Reading Activity Week #13 (Due Monday)

Blake Wedeking

1) I found the concept of bloodletting to be very interesting because I had never heard of it before reading this chapter. I thought the concept itself was interesting because it makes one wonder if this type of experimentation would be ethical today. The concept basically involved removing access blood in order to cure a wide range of illnesses. After losing blood, the individual would be more calm and in a relaxed states. We now know that these individuals lost blood and were too weak to be hyperactive in any form. What I thought was also interesting was Rush gave a patient 47 different bleedings and thanked Rush for curing him, but consequently the individual had a relapse and hung himself after being released from treatment. This type of experimentation really intrigued me because people were actually buying that they were getting cured. It almost seems as a type of placebo effect that these patients would be experiencing.

2) I found Mesmer’s theory of illness and cure animal magnetism to be quite intriguing to read about. I found it interesting because it seemed that he was instead doing a type of hypnosis on his patients in which they “felt” cured. What really astonishes me is that when he suggested it would cure them, some patients would buy into these treatments effects. Controversy was created because most of his patients were women and his therapy seemed to be “hands on.” It seems as if Mesmer accidentally stumbled upon a type of hypnosis in which he soon quit using the magnets in his therapy and started using his hands. In order to get patients into this type of states, they were given significant amounts of iron and would fall into a type of crisis state. Franz actually thought he was special and had these great abilities that were limited to only him.

3) I thought that the history of how mesmerism would potentially get its validity to be interesting read about. I found this interesting because famous individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier, and Joseph Guillotine, who were part of the French Royal academy for the Sciences, would decide the relevance mesmerism had to science. I also found the findings of the commission to be interesting because they claimed that some patients had indeed been helped by Mesmer but shrewdly attributed any cures to the patient’s beliefs rather than to Mesmer’s “magnetizing” powers. Mesmer ignored this commission’s claim and kept practicing mesmerism until his death in 1815. I thought this was also interesting because if Benjamin Franklin didn’t approve of my work, I would probably rethink about what I was doing. Mesmer seemed to have much determination and ignored individuals that came to play a key role in history.

4) The least interesting part of the chapter is towards the end where Freud is evaluated. I think this part really is uninteresting because people know that his work was important but you always get those critics that say his work was misguided or didn’t really pose any intellectual gain. I enjoyed reading about Freud’s life and his contributions so I guess this part kind of ticked me off and made me wish that others would evaluate their claims on Freud because he is truly an interesting man to study. I do think he played a great contribution to the history of psychology and it seems the people are uninterested in his contributions and significantly bash him.

5) I think the concept of ego defense mechanisms will play a great contribution into the history of psychology. My question is why are so many things repressed in someone’s unconsciousness? Repression involves unwanted impulses that are sent to the unconscious, projection involves personal faults that can’t be accepted and are projected onto other individuals/ People will repress their own hostility and claim that others have hostility instead of their own self. I think these concepts as well as sublimation will be important to understand psychology. These concepts will help you relate with yourself and determine your own sets of feelings.

6) I would say that this chapter could potentially build on the first chapter of the textbook in which we have to consider a historicism and presentism type of approach to looking at psychology. We must examine the chapter in a way to understand the current thinking of the time. For example, the concept of bloodletting would fall into that category in which today we would see this as a concept that would be seen as unfit or why should we do that? If we look at bloodletting through a historical view we can see that this means was a type of means to calm individual down. This chapter all comes down to perception and how it is applied to others perception of history.

7) I would like to learn more about the origins of hypnotism or Neurypnology and how psychologists use it today in order to understand individuals. I would also like to learn more about the hypnotism controversies that occurred during the 1800’s when this type of work was starting to spread out. I would like to know what other factors such as suggestion played in the role of hypnotism and the degree it contributed to the term’s origins. I think it would be interesting how individuals found out that by staring at an object we can fall into a deep trance. I would also like to know the validity of this type of soothing method and the degree in which it can actually help people.

8) After reading the section over hypnotism, I began to remember the experiences I have had with the term. I remember first seeing hypnosis in high school when a hypnotist came in to show the effects that this could have on our classmates. I was astounded to find the degree in which individuals would participate in these types of demands. I remember a lot of the actions to be hilarious and amusing to us as kids but what really made me wonder was how they couldn’t remember a thing that had just happened to them. At the time, it seemed like a form of magic and mystical work and I remember being totally mind blown. This scenario played through my head as I read this section and brought back a lot of great memories for me.

9) bloodletting, animal magnetism, Franz Mesmer, Benjamin Rush, hypnotism, suggestion, neurypnology, Sigmund Freud, sublimation, projection, repression, ego defense mechanism, historicism, presentism

Please read chapter 12. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The first thing that I found to be interesting was the section on moral treatment that was first implemented by Phillipe Pinel. I thought this was interesting because he was saying that patients that had a mental illness should not be treated like they were criminals and treated without morals basically. They should have a separate environment where they are not to feel restrained, and in this case I can see there being less problems and a possibility for a cure. I feel like there would be less problems because dealing with a patient with a mental illness, restraining them just may make them upset and making problems arise. The thought of treating them like they were normal and did not commit a crime, but also keeping a closer eye on them would be a better route to go to give them freedom but allow them to be watched. Also, having good hygiene and nutrition is essential because again I do not feel like they should be punished, the reason to keep them separate is to have an eye on them not to punish them.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found to be interesting was the topic on how the Asylum spread to America. It was interesting to me because of the point that they make that it went from a 1:10 to a 1:2 for people that were to watch the patients. I think that this would make life easier for not only the observers because they had less patients to look after by the ratio, but it would also make the life for the patients easier too so that their needs are being met more conveniently. I think that this route was more efficient and I think that I read somewhere that it was more cost efficient also. Just the main thing that I found to be interesting is how the ratio changed drastically.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought the free association section with Freud was interesting. I thought this was interesting because this is where we first see the setting of the psychologist sitting in a chair and hearing the problems of his patients. This is interesting to me because I have thought becoming that type of psychologist would be something that I would even enjoy or even a psychiatrist. So, reading about the idea of where this idea originated was interesting.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The part that I found not to be interesting was on Franz Anton Mesmer and animal magnetism. I did not find this interesting because I did not agree that the treatment would help any of the patients. This was compared to hypnosis, which is a topic that I do not believe works. I do not believe it works because I have tried to be put under hypnosis and it did not work, so even if it were to work for some people it does not work for everyone which makes it a treatment that is not very efficient. Also I did not like how he tried to spread it on basically being a lie. He was trying to make people believe he had these powers, which really could have made them believe he used hypnosis and that they are cured but with their mindset changing that may have been the cure not the hypnosis.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Something I found to be important in understanding the history of psychology would be the section on Benjamin Rush. I thought that it was important because he signed the Declaration of Independence so this country already sees him in a sense as a hero. So being one of the men that signed the Declaration of Independence, it was interesting and important to know that some of them contributed to the field of psychology, thus making the field even more important.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It relates to other chapters because again we see an idea start in Europe and slowly make its way to spread in America. It seems repetitive that all the ideas are coming from Europe and spreading to the United States, so in a way this statement relates it to just about every chapter.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to know more about the mental institutions or moral treatment. This was an interesting topic to me, but I would like to know more information like the average size, benefits, rules and other information that this chapter does not include.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When they changed magnetism to hypnosis, why did they think that was an effective route to go? All the ideas were the same, but the change of the name to me is not effective in trying to find better ways to cure patients so I would like to know why they thought that changing the name would have worked.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Moral treatment, Phillipe Pinel, Benjamin Rush, Franz Anton Mesmer, animal magnetism, hypnosis, free association, Sigmund Freud

Chapter 12

1)What did you find interesting? Why?
I think everyone can agree that Freud and his perspectives were very interesting. No matter how many times I hear them I find them to be fun. This is what got me interested in the field of psychology in the first place. Even though I eventually learned that Freud was a little whack, his ideas are what started it all and he deserves a lot of credit and thanks because of it. Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis. From the mid-1880s to the mid-1890s Freud developed his neurology practice specializing in the treatment of hysteria. The majority of Freud’s patients included Victorian women. He discovered a technique that became the centerpiece of psychoanalytic practice; this was known as free association. Patients were placed in a relaxed position and encouraged them to say whatever they wanted and not to censor anything.

2)What did you find interesting? Why?
I also found the content under clinical psychology in America interesting. The first clinic for treating psychological disorders in the United States was established in 1896 by Lightner Witmer. This practice forcused onpsycho-educational problems; these would be referred to as physiological, cognitive, and behavioral problems related to school performance. Witmer believed these problems could be cured and he called his treatment program orthogenics. It was also mentioned that prior to World War II, clinical psychologists did not have high status and were mainly providing mental testing services. It wasn’t until 1937 until the practice of psychology was expanded.

3)What did you find interesting? Why
Another person I found to be very interesting in this chapter was Benjamin Rush. Rush was considered to be the founder of modern psychiatry, and he introduced a medical model as a way of explaining mental illness and developed an approach to treatment. This emphasized the improving on the condition of patient’s blood and circulatory systems.

4)What did you find least interesting? Why?
I really enjoyed this chapter. When I graduate from college I plan on getting a master’s degree in mental health counseling. I want to work in the mental health field and think learning about its history is very interesting and I loved this chapter because of that fact. The chapter was a bit dry, but overall a very interesting chapter.

5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the part about clinical psychology in the United States. It applies a lot to me and the type of counselor I want to become. It shows me how it all got started and how the building blocks of the foundation of clinical psychology started.

6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds by talking about Freud. He was a big part of all areas in psychology but especially in that of mental health. Mental health also deals with a lot of areas in psychology. This was the start of mental health.

7)What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about how counseling in mental health was formed and how it was formed into the structure it is today.

8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I wondered what it would be like to be have been counseled by Freud. If I was counseled by him would I have any problems by thinking something was wrong with me.

9)Terminology: Sigmund Freud, Free Association, Lightner Witmer, Orthogenics, Benjamin Rush, Psychiatry, Mental Testing Services, Clinical Psychology.

Chapter 12

1) What did you find interesting? Why?
I found Phillipe Pinel and his work with moral treatment interesting. He was a strong voice to treat people with mental illness with more respect and better than they were being treated at the time. He thought that we shouldn’t treat people like they were criminals but like they are, and that if they have an issue we should help them and let them live in a freer society where they can be happy and treated right, we should also promote good nutrition and hygiene for them to keep them healthy not punished.

2) What did you find interesting? Why?
I found Franz Mesmer to in fun. He felt like people with mental illnesses had a misalignment of forces opposing each other and he was get his patients to digest does of iron and pass a magnet back and forth and he thought he was helping them bring out some strong power or knowledge but as we know now he was putting them into a trace and by asking leading questions he would get his responses.

3) What did you find interesting? Why?
Benjamin Rush was interesting to me as well. He was interesting because he is the father of modern psychiatry. He came up with a way of explaining mental illnesses in a medical model and then came up with treatments for mental illnesses. He thought that by improving patents circulatory system and their blood flow we could help them.

4) What did you find least interesting? Why?
I want to work with people who develop PTSD after getting an advanced degree in psychology so I really found a vast majority of this chapter interesting. I also have a mother who is bi-polar and she is the reasons I became so interested into psychology and I could see how the treatment of people like my mother was progressed over the years.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Freud was a major player in mental health and he was also a major player in psychology in a lot of aspects so seeing him surface again and his work in the area of mental health shows a better picture of a figure who has been a major person in psychology for the whole field.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate to the previous chapters?
This chapter was related by the introduction of a new area of psychology. With the study of mental health taking root and in what would be to become a huge part of psychology it was cool to see how the view of psychology shifted at that time in comparison to previous times.

