, which was interpreted as effecting cures according to his theory involving nervous states. We know today more about mental diseases and know they can’t be cured; there are ways our society has worked with and now understands them.

http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/rush_benj.html - Everything Rush has done and where his ideas originated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYiz8eXTpPA – YouTube video explain the chair visually.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/benjamin.html - Explanation of the chair.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/features/brush.html - More explanation of the chair.

What I wanted to discuss for this weeks topical blog is the different modes of treating mentally the ill throughout history, both humane ways and inhumane ways. I think it’s interesting to look at the different methods that progressed from inhumane to humane ways throughout the years, which was vaguely discussed in the text.
Starting as early as the 1400’s, Hippocrates discarded the belief that mental disorders were because the gods were mad at the individual or that they were possessed by demons. He believed that these people had “disturbed physiology” as opposed to the latter. They also started using drugs on patients this early, and let the family members take care of the mentally disturbed. Into the middle ages, the mentally ill were generally allowed their freedom if they weren’t considered dangerous. There was though, the belief that these people were inhabited by demons or were considered witches, in which many of them were burned at the stake. There were differences though in terms of regions and religions. There were many religious orders that took care of the mentally ill patients and continued the scientific ways of the Greeks, such as the Muslim Arabs.
As time went on into the 1600’s, the mentally ill were increasingly downgraded and were kept with people that were handicapped or criminals where they started to get treated more inhumanely. These inhumane practices included being chained to the walls or kept in dungeons, and these type of practices continued until well into the 1700’s until Pinnel advocated for better treatment at his facility. Pinnel was the first to stand up for these mentally ill patients and took them out of the dark and degrading settings they were kept in. They instead were brought out into much better living conditions. While this was occurring across the Atlantic, better treatment practices were also being brought up in the United States, at least compared to other practices at the time. Rush believed that mental disease were caused by blood vessels to the brain being irritated. He created the tranquilizing chair that “was supposed to control the flow of blood toward the brain and, by lessening muscular action or reducing motor activity, reduced the force and frequency of the pulse.”
Also taking place in the U.S during the 1800’s was the efforts of Dorthea Dix. She had an interest in the well-being of people, and decided to take a visit to the mental institution near her. She had seen the atrocities that were taking place, and decided that she needed to do something about it. She had created over 32 state hospitals throughout her 40 years of advocating, and made a great effort to change how the inmates were treated and their surroundings. Although, like the book had stated, many of the hospitals went back to their old practices after overcrowding, she had set the standard as to how these hospitals should be run.
Jumping to the 1930’s, drugs, electro-convulsive therapy, and surgery were starting to be used to treat people with persistent mental disorders. During this time, lobotomies were starting to become a common practice to treat people with such diseases as schizophrenia, depression, severe anxiety , and obsessions. Electro-shock therapy was also a therapy on the rise during the 30’s to induce convulsions in treating schizophrenic and depressed patients.
From the 1950’s through the 90’s there was the creation of more drugs, behavior therapy, publications raising awareness and perking interests in mental disorders, like through media in The Bird Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, removal of patients into better residential homes, laws and acts favoring the mentally ill as well as advocacy groups for this group of people. It seems like there was sort of a good-bad-good pattern. Starting with Hippocrates, who viewed physiological disturbances as the cause for the mentally ill, we went to the medieval ages where we took a step back and viewed the mentally ill as possessed or witches, to gradually understanding that these people are troubled and , with the help of people such as Clifford Beers, they can be helped, treated, and potentially rehabilitated back into society.

For this week’s topical blog I decided to find out more about Dorothea Dix. She played a crucial role in improving the treatment of those with mental illness, which is why she is relevant to this chapter. However, I also found that her contributions sometimes go unnoticed - which is another reason that motivated me to write about her.