7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about both PTSD and bi-polar disorder. I think both of these have been a big impact on my life. Bi-polar is kind of the root of why I got into psychology and has influenced my family for as long as I can remember. PTSD is something I am super interested in because of my being in the military I think it would be cool to help people with this problem due to military stress.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking while reading this chapter about the curing people with a mental illness. Like my mom is she or will she ever be cured form her illness? Also are some disorders more easily cured then others? Like PTSD is that easier to cure then bi-polar? And if so why? Can’t people relapse into problems at any time?

9) Terms: Sigmund Freud, Benjamin Rush, Psychiatry, Mental Health, Phillipe Pinel, Franz Mesmer. PTSD, Bi-Polar.

B.H.
1a) b) Benjamin Rush interested me because he was the credited with being the first person in America to bring a medical approach to the treatment of the mentally ill. He was also a prominent signer of the Declaration of Independence and a surgeon general to the Continental Army of the American Revolution. Being called the “father” of modern psychiatry, he was one of the few doctors of this era with actual university training in medicine. He advocated the belief that disease came from deficiencies in the blood and circulatory system. He believed bloodletting was a cure for a wide range of illnesses, including mental ones. Hypertension in the brains blood vessels was sought to be the cause of problems. So bloodletting reduced tension, opening veins and removing blood until the patient was in a better state. Rush’s work was recorded in a testimony, which the therapy worked but then relapsed, and the patient he worked with hung himself not long after his release.

2a) b) Thomas Kirkbride, the pioneer in the design of large state funded instituitions interested me because if you look at moral treatment, the architecture and the little things could be an important element in the involvement of treatments in asylums. The way things are designed make certain facilities more functional like schools, athletic facilities, office buildings and ect. The Kirkbride design involved the institution to be in a rual area, placed on high grounds so patients could be provided with a panoramic view. A central unit was also needed for administrative offices and parlors for visitors. He also called for pavilions, which divided males and females and provided recreational areas for patients. These pavilions were shaped in a “shallow v” so that every room was exposed to sunlight and fresh air. The wide corridors in each pavilion were needed to allow space for exercise when they couldn’t go outside. The building would be 3 to 4 stories high with upper floors for well-behaved patients who got a better view as a reward. Last but not least, little separate buildings for disruptive and noisy patients was needed to separate the bad patients so they were influencing the good ones.

3a) b) Franz Mesmer interested me because his successes resulted in the power of suggestion developing the procedure known as hypnosis. His idea was to treat hysteria, which was an apparent nervous system disorder with no true organic damage. But based on his belief that the disorder was the result of disturbed magnetic forces in the body. He treated patients and affected some cures by “mesmerizing” them, believing that Mesmer had some sort of magnetic power. John Elliotson, James Esdaile, and James Braid championed mesmerism eventually which then was changed to hypnotism.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? Freuds belief of sexual problems contributing to hysteria did not interest me because I think the diagnosis of hysteria is to broad to just assume that childhood sexual abuse and sexual intimacies were to blame.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Relating to Mesmer, if you incorrectly make a theory towards something it can always be beneficial even if you didn’t make the conclusion you wanted, the information can be beneficial towards something else. Just like how Mesmer happened to stubble along hypnosis.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? Discussed in previous chapters, the enlightment era extends its importance to psychology by provided moral treatment by Pinel, Tuke, and Rush. This enlightment era was then influence by certain asylum movements and reforms.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why? I would like to find out more about hypnosis. Because I have been hypnotized before, I want to know all the details and what it all entails to be a hypnotist. You can manipulate people’s behaviors to make them say and do things they normally would not do.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I was thinking about how certain facilities like classrooms, schools, business buildings, libraries, athletic facilities, arenas and etc were designed to better suit the environment. Relating to Kirkbrides design, teachers in schools have offices at the top of the building for nice views. Upper management and CEO’s in businesses have higher-level offices for views. The idea to be the best you have to be on top literally is what’s instill in peoples minds. Suites for football games are even up higher for a better view. You feel more privileged being higher up then everyone.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Enlightened reform, bloodletting, Mesmerism, magnetism, hypnosis, hypnotism, hysteria

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

I found the work done by Thomas Kirkbride to be very interesting. His design for asylums that would hold the mentally ill was quite impressive. With most asylums at the time only holding 30-50 patients, his design came along at the right time. His could hold up to 250 patients. The design is patient-friendly with relaxing views, family areas, recreation rooms, and wide corridors. There were also separate smaller buildings for the patients who were more severe and might disturb others. These asylums that Kirkbride designed seemed to be way before their time. These would soon become overcrowded and understaffed.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the work of Dorothea Dix to be interesting. We’ve talked about this in class but the fact that she was a woman at this time of history makes her work even more amazing. Dix went around and did observations at hospitals and other places where the mentally ill might reside. She found many cases of neglect and abuse. In spite of her own poor health she was able to travel over 60,000 miles and visit and observe over 9,000 patients. Her work resulted in close to 50 new hospitals being built. With time, these hospitals would be overcrowded and understaffed which resulted in a lot of the same problems Dix had been advocating against.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Franz Anton Mesmer’s work to be interesting. Mesmer’s accomplishments included animal magnetism and mesmerism; two techniques that he claimed could cure illnesses and heal people. What he had discovered would later be renamed hypnosis. It could be argued that Mesmer never cured a sole or he cured thousands. The one thing he did do is set up a business model for con men to follow for years to come. You can sell anything to anybody as long as you convince them that they need it. Mesmer seemed to be a master at this.

4a) What didn’t you find interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I find Sigmund Freud to be uninteresting. In my Human Development course, we of course learned about Freud. My professor told us that Freud’s theories of the Id, Ego, and Superego are out of date and not seen as a legitimate theory. I believe this to be true and have never understood why Freud was as well thought of as he was. His fascination with all human behavior stemming from sexual motivation is a problem for me. Behavior is more complex than to say that a person acts the way they do due to certain needs not being met in early childhood. Or for that matter, needs being met to an extreme. I have learned that Freud observed no children when coming up with his theories. I just cannot take faith in much of what he studied or his theories in general.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I feel that this chapter starts to explore actual human behavior and not just assuming rats behave the exact way humans do. The chapter presents the conditions that the mentally ill had to deal with in the 18th and 19th centuries. We are finally getting to the point of trying to understand why people behave the way they do and what causes these behaviors. Is it all in the mind, from environmental impacts, or a combination of both?

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think this chapter is getting down to the nuts and bolts of what psychology is all about: studying human behavior and its root cause. Before this, the chapters focused more on how researchers used animals to study human behavior. I feel that now we have researchers and human rights’ activists who are starting to study actual human behavior and the best way to help people.
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7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to know more about Dorothea Dix’s life and work. I want to know what her driving force was to help the mentally ill when she was faced with her own serious health challenges. The text does not really tell us how she got her motivation to do the good she did for people she did not even know. These were people that most of society had decided were not worth helping.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking about how the conditions in nursing homes and mental hospitals have improved over the years but how we still hear of abuse of those who cannot defend themselves. I was thinking of the group of mentally challenged and handicapped people who were forced to work in the West Liberty turkey plant. They were only paid 41 cents per hour and were verbally and physically abused over the course of many years. This incident was discovered in 2009, so the problem still exists and needs to be dealt with.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Thomas Kirkbride
• Dorothea Dix
• Franz Anton Mesmer
• Sigmund Freud
• Animal Magnetism
• Hypnosis
• Mesmerism
• Id, Ego, Superego

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

The idea of bloodletting was pretty interesting; I have heard about it before but never really understood the concept and where it came from. To believe that disease came from the abnormalities from the blood and the circulatory system is kind of odd, but with the little education a person may have had they could have thought this and it was acceptable. It just is kind of interesting to hear about it now when we know that this is not true.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

The arrangements of hospitals for the insane population were very interesting and a good idea to do. The name for the desired design was called the Kirkbride design named after Thomas Kirkbride. This design offered relaxing panoramic views of the countryside, had a central unit for administrative offices, had pavilions, and had a few other great ideas to help enhance the look of the asylum. This design idea was interesting to me because we now have plenty of insane asylums that kind of go off of his idea of what they should look like so it helped the advancement of the architecture of asylums in today’s time.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

The idea that illness resulted from the disharmony of forces opposing each other and the idea that the cure came from straightening out forces within the body and supplying iron pills was quite interesting to me. Simply this idea created the term animal magnetism and hypnosis and thought to be that another cure for the illness can come from magnets. This idea is kind of weird in a sense that I would have never thought of this idea in my life and as a young adult living in this world today I would have never even thought of a cure coming from magnets. So this idea that they had was kind of interesting knowing that maybe this could work.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

While reading this chapter it was hard to find something that was not interesting to me, but I did have to say that reading a lot about Sigmund Freud was getting kind of boring to me even though the section of the chapter had a few interesting details it gets boring after reading about the same man in every one of my psychology classes from freshmen year of high school till now. I am sure that I will read more about him in my later classes but this chapter did bring up a few interesting points about him and his research but the section about him was the only thing I had to say that was kind of boring to me.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

Reading this chapter and seeing how many things related back to hypnotism and things in that area made me realize that I can see how far we have moved forward in thinking that some things can be cured with magnetism and hypnotism. From the time psychologists believed that an illness can be cured by hypnotism and other ideas to now where we have plenty of medicines that can help cure some illnesses. This can help me understand how much we have grown in the area of psychology.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

I am unsure of how this chapter relates or builds onto the previous chapters just because we have not talked about mental illness before. But when reading about mental illness I began to think about the different mental testing strategies that we have read about in one previous chapter and how that a test may affect how we treat people that have a mental illness. It may help us find out about their lives sooner than just generalizing about that person.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?

I would like to generally learn more about different contraptions that people may have made to rid certain people from certain disorders or mental illnesses. The only one we read about was kind of interesting so I would love to read more about that one and others that may have been made to rid people of illnesses.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

I thought about how people in that era felt about all the contraptions that were built to rid people of their illness and how the people felt that actually had the illness. I could not imagine the horror that they were going through when this happened.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Bloodletting, Asylum, Thomas Kirkbride, Kirkbride Design, Animal Magnetism, Hypnosis, Sigmund Freud,

The first thing I found interesting was the detailed history of Freud. I thought the opinions of other psychologists gave me a different perspective of him. I have always known about his odd theories, but it was fascinating to learn about him himself. I thought the other opinions gave me a better understanding of where his concepts originated from and why other researchers did not get along with him. I found it interesting to learn that Freud was very stubborn and believed his theories were the best and did not need changing. I enjoy reading books/papers that allow me to see things from a different perspective.
The second thing I found interesting about this section was the maltreatment of the mentally ill in asylums. I liked reading about how Thomas Kirkbride believed the mentally ill deserved to be treated like human beings and have the proper care available to them. I enjoyed reading about how the mental care transitioned to what Kirkbride designed. I thought it was interesting to read about how the better treatment came about because a few chapters ago we read about the Kallikaks at the Vineland Ward. I thought it was interesting to see the transition of better lifestyles for the mentally ill.
The third thing in our text that I found interesting was how Dorothea Dix and Clifford Beers gave their testimony on the cruelty that was occurring within the walls of asylums across the country. I especially found it interesting to read how Dix was able to get mental wards more funding to have the proper care available to those with mental illnesses. While reading this chapter, I have found myself taking the historical approach to understanding the information. That being said, I think there is something special about how Dix achieved what she wanted during a time in which women were not given a lot of credit. I am very happy that she was able to get the full credit of what she accomplished.
The thing that I did not like within this section was Joseph Breuer and his theory of catharsis. I didn’t like this section because it seemed very philosophical based. This method reminded me of the Socratic Method. I have not had a very good encounter with the socratic method, so I just did not find the whole “Let’s get to the bottom of why you are feeling this way,” idea.
I thought reading about Freud was very important in understanding psychology. When I think of psychology, he comes to mind first. I think that despite having “crazy” ideas, a lot of his theories have been built upon. As I have been told in other classes, sometimes proving the theory wrong can help make leaps and bounds in science. I know a lot of his theories sound odd, but when you look at the principles, a few of them actually make sense to a degree.
This chapter discusses how the treatment of the mentally ill greatly increased. As I stated a few questions earlier, the Kallikaks were sent off to the Vineland Mental Ill Ward because they were seen as morons and idiots. This chapter describes how countless people tried and succeeded in getting better care to those who need it.
I would like to know more about Anna Freud’s play therapy. I have heard of this type of therapy being used on small children, but I had never known who designed the concept. I would like to learn more about this type of therapy because I would like to work with children. I would like to know how Anna thought to work with children like that.
While reading this section all I could think about was how excited I was to read about Sigmund Freud. I have heard a few of his theories however, I was excited to learn more about them. I believe that Freud was an interesting person and that a lot of his theories could be applied to his life. I also kept thinking about how psychologists used to do lobotomies and other various surgical treatments at mental wards. I was hoping that they might mention them in this chapter; however, they did not.
Freud, Dix, Beers, Breuer, catharsis, Anna Freud, play therapy, historical approach, socratic method, Kallikaks, Kirkbride

1a) The first topic that caught my eye while reading chapter 12 had to do with the Enlightenment and the reform it helped spark in treating and caring for the mentally ill.

1b) The book states that the Enlightenment was a time of spreading the light (of knowledge) to the dark parts of the mind. While so many ideas and ideas were being thrown around during this time period, people started to apply some of these ideas to the area of psychology. One individual in particular, Phillipe Pinel, was progressive in applying the the ideas of science to helping mentally ill patients. He started a program called traitement moral that promoted better living conditions for those who were labeled insane by society. I thought it was so awesome that he also incorporated an early form of behavior modification into his program.

2a) The second thing that I found interesting while reading this chapter was the section that talked about the use of bloodletting as a treatment for mentally ill patients.

2b) This topic is always interesting to me because of how radically wrong these early scientists, doctors, and other professionals were in assuming that this practice would actually improve the lives of their patients. Rush was a major factor in promoting the idea of bloodletting as a way to treat the mentally ill. While it was not necessarily his fault for using such a crazy practice with his subjects. However, history is not always known for its glorious feats. This marks one of the most embarrassing and stupid practices of recent psychology. I’m am glad that we have made many advances in both science and technology to realize that this kind of practice does more harm than good for those suffering from mental illness. It is a good point in the semester to evaluate modern psychology for ourselves to see if there are present day practices that are as obscure as bloodletting was back then. I just don’t want our generation to be looked back on and made an example of what not to do within the field of psychology. We must be making conscious choice to keep evaluating the practices we have within psychology today in order to prevent the same type of thinking that made bloodletting popular to ceap into our modern approach to psychology.

3a) The last and most important thing that stood out to me while reading chapter 12 was on Dorothea Dix and her passion to improve the overall quality of life for mentally ill patients.

3b) The reason this portion of the chapter inspired me so much was for a couple reasons. The first is that Dix was a women living in a time that did not provide equal opportunity for females. And yet, she eventually helped start 47 mental hospitals. This type of passion does not often show itself in life. But Dix was able to overcome more than a few obstacles to pursue a life that resulted in hope and a better life for many, many mentally ill patients. While reading the section about Dix, I was really appalled at the conditions that were commonplace during this time period for those who were considered mentally ill. I felt a huge sense of pride when I read about her writings that publicly addressed the issues that were present in the treatment centers for the mentally ill. She risked everything to point out the truth of what was going on in these environments. I’m positive that her speaking out against the current state of those hospitals upset more than a few people. Her standing up for something she believed in so strongly really inspired me to pursue the ideas that I have to help those around me. As I go into my last semester in undergrad, it was nice to have such a bold reminder of the why I am studying what I am, and to make sure that I use my knowledge to better other peoples lives.

4a) I didn’t find the section of the chapter that talked about Franz Mesmer to be interesting at all.

4b) This section was a waste of time to read. Learning about Mesmer’s practice of animal magnetism and hypnosis was a joke. I am still wondering why they saw it fit to even put his name in a chapter alongside names like Freud. I just don’t see how talking about something as far fetched as this topic would even be incorporated in a book that is talking about scientifically based psychology.

5) I definitely believe that Freud’s contribution to the field of psychology through his introduction of psychoanalysis was the most important thing I took away from this chapter. Obviously his work has made him a popular name in the field of psychology. I believe his unique approach to studying humans through the practice of ideas like free association and dream analysis led to him discovering new things that others wouldn’t simply because he was really to take a risk in researching this ideas.

6) This chapter build off of others that we have read by tracing the history behind the treatment of the mentally ill. It also shows how the practices used to treat the mentally ill were slowly improving over time due to new ideas within the scientific community.

7a) I would like to learn more about Freud’s dream analysis theory.

7b) I have always had a fascination with dreams and dreaming. I have always wondered why we dream, what role it plays in our conscious life, etc. I read Freud’s book on dreams and just would like to know more about the subject. Not that much research has been done on dreaming and I admire Freud’s desire to learn more about this function of humans.

8) I really thought a lot about how the conditions of mental institutes were improved by just a small handful of people who were passionate about better society and those around them. It just really spoke to me about how what I do in life can definitely have a positive effect but I have to be willing to face adversity in order to so.

9) Terms: Animal magnetism, hypnosis, psychoanalysis, free association, dream analysis, bloodletting, traitement moral, the Enlightenment.

1a) What did you find interesting?
- Inferiority Complex: Concept associated with Adler, who believed that much of the human behavior could be viewed as an attempt to compensate for feelings of inferiority.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
- I thought it was interesting that Adler would purpose this topic, and relate it to his own life. I don’t think that this period was psychologies finest hour, and many of the theories, Adler’s inferiority complex included, don’t use an empirical approach.

2a) What did you find interesting?
- Collective Unconscious: Jung’s concept that the unconscious including the collective experience of our ancestors; reelected in the common themes that occur in the mythology of various cultures.

2b) Why was it interesting to you?
- I thought it was interesting that Jung’s idea of introvert and extrovert are sill used today but this idea of collective unconsciousness has been all but abandoned.

3a) What did you find interesting?
- Moral Treatment: Fo Pinel and for Tuke, an approach to treating mental illness that included improved nutrition and living conditions, and rewards for productive behavior.

3b) Why was it interesting to you?
- Through the idea of Moral Treatment you can easily see how the conceptual idea for asylums came about; and why it was viewed as a good thing. I personally still think asylums could be useful in todays society; of course I am referring to a modern, ethical, representation of asylums. There are very few inpatient treatment centers for those suffering from mental disorders.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
- Any concept or idea founded by Freud, particularly his idea of Dream Analysis: A cornerstone of Freudian psychoanalysis; for Freud; dreams were the “royal road” o the unconscious; surface or manifest content of dreams needed to be analyzed for their deeper, or latent content.

4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
- As a psych major I do not appreciate Freud, I think that he single handedly set psychology back, and I would be much happier if we did not immortalize him through the education process. If we were using the Freudian system of psychology anyone could think of a hypothesis, and think it to be true. Dream theory has never been proven to be influential, or accurate.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
- Anna O. Case: Famous case of hysteria treated by Breuer and reported by Breuer and Freud in “Studies on Hysteria”; gave Freud the insight that hysterics suffer from their memories of traumatic events; details distorted over years.
This case is common knowledge in psychology, and is a good example of somatoform disorders, and how to treat a patient properly.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
- This chapter doesn’t really relate too much to the previous because we are covering a different topic. The book has taken a definite shift in subject matter.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
- Hypnotism: State of heightened suggestibility; pioneered by Mesmer and Elliotson and named by Braid.

7b) Why?
- Hypnotism has always been an interest of mine. I’m eager to know more about it, and apply that information to possible real life situations (not that its life saving or anything).

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
- I though of my hatred of all things Freudian, and was very eager to be done reading this chapter.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Hypnotism, Anna O. Case, Dream Analysis, Inferiority Complex, Collective Unconsciousness, Moral Treatment,

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The first topic I found interesting in chapter 12 was at the beginning of the chapter. Here in the beginning of the chapter, the book talked about the early treatment of the mentally ill and the “enlightened” reform. I thought this was interesting because it really described and showed the start of the treatment of the mentally ill and how it is evolved over the years. Mentally ill people in the past have been seen as very different from the rest of us, and not in a good way. Mentally ill people have had to deal with a lot of torture and being put to death over many years. During the Enlightenment, there were improvements in the ways mentally ill patients were treated, although they weren’t necessarily the best. One of the ways this happened was through moral treatment. Moral treatment was thought out by a French physician named Phillipe Pinel. In moral treatment, the patients received better nutrition, better hygiene, and better general living as well as using a reward and punishment system. While Pinel worked in France while a man named William Tuke worked in England. Tuke used a similar method as Pinel’s moral treatment. In America, Benjamin Rush brought psychopathology to the states. Rush brought more medical approaches, including one called bloodletting. This procedure was used to remove diseased or excess blood. I found all of these ideas and procedures were really interesting to read about and see how they influenced psychology.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The second topic that I found interesting in chapter 12 was one that I have found interesting for a long time. This topic is Sigmund Freud, probably the most talked about psychologist and rightly so. His ideas and research are very interesting and were very ahead of his time. While some of the things he thought were kind of strange, a lot of the work he did was very important to psychology. Freud’s early life was also interesting. He was spoiled as a child and given his very own room in a house with many kids so that he could study properly and without distractions. He loved research even though he was educated as a medical student. He published many articles throughout his lifetime, many of which aided in the continuation in the science of psychology. One topic that interests me of Freud’s, but also weirds me out, is how focused he was on sex. He “found” that many of his patients suffered from sexual abuse as a child and this ended up affecting them way further in their lifetime. This theory is called the seduction hypothesis. From this original, sane idea, Freud made his Oedipus complex, where he stated that children had imagined the sexual abuse and had crushes on their parents. I find this whole idea interesting and did not know that Freud’s sexual hypothesis came before his Oedipus complex research. I feel like most people do not talk about the previous work that Freud did in this subject and it’s interesting to me as to why they think that it is not as important, or even better because, to me, it makes more sense.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The third topic I found interesting in chapter 12 was about diagnosing mental illness. In the chapter, there is a “close-up” box that talks and describes the ways that mental illnesses are diagnosed. The way that this happens now-a-days is with a book called the DSM-IV, which is short for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I find it really interesting that there is one book where all the psychological mental illnesses can be determined and that everyone follows what is in this book. Before the DSM-IV, there were other ways that people tried to categorize mental illnesses. One of the most influential ones is when a man named Emil Kraepelin provided insight on a disorder called dementia praecox, which we now know as schizophrenia. Kraepelin made many editions of his books in order to attempt classifying as many mental illnesses as he could. He was known for recording all his patients’ details on a separate notecard for each of them. I thought that this was very initiative of Kraepelin and interesting to read about. Kraepelin is most known for his work with dementia praecox, as we now know is called schizophrenia. He was able to find out more information on this mental illness than anyone else and really helped to further the science of psychology.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The topic that I found to be least interesting in chapter 12 dealt with the evolution of the psychoanalytic theory. I find the psychoanalytic theory to be really interesting as a topic in itself, but learning about the evolution of it just wasn’t interesting to me. The history behind this topic was not very interesting to me. It seemed quite boring actually and the information about it seemed to drag on. This made it difficult for me to read about and made me think that it was the least interesting topic found in this chapter.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
The topic that I read about in this chapter that I felt would be most useful to understanding the history of psychology was all about Sigmund Freud. Freud’s ideas were very important to the future of psychology and helped a lot of other psychologists learn from and challenge his ideas. Freud came up with the idea of psychoanalysis, which is something we still use today. Without this technique and free association, psychology would not have this aspect in its science. Freud really helped build psychology to what it is today. But he could not have done this without his followers. It is important for someone to not only have a good idea, but for other people to back it up and build on it. Freud had people that wanted to spread his ideas and support him. Without people like this, not only with Freud but with all psychological and historical related concepts, things would never get accomplished. Famous people needed to have people that believed in their work and wanted to share it with others, or it would never get famous and help psychology or history in the first place.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter related to previous chapters by further expanding on the ideas set forth by those psychologists that came before them. People like Kraepelin would never have started classifying mental illnesses without the influence of William Wundt. Without people starting an idea, the people from this chapter would have never been able to finish them.
Another topic that popped up again in chapter 12 is hypnosis. I find it interesting that hypnosis is a prominent topic in this book and wonder why that is. I also think that it is interesting that it had such an influence on psychology, when many people would probably have never thought that.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
The topic from chapter 12 that I would be interested in learning more about would be animal magnetism. I feel like this chapter did not discuss this idea a lot and I feel that it is a topic that would be interesting to research more. From reading previous chapters, it is clear that animals had a big influence on how we studied psychology and what was learned from it. I feel like this idea of animal magnetism would further that knowledge and it would be interesting to learn more about the history of the topic and if, at all, it is still around today.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading chapter 12, there were a few things that crossed my mind. The first of these dealt with the asylum movement. There is an old abandoned building by my home town that is rumored to be an old insane asylum. While reading the part about asylums in chapter 12, I started thinking about the history of that building and the personal stories that would come with it. I think it would be interesting to see what years it was around for and the psychological tactics they used on their patients to try and cure mental illness.
The second thing that I thought about while reading chapter 12 was all about dreams and how Sigmund Freud would analyze my dreams. I am very interested in dreams and why they turn out the way they do. I think this would be an interesting topic to further research. When I took psychology in high school, I had to do a presentation about dreams and I am curious to see how much more information is out there today about them. I think it would be harder to find true information because of the way everyone treats dreams, and almost makes up their own conclusions about them. This topic would have a lot of different ideas tied to it and it would be interesting to see what Freud thought about all of them now-a-days.