Dix was born in 1802 in the town of Hampden, Maine. She had a rough childhood. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother was mentally retarded. Dix has been quoted saying “I never knew childhood”. She would often take refuge at her grandmother’s house in Boston. Although her father was an abusive alcoholic, he did teach Dorothea how to read and write, which would prove to be beneficial later in life. Her skills in reading and writing put her far ahead of her classmates, which in turn sparked an interest in teaching. Due to her father’s worsening alcoholism and her mother’s mental problems, Dix and her two younger brothers were taken in by their wealthy grandmother. Dorothea had trouble conforming to the wealthy lifestyle and was sent to live with her aunt at the age of 14.

While living with her aunt she met her second cousin, Edward. Although he was 14 years older, the two formed a close bond. Edward helped her become a teacher, which at this time was difficult since girls couldn’t be taught in public schools. She began teaching in an old store in 1816 and would continue to do so for 3 years and remained grateful to Edward for helping her find a space for her to hold her classes. However, Edward had fallen in love with Dorothea and once he confessed it caused Dix to close the school and move back to Boston. Soon after returning to Boston Dorothea’s father passed away in New Hampshire which was during the same year she had opened her own school of teaching (1821). She ran it successfully until she was diagnosed with tuberculin disease, which forced her to give it up. She then spent her time taking care of her sick grandmother. However, her grandmother and mother would end up passing away within two weeks of each other.

This was also during the time that she traveled roughly 60,000 miles studying the conditions of different mental institutes, jails, and almshouses. Dorothea was absolutely appalled by the cruelty; dirty, diseased, ill clothed people she encountered during her studies. The people within these institutions were being treated like animals and in some cases simply neglected. She then broadcasted what she had found, which in turn would lead to beneficial reforms and changes within mental institutions everywhere. Dix was responsible for establishing or enlarging 32 mental hospitals in North America, Europe, and Japan. Dorothea never married and literally dedicated herself to helping others, which proved to be beneficial.

In 1887, at the age of 85, Dorothea passed away. However, she left her mark on society as to its current outlook of the mentally ill. She was able to accomplish more in one 15 year span of her life than most individuals did in a lifetime.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/dix.htm
- Overview of Dorothea’s entire life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothea_Dix
- Information regarding Dorothea’s contributions to the improved care of the mentally ill
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html
- Discussed Dorothea’s early life as well as highlighted her passion for teaching

Chapter 12 influenced me into learning more about the history of the treatment of mental illness. The chapter talks about how poorly patients were treated, but it doesn’t go into a lot of detail. I wanted to look more in to what methods were used, and how mental illness was perceived throughout history, because I have a strong opinion on the treatment of the mentally ill. I believe that these people shouldn’t be forced to live in adverse conditions, and that they should be given opportunities to thrive in their environment.
Mental illness was perceived in many different ways throughout history, and many of these had mythical origins. The earliest attempts to treat mental illness can be seen as early as 5000 BCE. Early man widely believed that mental illness was the result of a supernatural phenomenon. For example, they believed it was spiritual or demonic possession, sorcery, the evil eye, or an angry deity. Unfortunately, the treatments were equally mystical, and sometimes brutal. An example of this is called trephining. During this procedure, a hole was made in one’s skull using crude stone instruments. It was believed that through this opening evil spirits causing their psychopathology could be released and they would be cured. This procedure became widely popular and endured through the centuries to treat various ailments. Ancient Hebrews believed that all illness was inflicted upon humans by God as punishment for committing sin. Along the same spiritual lines, ancient Persians attributed illness to demons. They believed that health was achieved through good deeds and thoughts. One of the most interesting views on mental illness would be that of the Greeks. They believed that hysteria in women was caused by a “wandering uterus”. They used fumigation of the vagina to get the uterus back into the proper healthy position. This hysteria in women is now known as Conversion Disorder. Colonial Americans believed that insanity was caused by a full moon at the time of a baby’s birth or a baby sleeping under the light of a full moon. From this lunar belief, they called the mentally ill “lunatics”, and said that they were possessed by the devil, and were usually removed from society and locked away.
Medical procedures involved in the treatment of the mentally ill throughout history included submerging patients in ice baths until they lost consciousness or administering a massive shock to the brain. They also used various ways to cleanse the patient, and this included inducing vomiting and bleeding. It was thought that by making a patient bleed, that they were releasing the bad blood that was making them ill. In the 1930’s the lobotomy began to be used in the United States. The lobotomy was a medical procedure where the neural passages from the front of the brain are surgically separated from those in the back of the brain. One procedure of a lobotomy included: inducing sedation, inflict two quick shocks to the head, roll back one of the patient’s eyelids, insert a device that was about 2/3 the size of a pencil through the upper eyelid into the patients’ head, guided by the markings indicating depth, tap the device with a hammer into the patient’s frontal lobe, after the appropriate depth is achieved, manipulate the device back and forth in a swiping motion within the patient’s head. Looking back at these beliefs and procedures, I am so glad that we have gained an advanced knowledge of mental illness.