Terms: Enlightenment, moral treatment, psychopathology, bloodletting, Sigmund Freud, seduction hypothesis, Oedipus complex, DSM-IV, dementia praecox, schizophrenia, psychoanalytic theory, hypnosis, animal magnetism, asylum, dreams

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Dorothea Dix was a women who I truly admire now and knew nothing about her until I read this chapter. She was a huge advocate for the mentally ill with their treatment and facilities. She traveled the world visiting asylums, psych wards, prisons, and hospitals that held the mentally ill and documented her findings. She was applaud by what she found as any normal person should have been but she talked for the people who couldn’t advocate for themselves. In some places these people were chained to beds, not being feed, living in unfit conditions, etc. She took her findings the MA legislature asking for more funding to help these people in these places because no one deserved to be treated like that, mentally ill or not. She was a strong women in a male dominant century and she changed a lot for the mentally ill in a positive way for sticking up for them and trying to give them better.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Benjamin Rush and his theories about bloodletting really interested me because it didn’t make sense of how he thought in this manner but I guess it was a good idea per say. It was the start of trying to find a treatment for the mentally ill so they had to start somewhere I guess. The fact that Rush thought if he drained blood from the mentally ill that it would cure them because he thought they were only mental because of poor blood circulation in the body. He soon found out that it wasn’t the case and it actually made the patients extremely weak and lag because he was taking blood out of their bodies in which they needed.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Early treatment of mental illness really interested me because I have experience mental illness with a fiancé personally and it was interesting learning more about how people with mental illness were treated in the beginning. It’s so crazy to think that people who had mental illnesses were considered just possessed by the devil and were pretty much shunned from the rest of society. Today mental illness is a big thing because of its prevalence in today’s day and the important of treatment. It was nothing like what it is today back in the day. Unlike today, people didn’t think that mental illness was something that could be cured and that’s crazy to me. Philipe Pinel and William Tuke were the first people who had a logical reform for patients with mental illnesses. They were the moral one and who brought these ideas to the United States from England and thank goodness for that! They believed that these people should have been treated just like anyone else and that there was a possible cure or at least a way to make these people feel important per say.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
All the information about Freud was probably the least interesting to me because he is someone who is so repetitive in psychology and I honestly think he was full of a lot in regards to some of his theories. Yes, he is important in the history of psychology but after a while reading the same info over and over about him starts to get boring and I think there was so much more interesting topics in this chapter. So, out of all the topics he was the least interesting because I wasn’t learning anything new about him unlike other topics in this chapter.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the information about mental illness plays a huge part in understanding the history of psychology because of how far it has come in psychology in general. It shows how dramatically it has changed for the better and it showed how there were many people who were willing to stick their necks out with trying to help people who were being treated unfairly and who were unable to advocate for their selves. They tried different theories to try to cure mental illness which to me is very useful to psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The mention of Freud builds on previous chapters because he was mentioned before and mentioned again in this chapter. It also builds from previous chapters by showing us how dramatic things have progressed over the years to create the psychology that we have today. It continued the cycle of showing how and where most of the ideas came from and how they were integrated into the United States which is a huge importance.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would love to know more about the idea and concept of hypnosis that took place back in the day and now. I’m not sure how I feel about it in relation to it being useful or even factual but I think that might be because I don’t know enough about it to have a solid opinion about it. It is very interesting and it seems to be used in a lot of situations. Magic and things that aren’t logical are iffy with me because I’m a firm believer in evidence and facts which of two things neither of hypnosis seems to have. I need more convincing, hence more research! Ben Rush would also be someone I would like to look deeper into and see why he thought in that manner because it seems very random. Also because I think he was brave to suggest something like in trying to cure the mentally ill.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I kept thinking about my ex fiancé on how he was treated during his bad periods of time and just thinking on how terrible it must have been for those people who were never given a fair chance at their lives. Even today the mental illness centers are not anywhere near where they should be but they seem to be getting better and better as the years go by. I’m just so grateful that they are treated more equally and fairly than they used to be because that was just terrible. Dorothea Dix was another person I thought about a lot because I wanted to be an advocate for special needs and abused children because they can’t advocate for themselves and she was like that but for the mentally ill. She was an inspirational person!
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post
Mental Illness, Phillipe Pinel, Freud, William Tuke, Dorothea Dix, Hypnosis, Bloodletting, Benjamin Rush

A.S.

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the section about how mentally ill patients were treated to be interesting because I work with people with disabilities and have seen how treatments have evolved. Phillipe Pinel was a contributor to this evolving treatment because he believed in “moral treatment.” He wanted the patients to have better living arrangements, better hygiene, and better nutrition. All of those things were a start to instilling structure into the patients’ everyday life. It was a way to better shape them as individuals and give them a daily routine. I agree with this type of structure not only for the mentally ill, but for anyone because I know in my life it would reduce stress. When I work with people with disabilities, I have noticed there are some that do not like when things are changed or out of order, so I feel that this was a great start to many different treatments. Another treatment I find that is affective is recreational therapy. It helps them to focus on a task rather than their disability.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the section about asylums to be interesting because they too have evolved over the years. Asylums during the nineteenth century were viewed as places of control and confinement. They were not very welcoming to patients with a mental disorder because they did not advocate care or comfort. This was interesting to me because it was almost a prison for someone who was different. It was not a place for help, but instead a jail for those who could not control having a disability. Now, I have noticed facilities have changed tremendously because there are more centers that are focused on treatment and care for patients. Many facilities also encourage different therapies, and social interactions. To me it is night and day with the facilities that are available.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Freud to be interesting. His practices were unethical to some and downright weird, but overall he is an interesting person to me. He interests me because he is mentioned in every psychology class and is significant to psychology. His main specialty was dealing with people who were diagnosed with hysteria, but I found his studies and case of Anna O. to be my main interest from the chapter. The Anna O. case started with Joseph Breuer who had treated puzzling case of hysteria. Anna O. was the name given to the case that dealt with a very bright woman, but she experienced hysteric symptoms. Breuer used a method called catharsis. Catharsis is where Anna would trace a symptom to its origin and she would go through emotional release. Breuer and Freud were both involved in Anna’s study.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not find the section about hypnosis to be interesting. I could not connect with the topic like I did with the other topics in the chapter. Hypnosis is interesting, and I have been to hypnotist events, but I have not experienced being hypnotized.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding how the treatment of mentally ill patients have changed over time is important because it is a topic that can continue to evolve. I think there are new ways that have not been discovered yet that could be used as treatments and I also think knowing how facilities have evolved is a great way to understand what works for a mental facility.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think this chapter relates to the first chapter because in the first chapter it compared the past to the present. This chapter compares treatments and asylums from the past to the present. It is building off of the first chapter because of the format.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about mental disorders because there are so many. I think it is an interesting topic and it makes me want to break down the disorder and think of treatments and ways to help the person. I work at a horseback riding camp for anyone who has a disability and being able to see them be themselves without humiliation or worry about what others think is amazing. I think there are/is a way we can develop similar programs for people who struggle with for example hysteria.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was able to relate this chapter to my current life because I am constantly around people with physical and mental disabilities. It is amazing how facilities and ways we treat people have changed, but I am sure there are ways we can continue to make these two things better.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Sigmund Freud, hysteria, Anna O. case, Joseph Breuer, Hypnosis, Asylum, moral treatment, Phillipe Pinel, mentally ill

J.P.

1a) What did you find interesting?
Early treatment of the mentally ill.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Before Freud, there were different ways of treating mental illnesses. This topic interested me because of the idea of moral treatment. The improvements of living conditions were improved, relying on physical restraint was reduced, and direct efforts were made to improve the behavior of patients. Mental illness patients were not given much of a chance in society during this time period and were looked down upon, but it wasn't something people with mental illness could control. Psychiatrists were the ones that wanted to make a change and cared about the well-being of these people. A reformation of public asylums and better treatment for the mentally ill poor is an example of their efforts to change.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Freud founding psychoanalysis.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Freud is one of the psychology's best-known figures. He was very interested in the field of neurology and was greatly influence by Darwin's work. Freud is probably very interesting to many people because of all of his theories and research, but Freud looked at theories very radically. He believed that hysteria resulted from the repression of trauma into the unconscious and the purpose of psychoanalysis was to bring repressed memories back to the surface so that insight into the causes of the patient's problem could be gained. Dream analysis was his theory in which the manifest content of a dream was examined to discover the underlying content of the dream. I was also interested in Freud's hypothesis about sex and hysteria. He believed that sexual problems were a critical determinant of hysteria, but this thinking may have been a little outside the box. But with society now, sex seems to be running our world so he might have been thinking ahead of his time.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Clinical psychology in America
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I want to become a sports psychologists when I graduate and learning about clinical psychology was interested to me. Clinics focused on "psycho-educational+ problems such as physiological, cognitive, and behavioral problems related to school performance. People working at these clinics believed that these problems could be cured. Before WWII, a clinical psychologist used to just provide mental testing services but once the APA was formed professional practice of psychology was expanded.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Mesmerism
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't really care for a man that believed in magnetic powers because I am not the biggest believer in mesmerizing. I just don't understand how it can cure mental conditions.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I thought about Freud being a pioneer of psychoanalysis and his theories and research. Using dream psychology and analysis was very unique at the time and the way he could interpret people's dreams was very interesting. He went through ups and downs in his life, but still devoted his life towards his studies.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter leads into a different type of psychology and mental illnesses. This is now psychologists and psychiatrists figuring out different ways to treat people's behavior. Behaviorism were psychologists figuring out why people did what they did and psychoanalysis were them figuring out how to cure specific types of behavior such as hysteria.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Freud
7b) Why?
Freud was a very unique psychologist in the sense that his theories were completely new. His incorporation of dream analysis was very interesting to me. I think it is interesting that a man was able to take someone's dreams and interpret them hopefully curing their illness in their mind.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about trying to interpret my dreams or start taking a log on my dreams because the unconscious mind is interesting to me. It interests me because it's hard to know much about it since it's unconscious.

Terms: psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, mesmerism, hysteria, mental illness

1a) 19th Century Asylum Movement

1b) I found this interesting because in movies you always see insane asylums and they all look the same. I thought that would be just because the director made it look dreary and kind of spooky, but after reading this chapter I found out that they really did all look the same, without the dreariness and spookiness. Before the 19th century there were not many asylums for the mentally ill, really what they did with them was hide them from the general public by putting them in the basements of the families homes or in a separate room so they wouldn’t be seen. I found that interesting just because I think I was looking at it in a presentist point of view, I thought that those families were mean and cruel and I don’t know how they could have done stuff like that. Which got me a little flustered about the whole situation, but looking at it in a historicist vantage point, they probably didn’t know what was going on and thought that out of site out of mind was the best medicine for both parties. I still don’t understand it. If there was an asylum they didn’t house many patients because it was so expensive to keep up, that was until Thomas Kirkbride came and designed a whole new asylum that was copied for a long time. He revolutionized them by making them in a “V” shape and having them in a rural area so that every patient could have a view of the country side. There were some other requirements that had to be there, for instance, parlors for the family to visit, large corridors, and a central unit for administration.

2a) Creating Psychoanalysis

2b) Psychoanalysis was Freud’s most famous thing that he did, it interested me because everyone always tries to do the Freudian analysis of people and that’s all they think psychology is, so when I read this it interested me to see how he came about it. What he did was have people lay down on his famous couch and just spew out everything on their mind, no filter at all, just let it all go he called this free association. With free association he could tap into what people were feeling in the subconscious and how certain memories have shaped their judgment and relationships throughout their lives. Free association worked well for Freud because in his time there was a lot of infidelity in marriages, so people would come to him to try and find out why they were like this. I always thought that everyone would always have no problem saying what was on their mind, but in reality there was some difficulty for some people, and Freud loved when people showed resistance. I thought that was interesting in itself, for me it would be frustrating because you want to help people and they just need to tell me what is on their mind so I can. For Freud, he saw it as getting to the bottom of the problem for the people showing resistance. Also Freud seemed to be one of the first ones to study dreams and what the mean, in his dream analysis he would decipher between what the people tell him the dream was about, and what the dream actually means. He saw dreams as a road to the unconscious and they speak volumes about what is really bugging the person and what they want, usually for Freud he said it was about sex and aggression.

3a) Criticisms of Freud

3b) I found this interesting again, because he is the only one associated with psychology, but in all of my psychology classes the professor has something bad to say about Freud saying he really wasn’t that great and I always wondered why. Well the second half of the chapter even showed me that I had some criticisms that fell in this section. For instance he put sex as the single driving force of humans, which as we know now that humans are way too complex for one behavior. I noticed that throughout the whole chapter. Also, what is hard about his psychoanalysis is that it is easy to have personal biases sway their opinion, which would twist the facts to benefit him. I didn’t think of this or know this really about Freud, and that is he said personality was made in the first 5 or 6 years of life. I felt bad that Freud kind of gets his theories picked a part all of the time, but if they are wildly wrong then they should be, but even with a lot of his faults in his work he made a lasting impression in the field and has made some theories that are still used today.

4a) Mesmerism to Hypnosis

4b) Mesmerism was an interesting topic and so was hypnosis, but just the description of how the two switched from one to another really was dry and hard to focus on that section.

5) Freud is the most important I believe to understand the history of psychology, if there is a chapter about the poster child of psychology he will always overshadow the rest of the chapter. He is the most common buzz word when it comes to psych, so I think he really got psychology on the map in the mainstream.

6) This chapter builds on the last one in the way that we are still looking at shaping behavior in different ways, it was behaviorism, neobehaviorism, and then now mesmerism, hypnosis, and Freudian psychology.

7a) I would like to learn more about modern psychoanalysis.

7b) I want to learn more about where we came from Freud’s model and the improvements and also where we stayed the same.

8) Earlier in the chapter I was wondering what did people think of the mentally ill? Did they think it was their fault they were ill or did they know it was complications in the womb?

9)
Freud
Psychoanalysis
Kirkbride
Resistance
Dream Analysis
Mesmerism
Hypnosis
Free Association
Asylum

1a) What did you find interesting?
19th century Asylum movement
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
What I find so interesting that these asylums were built more for protection and public safety, than for the care and worry of the patients. The first asylum was built in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1773. Most of the time the mentally ill did not go to asylums. Mentally ill were forced to hide in their own homes and hideaway from the public. As time went on, and cities became bigger a need for asylums became bigger. Many of the asylums were too small or many could not afford to use them. Thomas Kirkbride believed in moral treatment, and believed that the architecture was very important to the asylum. These asylums became known as Kirkbride design because of how they were set up, their locations, structure, and more.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Animal magnetism
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this to be interesting and I had never heard of it before. It sounds like such a crazy idea, but times were different, and I wish I could go back and hear Mesmer’s total thought process. He believed that illness was like magnets, and that the forces inside the mentally ills bodies were out of line, and could be straightened out. This could be done by giving patients high doses of iron and then passing magnets over their bodies. Patients would then go into a trance, and after their health would be improved.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Seduction hypnosis
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Freud believed that a lot of the unanswered problems with his patients were unresolved sexual problems. He believed that hysteria was the result of sexual abuse during childhood by an adult. The child would not know what was going and bury the memory back in their mind, and later in life it would resurface during sexuality and would be in the form of a hysterical symptom. I found this topic to be very interesting because I think some of the experiences of our childhood affect our future.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Freud early life
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found most of this chapter to be interesting so it was harder to find something that was less interesting. I think that it is more interesting to learn about Freud’s discoveries and theories than his early. I think his theories are more important to the chapter than his early life is.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think it is important to look at how the treatment of mental illness has changed overtime and how it is being improved. It is important to look at how mental illness was treated back then and then eventually compare it with treatment now. Also it is important to look at how people with mental illness were treated versus now.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think that this chapter builds on the behaviorist, and how behavior can be changed. I think that this correlates with what Freud was doing and some of the perspective of other psychologist of the time.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Freud
7b) Why?
I want to look more at his discoveries and also into his theory on he believed sexual problems lead to hysteria. And also look more into how this was discredited.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When reading this chapter and on Freud and hysteria it got me thinking about how the experiences of our childhoods can have affect our lives later in life. I think it would be interesting to find out about these theories.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Asylum movement, Kirkbride, Animal magnetism, Mesmer, Freud, Seduction hypnosis

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?

I found the section about “Early Treatment of the Mentally Ill” to be incredibly fascinating. I enjoyed thinking about how much society has changed in regards to how they view mentally ill people. It’s somewhat difficult to fathom people being treated as evil or possessed by the devil, just because they were mentally ill. This section truly opened my eyes to how we have come so far in regards to this stigma. Although the stigmas attached to the mentally ill are not completely diminished, it’s exceptionally improved from what it used to be.

2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?

The concept of “bloodletting” also caught my attention. I found it interesting that Benjamin Rush took such a unique approach to try to combat mental illnesses. It was intriguing to learn about this approach that resembled surgery of the brain. In today’s standards, it seems quite unethical to open veins and remove blood to calm down violent people. This concept reminded me of how different ethics used to be in the world of psychology.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?

I enjoyed reading the section titled “The Importance of Sex.” I was surprised to learn that Freud believed many of his patient’s problems stemmed from sexual trauma during childhood, known as the “seduction hypothesis”. While I began reading this section, I started thinking about all of the controversies that may arise from this theory, such as the problem of “leading questions.” However, as I continued reading, my predictions were correct and I learned that Freud abandoned this theory because of inconsistency. It was interesting to read how a theory can begin and the thought process of abandoning and replacing it, such as with the Oedipus complex.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?

I found the section on “Evaluating Freud” to be less interesting than the others. This section included quite a bit of early history that was not very eye catching to me. Although I find Freud’s work and theories to be interesting, this section seemed dull and repetitive. However, in this section I did find it interesting to learn about Freud’s writing being called “Jewish science.”

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I believe learning about the early treatment of the mentally ill will be most useful to understanding the history of psychology. As people say, history always repeats itself. Therefore, it is critical to understand the past to prevent it from occurring again. It would be terrible for us to revert back to thinking mentally ill people were possessed by the devil or considered “wicked”. In conclusion, we need to understand early treatment and recognize how harmful it was, to prevent it from happening again.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?

This chapter builds on what we have previously learned about Freud’s history and theories. Freud was such an influential man in the field of psychology, so this chapter expands on more of these findings. This chapter also elaborates on how psychological findings spread from Europe to the United States.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why?

I would like to learn more about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I find it fascinating how PTSD can truly turn a life around. I have always been interested in PTSD and its effects on everyday life, especially because of family members in the military.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?

As I was reading this chapter, I couldn’t help but imagine how awful the conditions used to be for those with mental illnesses. I tried to picture what it would be like to undergo something as strange as bloodletting or being in the tranquilizer chair.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Bloodletting, Benjamin Rush, Seduction Hypothesis, Oedipus Complex, Jewish Science, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Sigmund Freud, Tranquilizer Chair

1a) Enlightened Reform
1b) The Enlightenment was a time where people thought science would allow society to become all it could be. Understanding the mind and body could improve society. Phillipe Pinel was a big contributor to the realm of mentally ill people. He was the main purpose that institutions that were in charge of mentally ill individuals were changed for the better. This moral treatment program changed the way people within the institution were supervised, controlled, ext. He introduced using reinforcement and punishment, also known as operant conditioning in order to stabilize the patients into understanding the world better and acting more realistically. All this was taking place in France, but England was also making milestones. William Tuke established the York Retreat where mentally ill patients were kept and provided for. It was a place for these people to find safety and be able to be helped without outside criticism and shun. Benjamin Rush brought the enlightened approaches to America. He is said to be the father of modern psychiatry. He believed that these mental patients were suffering from diseases in the blood abnormalities. Bloodletting was used to remove these diseases and let go of blood, which could be causing these abnormalities. Rush also established the tranquilizer mainly for reducing the pulse and calming the person down during an outbreak.

2a) Franz Anton Mesmer
2b) Franz studied at the University of Vienna where he received a degree in medicine. He was inspired by electricity and magnetism, and thought magnetism affected humans. Mental health was caused by the alignment of these magnetic forces within the body. He gave his patients medicine containing a large amount of iron in order to change the direction of the alignment and have the patients become better and in good health. This theory of Franz was called animal magnetism. Interestingly enough, Franz believed he was the actual curer of these diseases. Instead of giving them any sort of medication, he would simply place his hands on the patients and absolve them of any sickness. He received a large amount of criticism about his practices, and in turn left Vienna University because he was expelled. Moving to Paris, Franz soon had several patients, more than he could handle, and in turn may have established the first type of group therapy. Mesmerism was what Franz’s technique was called. Though it helped some, according to Mesmer, it was later proved to have no significant scientific approach and was not recognized as being beneficial.

3a) Psychoanalytic Theory
3b) Sigmund Freud had been studying human behavior for years, and it wasn’t until later in his years that he discovered humans had a sexual behavior of motivation. He found differences among ages based on the way they felt about their mothers and fathers. He came up with the idea that people were motivated by sexual and aggressive behaviors. Freud studied personality, and simplified it into three main categories, id, ego, and superego. This was the start of the psychoanalytic theory. Here id is said is said to drive sexual and aggressive behavior, ego is the center of the personality, and superego is the already learned morals. It’s a battle between unconsciousness and reality. All these conflicts can produce anxiety in a person. The two specific types of anxiety are objective and neurotic. In turn, the anxiety leads to aggressive behavior and destruction as time goes on.

4a) Seduction hypothesis
4b) The theory started based on hysteria and Freud’s interest in the topic. Individuals would look into their past and discover they had trauma or different associations from it. Most of the time people had had some type of sexual trauma occurring. He believed that hysteria was the result of this trauma. However, when it happened most of the individuals didn’t know what was happening, and it wasn’t until later in life they discovered the situation and began to have problems. However, after studying it for awhile he abandoned the theory and believed that sexual trauma didn’t begin in adolescence but happened when the person was a baby.