http://www.toddlertime.com/advocacy/hospitals/Asylum/history-asylum.htm
-History of mental illness in the Unites States
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills
-History of mental illness during different eras
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nash/timeline/index.html
-Timeline of treatments of mental illness

For this week’s topical blog I decided to do research on Lightner Witmer. Witmer fits into chapter 12 because of his contributions to Clinical Psychology, which have a great deal to do with mental illnesses and their subsequent treatments. I became interested in Witmer, wishing to learn more about him and his life when I read about how he liked to do crazy things such as riding his brakeless bike down steep hills with his legs over the handlebars. Much to my demise though, shortly after doing some research I discovered that Witmer was quite introverted and kept most of his life very private, so not much was known about his personal life.

Interestingly enough, one thing I never knew till now was that Witmer changed his name when he was fifty years old. His original name was David L. Witmer Jr. The family had a nickname (Lightner) and he decided to change his name officially to Lightner Witmer at the age of fifty. Another fascinating aspect of Witmer was that he was unusually private about his life. I was hoping to discover more crazy antics that Witmer pulled but I believe he kept these to himself most of the time. Also, he was said to be an introverted person and had little respect for others opinions, which cost him a lot of friendships.

It appeared that Witmer had a hard time figuring out exactly what he wanted to do with his life, but eventually stumbled upon experimental psychology and realized that was the direction he wanted to take with his life. Witmer studied under greats like Cattell and Wundt and was largely influenced by both of them. Most importantly, Lightner Witmer took a great interest in children and cared deeply for their education and helping children with disabilities live more fulfilling lives.

After Witmer dedicated himself to helping children with disabilities, he decided to change the thought of study for psychology. Witmer did this by making psychology more applied, applied psychology. Witmer didn’t just want to learn and discover things about psychology, but he wanted to learn how we could use psychology to improve the lives of others (in this case, children with learning disabilities). So, Lightner went on to coin the concept of clinical psychology and created the first clinical psychology lab in the United States. Witmer ran his clinic on the principals of assessment and treatment. Lightner believed that the child needed to be fully assessed and then a proper treatment program unique to the patient could be developed specifically for that patient. Witmer’s method indeed worked and had support. Children with learning disabilities were able to be helped and some could even continue their education.

It seems that since Witmer was so introverted and self-spoken, many disliked him and as a result they tried to hide him from ever making it to the history books. However, Lightner Witmer was the sole contributor to the creation of clinical psychology. Witmer also contributed to the idea that psychology could be applied to improve lives, not just be a pure science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightner_Witmer -- Great overview of Witmer, since he was such a private person, it was hard to find information on him, thus I used Wikipedia.

http://svess.myweb.uga.edu/ -- Synopsis of different aspects of Witmer’s life. I found a lot of the same information here that I found on wiki. Brief and straight to the point summaries on this site.

http://www.psych.upenn.edu/history/witmertext.htm -- Large amount of information with emphasis on Witmer’s contributions to Clinical Psychology.

I decided to do my blog over Phillipe Pinel and his idea of “moral treatment.” Pinel has been said to be the father of modern psychiatry. He worked for many years in the mental hospital in Paris. In the days before the reform in mental hospitals patients were treated horribly. They were told to go to mass regularly and that making a pilgrimage to a religious shrine might even help. The living conditions were cruel. Most were abandoned by relatives in order to prevent disturbance in the community. Most of the staff in asylums were untrained and not qualified to be working with mentally ill individuals. Patients were treated like animals. In fact violent patients were displays in rooms for the public to see for the price of a penny. Other patients put on corners to beg for charity. Patients were forced to sleep upright, the rooms were never cleaned, and no visitors were allowed except to deliver food.

Technics like bloodletting and purging were commonly used as well as straightjackets. Pinel changed all of this. He believed that if patients were treated with kindness and consideration they would improve. He focused a lot on social welfare and individual’s rights. Patients were unchained from their beds, rooms were sunnier, and patients were allowed to exercise. They were treated in a humane way. We started to focus on a patients social, individual, and occupational needs. Pinel saw linked between someone’s emotions, social conditions, and insanity. A lot of his work was done with another man who was one of his students originally named Pussin. They used their theory of moral treatment on mental hospitals in Paris. There ended up being requirements by law to have asylums for local populations. Apparently more people did not realize how much Pussin did. Pinel tried to give Pussin credit for the things he did, but most people believed Pinel did everything. For instance, Pinel did not actually unchained the first mental patients Pussin did. Pinel did not believe in using bloodletting or purging he simply engaged in conversations with his patients. Though, he did use these methods in extreme cases, but rarely. He practiced clinical psychology methods that are used today. Pinel understood we are not just animals, we are social animals with imaginations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillipe_Pinel - Gave background information about Pinel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_treatment - Explained more on what moral treatment is
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills - This explained the treatment patients were given before and after the reform

I chose to do more research on the immoral treatment of mental illness patients. It is not a good topic necessarily, but it is still interesting to learn more about because of how hard it is for me to think that people actually did this and then to go even further and get away with it for awhile. We usually just think of psychology along the lines of studying the person with the mental illness, but it is interesting to think about studying the people who take care of the mentally ill. Psychology encompasses the whole environment including external and internal factors. During the 18th century more treatment began to be more of a focus and continued to be practiced through the 19th century, but in the 20th century the treatment go worse again with overcrowding and mistreating patients in asylums. The focus was more on emotions and social interaction with the patient. Some of the most praised contributions were freeing the suffering patients from shackles and barbaric physical treatments. Asylums began to appear in Europe during the sixteenth century and were staffed with untrained people who treated the patients like they were animals. It is interesting to read about the past treatments of the mentally ill because of the negative association that comes with it. When I hear the word asylum I automatically think of the word as creepy, twisted, or scary. Needless to say, it isn’t an attractive word and that makes sense. It was shocking to read about some of the things they did. Patients would be shackled in a dark cramped room and be forced to sleep upright. They weren’t provided with nutritious food or proper medication. Patients even had to sit in their own waste because no one ever cleaned it up. The worst story that I read was about an asylum in London called Saint Mary of Bethlehem where they put patients on display like sideshow freaks. These intimidating and cruel factors of asylums was all based on the thought that the patients needed to choose rationality over insanity, which today we understand that that is not possible for some people. Back then there were only two ways to categorize the mentally ill, mania or melancholy. What was disturbing and new information to me was that most of the treatments at asylums were cathartic which meant they would purge the patients through vomiting or bleeding. They did this as if they were getting rid of the demons. This makes me thing about the role that religion plays with psychology. It seems like it took awhile for things to become what they are now and I think part of that might be due to the traditional and religious views of the past.
Moral treatment introduced a more domestic feel to treating the mentally ill. This was done by patients having their own rooms with a bed and decorations to make things feel more at home. After phrenology and other advances in science, we were able to understand mental illnesses better which allowed the idea of new treatment methods such as relaxation and hypnosis. What was interesting is that this was all taking place after the Civil War when soldiers were experience trauma. This provided enough evidence for the importance of emotions in our physical environment and the ways that can be used in treatment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_treatment
background information and history, consequences