5) This is an important chapter because it introduces mental ill as a problem and it comes up with different ideas on how to treat it. Some people believed it was natural occurring thing, but others made it seem as if it were made up. People suffered from diseases and were treated in different ways, some being extremely unethical. Freud was the man who contributed to the nonmedical way to help people who were mentally ill.

6) The chapter speaks about the building blocks of psychology. While most of the lay people think of psychology as treating people with disorders, that isn’t necessarily the case. This is a chapter that builds on the way science was put into use and discovering scientific methods on how to resolve a person’s problem and treat them without medicine.

7a) Phillipe Pinel
7b) Pinel was a part of the Enlightenment psychology world, and I think it would be interesting to learn more about his contributions to the world of treatment. He worked on the moral treatment and I would like to further discover more about this.

8) Mental illness was a problem back then, and still today many people suffer from mental illnesses. We are still in the process of discovering the best way to treat these people, whether it is with medicine or not. Though we have come a long way, we still have much more ground to cover.

moral treatment, Phillipe Pinel, bloodletting, tranquilizer, animal magnetism, psychoanalytic, superego, id, ego

1a) What did you find interesting?
psychoanalysis
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Freud is probably one of the most interesting people in psychology. Almost everyone knows about him or some of his theories, and psychoanalysis is one of the biggest ideas he had come up with during his time. Psychoanalysis is actually what most people picture when they think about psychology; they think of a man having a client lay down on a couch and just talk about their feelings. I always thought that Freud’s ideas were interesting and sometimes a little far-fetched, but psychoanalysis actually helped people. Sometimes all people need is someone to listen to them.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Bloodletting
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I have never heard of using bloodletting for mental illnesses before reading this chapter. I think it so how much times and medical practices have changed since then. Rush and other psychologists would use this method to calm violent or rowdy patients. They believed that letting the diseased blood out of the patients caused them to calm down, but really they probably just became too weak from loss of blood.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Anna O.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Anna O was Freud’s famous patient, and I have found her and her case interesting since I wrote a paper on her in high school. She was diagnosed with hysteria and Freud attempted to cure her via the talking cure. The most interesting part of all this is the fact that Freud never actually met this patient.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I really enjoyed this chapter. It was the most interesting chapter that I have read so far this semester, but if I had to pick one thing that was not very interesting to me it would the part on hypnosis just because I do not care for this treatment.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think it is important to look at how psychologists were treating mental illnesses back then. I think it is important to know and understand how these treatments have evolved over the years. Also, I think it important to look at the treatments that did not work such as bloodletting so we understand what not to do as psychologists.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter brings up some names that were briefly, but previously mentioned in previous chapters. This chapter also discusses how thoughts and treatment of mental illness has changed.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
Basically, I would just like to learn more about Freud, his theories, and his practices more. I feel as though he is one of the most interesting figures in psychology and I would love to learn about him more in depth.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter, I was thinking about how we look at mental illness. The way we look at it and treat it has changed drastically over the years, and it will continue to change as more time passes.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Pychoanalysis
Freud
Bloodletting
Anna O.
Mental Illness
Hypnosis
Rush

1a) What did you find interesting? Benjamin Rush
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Benjamin Rush had many unique ideas when it came to hypertension and aggression. One of these was bloodletting, which was theorized that allowing blood to come out to relieve pressure on the mind and calm patients. This reminds me of when a person is poisoned and people attempt to such out the “bad blood’ in the affected region or drain it to get the poison out of there system. Another thing he did was the “tranqualizer” which essentially forced a person to remain still to calm the pulse rate among other things. I feel this would do the opposite as claustrophobia I would think would settle in.

2a) What did you find interesting? Kirkbridge Design
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I was unaware that most asylums were built around such a specific design to accommodate the best possible mental experience. Each hallway, doorway, and floor had specific intentions and were all designed with the health of the consumer, the mentally ill, in mind. I had no idea that buildings were complex in design, while looking so easily constructed. Everything about these buildings was fascinating and the fact that somebody designed these to help a section of society that had been neglected and abused for centuries is another feat in itself.

3a) What did you find interesting? Freud’s Ego
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
When the chapter discussed Frued’s legacy and the myth around his ideas this was new information to me and I didn’t follow the mythical aura that seems to follow Freud. One thing that particularly interested me was that he burned or destroyed notes, correspondences, and plenty of other scientific advances/discussions to solidify the myth and legend of himself. He is quoted as saying, “…Each one of them will be right in his opinion of the development of the hero..” He was highly confident in his abilities and legacy well before it had even started.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Freud
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It wasn’t not interesting, but of all the sections it was the information that was most heavily discussed in previous classes and caused it to be the toughest to get through. It is always interesting to read through Freud’s theories and brush up on it.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Freud’s sexual drive theories are the one of the more important aspects of the chapter to me. These are important because Freud has been quoted time and time again and is a father of many theories within psychology. Another major part of his work is his development of psychoanalysis within the scopes of clinical work and the continued use of it.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It mentions major psychologists from before Freud’s era with them inviting him to America. It also shows the development of fair treatment for mentally ill patients, which is a topic that has been touched on, but will be a major focal point to later chapters.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? A mind that found itself – Clifford Beers
7b) Why?
This book sounds incredibly interesting as a man who had a promising career and a prominent degree, lost it all and went to mental institutions. He then wrote about his experiences and these shined a light on the experiences inmates felt during their times in these asylums. This also led to better treatment nationwide and allowed for progression with the mentally ill.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
During Freud, it reminded me of reading Oedipus the King and the other two books. It was in my humanities course earlier at UNI and whenever I read about the Oedipus complex, I find it tough to decide if that is an appropriate title as the story itself is much more complex and confusing than the theory makes it seem. The story however is a quite good read and well worth it, it also allows for a deeper understanding of Freud’s vision, whether or not it is acceptable to use this man’s story to do so.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Benjamin Rush, Bloodletting, Tranquilizer, Kirkbridge Design, A mind that found itself, Oedipus Complex.

1a&b)Early history of Treatment. In the late 18th and early 19th century there were movements toward the reformation of the treatment of mental illness in Europe. The popular ideas of the Enlightenment were largely responsible for this call for reform and one of the foremost in this movement was Phillipe Pinel who was the first to unchain patients in mental hospitals. I find this early history of the treatment of mental illness interesting because this history is not often taught and I feel that it has significance in offering us a perspective on how far treatment has come and how far we must hope to progress toward ethical treatment in the future.
2a&b)Diagnosing Mental Illness. The close-up feature in this chapter talked briefly about the function of the DSM in the process of diagnosis, and more in depth about Emil Kraepelin. Kraepelin developed what became the precursor of the DSM in his effort to create a comprehensive classification of mental illnesses. While his classification was criticized during the time for being small and incomplete, it was actually quite broad and provided the first complete description of what is now called bipolar disorder. Kraepelin’s main claim to fame was his depiction of what he called dementia praecox, which eventually became renamed as schizophrenia. I was drawn to this section because it talked about the very first “diagnosis” of schizophrenia, and for a long time I was set on going to graduate school in clinical psychology to study schizophrenia.
3a&b) Hypnosis. I have had an interest in hypnosis ever since I was first introduced to hypnosis for relaxation when taking the health and personal wellness course here at UNI. More specifically within the section, the part about the controversies that racked the practice during the early 1800’s. The work of Jean-Martin Charcot was some of the most important during the time in that he was one of the first to take hysteria seriously as an illness, which hypnosis was accepted to be the treatment for.
4a&b) Freudian anything. As a psychology student studying Sigmund Freud is unavoidable, but at this point I wish it was. I would hazard a guess that every single psychology class I’ve ever taken has mentioned Freud in at least some aspect, and while I understand his significance in the discipline I don’t really understand why he needs to be brought up as often as he is.
5) I felt that this was one of the most important chapters that we have discussed to date, especially in dealing with modern psychology. The biggest take away from this chapter for me was the emphasis on the etiology of treatments of mental illness and how the treatments we take for granted weren’t always available. It seems like most chapters focus on specific people or schools of thought, this one broke the mold in that it simply looked at the history of many treatments that could be used by psychologists of any background.
6)how built on previous. This chapter built on previous by bringing a new element into consideration in the history of psychology, treatment. Devoting this entire chapter to various historical methods of mental illness was to me a very important decision in that it shows how psychology was beginning to move from being more predominantly experimental to being widely accepted as a means of treatment for those suffering from mental illnesses.
7a&b) learn more and why. I would really like to learn more about the history behind how hypnosis became considered to be pseudoscience. I am interested in this because I was expecting to see this mentioned in the text and was somewhat surprised when it was not. I assume that this happened gradually, but I would be interested in seeing exactly where and when studies that were definitive to the discrediting of hypnosis took place.
8) Some thoughts I had while reading this chapter included how this chapter will change in prospective textbooks in the future. So many methods of treatment in psychology have come and gone in the past it is certainly interesting to think about how our current types of treatment stack up in comparison.
9)*terms* Phillipe Pinel, Emil Kraepelin, hypnosis, Sigmund Freud