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills
European asylums, intimidation and barbaric treatment, Saint Mary of Bethlehem

http://www.toddlertime.com/advocacy/hospitals/Asylum/history-asylum.htm
mania and melancholy, cathartic treatments, moral treatments, civil war

I decided to learn about Paul Eugen Bleuler. He was briefly mentioned in the book for his work on schizophrenia. I was interested because he was hardly mentioned and schizophrenia is one of the sadder and more interesting of the mental illness for me.

Bleuler was from Switzerland and was born to a wealthy farmer. He came up with or coined the terms autism and schizophrenia. He studied medicine. Bleuler also spent some time in Paris studying with Charcot. Bleuler was interested in hypnotism and this led to his relationship with Freud. He like many others ended his relationship with Freud and wrote to him “"this 'all or nothing' is in my opinion necessary for religious communities and useful for political parties...but for science I consider it harmful." Even though the friendship was strained he never stopped publicly and professionally supporting Freud.

Bleuler is most famous for his work on schizophrenia. He came after Kraeplin and renamed dementia praecox schizophrenia. “He argued against Kraepelin that schizophrenia was not the product of organic deterioration, and not necessarily incurable. Instead, he saw its central characteristics to be the product of a process of splitting between the emotional and the intellectual functions of the personality and favored early discharge from hospital into a community environment to avoid institutionalization.” He did not think schizophrenia came from brain damage but had psychological reasons. He was one of the first to use psychoanalytical methods.

For some time Carl Jung was his assistant. He was also an early member of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society. There is not a lot to be found about his personality or personal life. There is no scandal or tragedy, no mention of a wife. He had a son who also studied psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Bleuler
General biographical information on Bleuler

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=100311
Info on how he came up with the term schizophrenia

http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1294.html
About his career

The subject I am doing further research on is animal magnetism which was invented by Franz Mesmer. It fits into the chapter in the section on Mesmer and hypnosis. This subject is interesting to me because it almost seems like something that could be true if Mesmer hadn’t ruined it by getting all creepy and thinking he possessed special powers. I have heard of hypnotic treatments before, usually dealing with overcoming trauma or mental blocks, but hypnosis as a means simply for good health has a much greater possibility because it caters to the general public. You don’t have to be trying to overcome extremely negative events to benefit from boosts in general health because of hypnosis.

Mesmer coined the term animal magnetism to try and differentiate from things like mineral magnetism and planetary magnetism. This meant that he used mental elements like will and intentions to try and help his patients. His practice was accompanied by usually laying his hands on the person to pinpoint the damaged areas. Animal magnetism gave light to hypnosis, spiritualism, magnetic healing and other forms of alternative medicine.

Animal magnetism is considered a form of mesmerism. This is that Mesmer believes that there was a “magnetic” or energy like connection between all things in life. Humans were connected to other humans, animals and even nonliving things through a force of energy. These ideas are what ultimately gave light into his theories and practice of animal magnetism.

Thanks to Mesmer we now know a lot more about hypnosis, weather he intended it or not. Hypnosis has been around for a long time, dating back to the Egyptians, but it wasn’t until Mesmer began using hypnosis in his animal magnetism that the scientific community really began to look into the effects of hypnosis. Now there are all kinds of different hypnotic practices from trying to overcome trauma to trying to aid in performance. There are people who specialize in putting others in hypnotic states for therapy and even just for entertainment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
-This is where I learned more about animal magnetism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
-This is where I learned more about Mesmer’s fundamental beliefs.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/
-This is where I learned about Mesmer’s influence on the hypnosis field of study.

The topic I wanted to look more into was Benjamin Rush and his treatment for the mentally ill. Benjamin Rush was born on January 4, 1746 in Byberry Township, Pennsylvania. He received an A.B. from the College of New Jersey at the age of 14. After school, he studied with some of the most prominent American physicians during his time. In 1766, he left America to study at the University of Edinburgh. He received his medical degree from there in 1768. He then went to train at St Thomas Hospital in London. Once he was done with his training, he moved back to Philadelphia. In 1769, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in Penn’s medical department. Shortly after, he wrote “A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Chemistry”. In 1776, he was chosen to take a seat in the Second Continental Congress and actually signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1777, he was commissioned Surgeon General of the Middle Department of the Continental Army. This didn’t work out as he became displeased by the disorganization in the army hospitals. He resigned from the position just a year later. He became a surgeon at Penn Hospital in 1784. While he was there, he came up with some treatment options for the mentally ill. One of his treatment methods is known as bloodletting. He felt the problem was in the blood, so he would withdraw large amount of blood in hopes to treat the patient successfully. This method became highly criticized over time, and it would eventually cost him his job as he had to resign. His most famous treatment method was definitely the tranquilizing chair. He thought people were insane because it was an arterial disease, an inflammation of the brain. The chair was used to control the flow of blood toward the brain, by reducing muscular action or reducing motor activity, which reduced the force and frequency of the pulse. This actually didn’t help or hurt patients. From 1797 to 1813, Rush served as Treasurer of the U.S. Mint. In 1812, he published “Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind”. This was the first American text on this subject, and it made him become known as the “father of American psychiatry”. He died shortly after in 1813. It’s interesting to note that Rush was eulogized by Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
http://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/rush_benj.html
-Info on Benjamin Rush
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/features/brush.html
-Info on tranquilizing chair and bloodletting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYiz8eXTpPA
-Video showing the chair and giving info

The topic I decided to research more was on William Tuke. He fits into the chapter because he tried to make the same enhancements in mental institutions that Philliple Pinel did, but in England. I I chose to research Tuke because we learned a lot from Pinel and his efforts to make the treatment of mental patients more humane in Paris and I thought I’d see how changes were made by someone else in another country. I liked reading about the differences Tuke and Pinel made for the humane treatment overall in mental asylums.

William Tuke was born into a Quaker family in 1732. From early on he was involved with the family tea and coffee business and spending a lot of time with philanthropy. After a friend’s passing in the York asylum, Tuke was allowed to visit the York asylum and was shocked by the inhumane conditions he witnessed. It had been found that the patients at the York asylum were treated worse than animals. He appealed to change the treatment of the mentally ill. He was able to open up a York Retreat for the mentally ill in 1796 and it was the first of its entirety in England. The Retreat offered more humane treatments for patients by getting rid of the chains used as restraints, giving them housing, and implementing a program for the use of occupational jobs. Tuke believed in self-discipline and high moral standards. Moral treatment, treating patients as people with their basic needs in mind, became one of the most meaningful practices in Europe in the 1800s. Although it was originally run by Quakers, it eventually became open to everyone. Tuke’s Retreat was a model for other facilities like the Brattleboro Retreat, Hartford Retreat and Friends Hospital.

After Tuke’s passing in 1822, his family stayed involved with the philanthropy. One of his sons was the co-founder of the Retreat and his other son wrote up the principles of ‘moral therapy’ for the environment at the Retreat. The Retreat is still around as a mental hospital today.

The Retreat now offers rehabilitation for psychosis, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, and personality disorders. The hospital now has 160 beds, 100 for the elderly. The Quaker background is still represented in the hospital today.

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/williamtuke.aspx
-this site gave information on Tuke’s reasoning behind the York Retreat asylum and also mentions Pinel and moral treatment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Retreat
-this site talked about the current use of the Retreat along with the history of Tuke’s work developing it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/tuke_william.shtml
-this site gave a lot of information on Tuke and his family’s involvement with philanthropy.