1a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that the section on the evolution of psychoanalytic theory was interesting. In particular, I liked the part about eros and thanatos. Eros is the life instinct as is linked to sexual motivation, and thanatos is the death instinct, and is linked to aggression and self-destruction. Freud started seriously thinking about aggression after World War I. These thoughts led Freud to propose that everyone has destructive tendencies. Freud had a preoccupation with death throughout his lifespan, and various events that happened helped him with his theory that there was a relationship between eros and thanatos.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought that this was really interesting because it’s not something that I’ve read about in other psychology classes, and I thought that it was really cool to learn something new about Freud, and another theory of his. I also thought it was interesting to learn that most of Freud’s theories that are well-known came from him later in life, and not when he was younger. I also really love Freud, and so whenever I learn anything new about him, I’m always excited.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that the Catharsis method was really interesting. Catharsis begins with Joseph Breuer, a physician, who studied a patient who he names Anna O, but who was actually named Bertha Pappenheim. The Anna O case was a woman who had a very interesting case of hysteria, and it was to become a huge step in psychoanalysis. Bertha Pappenheim was a very intelligent woman in her early 20s who had an array of hysteria symptoms, including a cough visual deficits, and strange eating habits, among other things. Breuer found that by tracing back a particular symptom to the time in which it first appeared, and by re-experiencing that time Pappenheim would have an emotional release, and would gain relief from that symptom, which Breuer called catharsis. However, there has been some discoveries that show that the Anna O case was not as cut and dry as it may seem, and that Anna’s symptoms often came back after a while, and she did not get significantly better until after the study was completed and she spent time in a sanatorium.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Catharsis is something that I’ve heard of before, but didn’t really know too much about, so it was interesting to learn more about it. It was interesting to learn that the Anna O case had its flaws, and that can relate to what we learned in the beginning of the year about historical accuracy. I also thought it was interesting that Freud insisted that he saw some sexual overlays within the case, and that Anna had a strong attachment to her father and then later to Breuer, and how this stress he wanted to put on the case ultimately ruined his friendship with Breuer.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Reading about the early treatment of those that were considered mentally ill was especially interesting to me. Moral treatment focused on improvements to patients hygiene, nutrition, and general living conditions, and was brought to the world of mental illness by Phillipe Pinel. The book also talked about bloodletting, the act of drawing blood out to relieve mental disorders among other illnesses. They also talked about the tranquilizer, which was a chair in which a person sat in where their hands and feet were restrained, and a box fit tightly over the head, and by restricting movement, the goal was to reduce their heart rate.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I have always been fascinated with the earlier treatments of those who suffered from mental illness, and even went to the Glore Psychiatric Museum in Missouri and they have several rooms dedicated to the early practices of mental illness treatment. It is always interesting to learn about how we have advanced in medicine, as well as science and the general treatment of people and animals.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I honestly thought the whole chapter was interesting, as mental health is always something that has fascinated me. However, if I had to pick something that was least interesting, it would have been the controversies about hypnotism, and the two theories regarding that. Hypnotism was originally called neurypnology, which was the contraction of Greek terms for nervous and sleep, but soon the initial term was dropped and it just became hypnosis. The Nancy School of hypnosis believed that everyone could be hypnotized to some degree and it was a form of suggestion that made it work. Suggestion is the ability to accept an idea or command from the hypnotist and turn it into action without being critical of that idea or command. The other theory was from Charcot, who said that hypnosis was very closely linked to hysteria, and that the two had the same underlying pathology. Hysteria is defined as a disorder that has a wide range of symptoms that appear to indicate neurological problems without damage to the nervous system. Charcot showed his most promising hysteria patients in demonstrations with hypnosis, and they began to compete among one another to be presented to people, and eventually Charcot’s way of thinking was rejected for the Nancy model which emphasized suggestibility.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn’t think it was that interesting I guess just because I thought some of it was a bit irrelevant. I am aware that these things happen fairly regularly, where people want to please another person as well as kind of ‘show off’ (the internet is full of these people), and I guess I just don’t like to see it. I did think it was interesting though that Sigmund Freud had a picture of Charcot demonstrating hypnosis with Blanche Wittman, who was known as the ‘Queen of Hysterics’ on his wall above his couch.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning more about the history of the treatment of mental illness and the theories of Freud are the most useful in understand the history of psychology. The treatment of mental illness shows us not only the mistakes that we have made as a society as well as psychologists in the treatment of mental illnesses throughout the years, but also the successes. It is important to look at the past as well as looking toward the future. Sigmund Freud is often considered to be one of the founders of psychology and modern day therapy and counseling. Learning about his life and how psychoanalytic theory came to be I feel like is really helpful in understanding psychology as a whole.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds upon the beginning chapters, by exposing things (such as the Anna O case) as we have come to know about now that we have the advanced technology that we didn’t have previously, and how important it is to go back and take another look at the kinds of things that we originally thought were factual. It also mentions Wundt and the Enlightenment era.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I’d like to learn more about dream analysis.
7b) Why?
Dream analysis is the interpretation of your dreams, and I have just always thought this was really interesting, as I tend to have very vivid and realistic dreams, where as I hear that a lot of people tend to have dreams that don’t really make sense or are common (teeth falling out, being in your underwear in public). I have dreams about driving my car and meeting a friend I haven’t seen in years, and I have always wanted to know what my dreams mean. I am also curious as to whether or not there is really any science behind the interpretation of these dreams, or if it is just mostly what Freud thought.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking a lot about how far we have come, and how amazing some of Freud’s theories really are and were back then. I was also thinking about how people now use hypnosis as a kind of entertainment, and I wonder if people who go around and get paid to hypnotize people to do silly things on stage are actually hypnotizing them, or if it is some kind of sham. I was also thinking about how cool it would be to have a Freudian couch, and how since he has passed away, there are so many things that have his name or face on them that are making a lot of money, and I wonder if his family is getting any of that, or if there isn’t some kind of legal rights to it. I myself have a “Freudian Sips” mug, and I have a friend who has a magnet and slippers. Another one of my professors has a doll of him as well as a small model of his couch.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Hysteria, Suggestion, Hypnosis, Neurypnology, Eros, Thanatos, Catharsis, Anna O case, bloodletting, moral treatment, Freud, Psychoanalytic theory, dream analysis

1) One interesting topic from this chapter was the section on Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer believed that he could cure mental disorders by giving his patients high doses of iron and then passing over their bodies with magnets. He called this method animal magnetism. However, soon he began this healing process by passing his hands over his patient’s body instead of a magnet. This got some controversy with his female patients because of this hands on approach, but it was working to some extent. Mesmer believed that illness was the result of poorly aligned magnetic forces. Mesmer showed the perfect example of the power of suggestion on medicine.
2) Another interesting topic was the case of Anna O. Anna O. was the codename that physician Joseph Breuer gave to affluent patient Bertha Pappenheim. Anna began seeing Breuer because of an odd range of symptoms. She had symptoms that ranged from a persistent cough, bizarre eating habits, the inability to speak her native language for a period of time, to paralysis in half of her body. Breuer believed that the symptoms were a result from her caring for her dying father. Through what Breuer called catharsis, he found that he was able to alleviate her of the symptoms. Eventually Breuer began to believe that Anna was having romantic feelings for him and when he suggested that they end their treatment because she was no longer showing symptoms, she began to show a new bout of symptoms. This time they were similar to that of a pregnant woman. Anna wanted to be with him so badly that her body began to fake a pregnancy.
3) My favorite topic from this chapter was the section on asylums because I have always been interested in them. It is very interesting to learn how they have changed and evolved over the years. United States was the place in which specialized institutions were created to treat the mentally ill. In the 19th century they became a place of confinement. They were originally designed as a place to care for patients but they eventually became a place to put those who did not want to be dealt with. It became like a prison for the mentally ill. The physician Thomas Kirkbride designed some of the asylums that were in use. He designed them in such a way as to be the most functional and most efficient for the treatment and residence of the patients.
4) The least interesting thing from this chapter was psychoanalysis. Freud came up with a very unique approach but it just isn’t very exciting to read about. It also doesn’t help that I have heard about this in almost every psychology class I have ever taken, and I’ll be done with them by next semester. It also seems to me that many things that Freud talks about in this approach are very obvious, however that may be due to learning them at a young age.
5) I think that the section on Sigmund Freud was the most important to the understanding of the history of psychology. Even though some of his methods and theories do not really hold true, he still came up with some very important idea that are involved with many aspects of psychology. Freud was the one who came up with the idea of the unconscious being in control of some things. It is our unconscious that controls what we dream and when we come up with an answer to a question that was posed days ago. Freud was also the psychologist to introduce the iceberg model of understanding his id, ego, and superego which we still use to describe some things today. He is also one of the psychologists that is discussed in any beginner class.
6) This chapter relates to the previous chapters by talking about some people and topics that had been previously mentioned. An example of a repeated topic is hypnosis. Hypnosis has been used by different psychologists in different ways, but it is still the same basic process.
7) I would like to learn more about bloodletting. It is a very interesting process that I am unfamiliar with. I am also curious as to why this was believed to be a good idea.
8) While reading, I thought about asylums. Asylums are something that I am very interested in so reading about them made me think about the examples of them that I have seen on tv and in the movies. Now I know that these portrayals aren’t completely accurate, but they help to provide me with an image of what I am reading about.

Terms: Mesmer, animal magnetism, suggestion, asylum, Kirkbride, Breuer, Anna O., Freud, id, ego, superego, iceberg model, bloodletting, psychoanalysis, hypnosis

1a. the first thing that captivated my interest in this chapter was the section on early treatment of the mentally ill. Not so long ago people who appeared to “deviant” or different than from the rest of those in society were often treated very badly. A stigma surrounded those who were thought to be mentally ill, and the stigma still sticks around today. These people were regarded as being evil, possessed, people to fear or avoid. The term, “out of sight out of mind” was the standard for treatment of these individuals and they were often locked away from the rest of society. This line of thinking began to change in the late 18th century and early 19th century when “enlightened” reform began to take place in several countries. Beliefs in progress and the ability of science to revolutionize society were key to this movement. One reformer of the time was French physician Phillipe Pinel. He became of a big proponent of moral treatment for patients. He worked at both major hospital in France and was recognized for his efforts for trying to abolish the use of chains in restraining the mentally ill. Another reformer was William Tuke in England. He was Quaker his thought was that there should always be relief for those in need. Tuke founded a retreat in York that was dedicated to the humane treatment of the mentally ill. The retreat was set up like a farm in a rural environment where the mentally had plenty of recreation. He provided them with proper nutrition, freedom of movement, and were allowed visitors. This retreat became a model around the world for other reformers who wanted to provide a more humane place for the mentally ill. Enlightened medical approaches also arose in this time period. Benjamin Rush in America was one such physician who developed a treatment called bloodletting for those who were ill, including those who were mentally ill. He believe that many illnesses were caused from abnormalities in the blood and that by draining the blood one could rid the ailing person of their symptoms. He drained many patients of their blood and for some it appeared to work, if only temporarily. Most of the effects of this technique has been attributed to either a placebo effect or the sedating effects of losing too much blood. Often time patients would regress back into their symptoms later on.
1b. I found this section interesting because people with mental illness, even today, are treated with a certain disdain. From the reading the treatment of these people in the past was extreme and very inhumane. It is interesting reading about the early types of reform taken to improve conditions for the mentally ill.
2a.. The next section I found to be really interesting was the section on mesmerism and animal magnetism. Franz Anton Mesmer was a physician from Vienna who was extremely interested in the recent findings about electricity and magnetism. He went on to theorize that people’s abnormalities were the product of opposing magnetic forces in humans. He believed that he could cure mental diseases by having his patients ingest a certain quantity of iron and then wave a magnet over their bodies to correct their magnetism. He would bring his patients into a trance like state and eventually get the patient to enter what he called a “crisis state” and when they came too again the patient would be cured for the ailments. He called his theory animal magnetism. Mesmer went on to find that he cure patients without magnets and started to believe he had magnetic powers within himself. Animal magnetism became pretty popular at the time and many were actually allevieated of their symptoms. However, leading scientists of the time were not impressed. They surmised that the only reason people felt better from this method is because of the power of suggestion, which in itself is powerful psychological tool. They found no scientific evidence to support Mesmer’s theory. This did not stop Mesmer from believing, and he went on to practice his brand of medicine for the entirety of his life. Mesmerism, as it came to be called, would eventually be transformed into what is known today as hypnosis.
2b. I found this interesting because it sounds so ridiculous to me. Someone actually went around giving people iron and running magnets over their bodies and called them cured! When I first read this I really did find it to sound ridiculous but coincidentally I came across a recent article in a scientific journal that talked about how people with some types of intellectual disability were treated by placing magnets on their heads. I can’t recall what the magnets actually did but they found that it alleviated some of the symptoms some people were feeling. So, to say that Mesmer was completely crazy is probably an over generalization because even today magnets are being used to treat patients.
3a. The next section I found interesting was the section on Freud and his early life and education. Freud grew up in Vienna, Austria with a large family that came from moderate means. Freud showed passion for education early and was the only in the family that was given his own room to study. The book mentions an interesting instance where Freud complained he could study while his sister was practicing piano so his parents got rid of the piano. On top of that, Freud’s family also gave him a big allowance so he could buy books for his studying. He was very attached to his mother who was 20 years younger than his father, who he always viewed as more of a grandfather figure. His attachment to mother would later shape many of theories. In a time of great depression in Vienna, Freud entered into collegiate academia by attending the medical school at the University of Vienna. During this time the depression was being blamed on the Jewish population and Freud came from a Jewish family. Freud did not leave Vienna however, until 1938 when his safety was being undermined by the Nazi regime. Although Freud went to medical he never saw himself being a medical doctor, his passion lied in research. In his early year at the University Freud connected with the University’s director Ernst Brucke who would go on to be his mentor. Because of his deep interest in research it took Freud nearly 8 years to complete his studies. His research was very involved and he wrote articles on the structures of eels, the nervous systems of many animals, and also developed a staining technique to stain nerve fibers.
3b. I found this interesting because Freud is often this big name hero in psychology. We learn about his theories and the impact he had on psychology but I never really learned anything about Freud himself. It is nice to get a background on who he was and how he came to accomplish what he did.
5. I think the most important thing to recognize in this chapter is the development of how we treat mental illness. We went from locking the mentally away from society, to developing more humane institutions, to developing (sometimes weird and crazy) ways to actually treat and help those who are ill. I think it is beneficial to learn from the past in regards to how we deal with those who have mental illnesses.
6. This chapter continues to expand our knowledge of the different schools of psychology and how they came about. This chapter sheds light on the history of treating mental illness and introduces us some big names who really changed the way we think about mental illness, just like the previous chapters introduced us to other people who similarly changed other areas of psychology.
7a. I would like to learn more about Mesmer and animal magnetism.
7b. His ideas were just so crazy to me and the fact that he became as a big as he did and people actually seemed to be cured from his treatment really intrigues me to learn about him and his theory.
8. When I read the chapter I kept thinking about how people who are mentally ill are treated today. The same stigmatism I read about in the chapter persists today. I really thought about the history I was reading about and comparing it to how we view mental illness today as well as how we treat it.
9. Moral treatment, bloodletting, animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnosis, suggestion.

1a) What did you find interesting?
Benjamin Rush and Bloodletting
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This just seemed like an interesting concept because, now, we know better. In the past, it was thought that many illnesses were centralized in the bloodstream. Rush thought that mental illnesses could be managed by opening blood vessels and letting the patient's blood drain out because it would reduce the tensions in the brain. This brought the patient into a tranquil state, seeming as though it worked. Now, we know that the “tranquil state” the patients experienced was due to the loss of blood and not because the illness was let out through the blood.

2a) What did you find interesting?
Freud’s Defense Mechanisms
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I remember learning about defense mechanisms in high school. Defense mechanisms are used to reduce anxiety and neuroticism. There is a long list of them, but the most often used defense mechanism is repression. Repression occurs when a person pushes the event or idea so far back into their brain that it becomes part of that person’s unconscious. At this point, they no longer remember the situation.

3a) What did you find interesting?
Reforming Asylums: Dix and Beers
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was cool because I’ve always been interested in asylums. It could stem from my love of scary movies. I thought it was interesting how Dix traveled to different asylums and fixing them up, making them more appropriate for the health of the patients. This transformed many of them from places that might been seen in a horror flick into more modernized medical institutions.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The biographies
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I want to learn about their contributions to psychology, not things like where they grew up. Most of the time, the biographies are irrelevant to the rest of the content.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that learning about Freud is very important to the study of psychology. Although many of his ideas are a bit obsolete now, so many psychologists have built off of his ideas over time.

6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
At the beginning of the chapter, it makes a connection to chapter 3 by talking about the Enlightenment. The psychologists in this section are trying to learn how to treat patients by drawing from concepts from the Enlightenment.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Defense mechanisms
7b) Why?
I want to see what the rest of the defense mechanisms are and how they are used.

8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When I read through the section about Freud, I thought about how often he is talked about in all of the psychology classes I have taken. He is very important to the study of psych, so I feel he deserves all the attention he gets.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Benjamin Rush, bloodletting, defense mechanisms, Dix, Enlightenment Reform, Freud

Conner Hoyt

1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the old concepts of treating mental illness interesting, for example: bloodletting. The concept of bloodletting as a treatment, while I’ve heard of it previously, I still find to be interesting simply due to its application and find myself questioning the ethics of doing it today. It sounds like something an ‘all natural remedy’ kind of person would consider. Basically, the concept involves literally either cutting the subject or leeching the blood out of the person as a way to get rid of ‘bad blood’ thought to make the person ill in many ways, after a while new blood would reform and thus the subject is all fine. Subjects, after losing the sufficient amount of blood necessary for treatment, would exhibit lethargic and calm behaviors. They thought this would be some sort of positive after affect, however this was simply a side effect to the loss of blood—no real improvement to the person’s health (quite the opposite really). It’s truly interesting to me how people went with this treatment given the severity of the procedure as well as the continuing relapses of their illnesses.

2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Mesmer’s theory of illness and the cure of animal magnetism was very interesting to read about, given that hypnotism isn’t really acknowledged today as a worthy treatment. It’s interesting that these people ‘became’ better simply through being convinced that they were getting better and through Mesmer’s ‘massages.’ It’s also interesting to me how Mesmer suddenly thought himself special, like a ‘superman’ who could cure people simply by touching them and through repeated convincing. All of this however, is simply an over exaggerated form of hypnosis. It can be assumed that his patients had relapses for their mental ailments, as their illness was never really technically cured, and thus should be looked in a light of over exaggeration of a new discovery. Still though, similar to bloodletting, it’s interesting that people went along with this treatment so easily.

3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Dorothea Dix was a very interesting reformer to read about, given her contributions to the asylums as well as towards mental illnesses overall. She traveled around the United States to see the conditions of the asylums for the mentally ill and was shocked at the conditions of the ones seeking treatment. She was shocked by the treatment and conditions of the jails, hospitals and almshouses in which the mentally ill were kept. The rooms were ridiculously small and seemed barely able to sustain a life, especially if that person was severely mentally ill. They sometimes were chained to walls, sitting in their own excrement, poorly fed, and even beaten into submission. After visiting these various places, she reached out for people to fund these places so the inhabitants could receive the treatment they needed. What’s overall interesting to me about this incident is that a woman, in this time, did all of this and made way for great change for these institutions.

4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One thing I found the least interesting about this chapter was the section about Freud. I do love Freud and his theories, but he didn’t seem necessary in this chapter and frankly, as much as I love his theories, he doesn’t seem to be relevant to the modern psychological world.

5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful thing we can take from this chapter would be the asylums and how they were and how they’ve evolved. Today, we really don’t have asylums today, rather we have rehabilitation centers. These institutions provide much better care for their patients and are without the negative connotation that the world ‘asylum’ carries with it.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I would say that this chapter largely builds on the concepts of historicism and Presentism we were introduced to in the first chapter of the book. Like the first chapter, we had to look at the history described in this chapter and think of it in a past mindset as well as a mindset in the present. Bloodletting for example; we can look at it for what it provided in the past and today we can see it as a primitive treatment.

7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 
7b) Why?
I would love to learn more about insane asylums and the construction of them, as well as people who were involved with the creation of making them. I think movies and TV shows make asylums look old and creepy and therefore more appealing to learn about. That being said it makes me intrigued to research asylums and find out more about them.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I couldn’t help but think about how popular media portrays insane asylums as they were in the past. To be honest, with how inmates were treated, various shows didn’t seem to miss their mark by much, which terrifies me to think that we could’ve sank that low and treat people as such.

9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Bloodletting, Mesmer, Hypnotism, Animal Magnetism, Dorothea Dix, Freud

Chapter 12
1) I found the topic of their overall treatment to be the most interesting part of the chapter. It was very interesting and upsetting to learn about the abuse the people had suffered and the inhumane ways, such as bloodletting and tranquilizer chairs, that were used as common “treatment” methods. I liked the movements like Phillipe Pinel’s moral treatment which involved improving the patients’ nutrition, hygiene, and general living conditions. Most things that we assumed were common sense in improving one’s quality of life and health was seen as a form of treatment in the past. Same can be said about Cliford Beers’s push in the mental hygiene movement where it was said that better living conditions were linked to preventing and curing mentally illness.
2) I found Dorothea Dix to be the most interesting person in the chapter because she took a stand and helped the population of mentally ill people who, more often than not, were simply ignored and overlooked by the people of the time. She was disgusted by the amount of abuse and neglect the people within the treatment centers faced and said the people were being treated like animals. She dedicated her life to improving their quality of life and played a role in creating approximately fifty mental health hospitals and schools for the feebleminded. She understood the significant impact that one’s environment has on their overall health and worked to improve their living conditions and reforming the asylums to be place in rural areas and resemble park like settings.
3) The overall message was the horrifying history of the treatment of those with mental illness and the evolution of the system of carrying for the feeble minded. I thought the chapter was extremely interesting to be able to see what people use to associated with mental illness and being able to understand them better on why they did the things they did. It was very heartbreaking to read about how mentally ill people use to be treated due to a lack of understanding, and even though the system has made extremely significant improvements on the matter, our system of helping the mentally ill is still not executed very well and these people are often overlooked.
4) What I read in the chapter that I think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology is how even though the system of treating the mentally ill has improved greatly, some of the same problems they faced now are still problems today. Such problems as overcrowding and very low funding often cause a lot of people who need help to go unnoticed and they often become involved in very negative situations. It also talked about in the past important predictors of proper care for mentally unstable people was community size and socioeconomic status, which is also still very true presently. Understanding the history is essential to improve areas for the present and this chapter showed me that there are still quite a few problems that have been able to stand the test of time when it comes to treating the mentally ill and people need to begin to take more steps to address those issues.
5) This chapter relates to other topics from previous chapters by showing how much the system has evolved during a relatively short period of time. Even though the treatment of mentally ill people has taken drastic steps from improvements, it is still a very broken system and there are still similarities of the treatment in that time period and the treatment in present day. I think the chapter relates to other chapters by showing that even though the work had progressed greatly, there is still areas for improvement and more research to be done.
6) I would love to learn more about the pioneers that brought out change in the ways of treating the mentally ill. In most cases, people learn about the vast abuse of the patients within the asylums but never really learn more in-depth about the evolution of the treatments and how these treatments were discovered and tested. In order to keep improving the system, people need to be aware of were it started from and how it got to the point it is now to continue to make improvements.
7) I want to know if the patients who were being horribly abused had family members or people that cared about them that knew what was happening? Was it the kind of place where they were able to have visitors or was it more common that the people in the treatment centers were more or less abandoned and did not really have people who were checking in on their well-being?
8) Terminology Used: mentally ill, feeble minded, Dorothea Dix, bloodletting, tranquilizer chairs, Phillipe Pinel, moral treatment, mental hygiene movement, Cliford Beers, socioeconomic status

1) I thought that the whole chapter was interesting, but I especially enjoyed reading about the asylums. I thought it was interesting because I’ve always liked learning about mental illnesses, and this was a way that they used to be treated. The first asylum was started in 1773 in Virginia. Asylums started out as more of a place to confine the mentally ill for public safety than as a place of treatment. The first asylums were far from perfect and people realized that much improvement was needed. Thomas Kirkbride had many ideas for improvement. He thought that asylums should be built in a rural environment on high ground, they should have a central structure with wings on the sides of the center to keep males and females separate, the wings should be situated so that each room had sunlight and a view of the outside, there should be enough room for exercise indoors, they should be several stories high so that the best behaved patients could be on the top floor, and there should be some separate smaller buildings to keep the most disruptive patients separated. Asylums were further improved after that by Dorthea Dix and Clifford Beers.
2) I thought that Joseph Breuer was interesting. I thought he was interesting because I never knew that he was the one who came up with the theory of catharsis. He was famous for some discoveries about the inner ear as well. He thought of catharsis when working with the Anna O. case. She was a patient with hysteria. Anna O. was a name that he created for a woman in her 20s who had weird hysteria symptoms. She would sometimes have paralysis of one side of her body, a nervous cough, visual and auditory deficits, weird eating habits, language problems, and occasional dissociative states. Breuer found that he could relieve her symptoms with the method of catharsis. When he had Anna O. trace back to when a symptom first started, she would experience an emotional release. This would relieve her symptoms for a time, but they eventually discovered that she had some other underlying mental disorders that needed treatment as well.
3) I thought that the overall message of this chapter was to show us how people used to treat those with mental illnesses. We have definitely come a long way since mental illnesses were first being discovered and treated. I thought it was very interesting to learn about why they treated these individuals this way.
4) I thought it was really good to learn about all of the problems that they originally had with treating mental illnesses. I think that we still have some of these problems today. Mental institutions are definitely overcrowded and we still don’t know how to fix some mental illnesses.
5) I didn’t really know about a lot of the things that this chapter discussed before reading it. I had learned a lot about Sigmund Freud before, but I didn’t know much about the original treatments for mental disorders.
6) I would like to learn more about hypnosis. I’ve always wondered if it actually works and if there are studies that have been done on it.
7) I was wondering about how the mental institutions in today’s society work.
8) asylum, mental illness, Thomas Kirkbride, Dorthea Dix, Clifford Beers, Joseph Breuer, catharsis, Anna O. case, hysteria

1) I found the Enlightened Reform to be interesting because it was where we first see the change from hiding, killing, and ashamed feeling toward the mentally ill change. It was recognized that the treatment of the mentally ill was cruel and unfair. In the section about the Enlighten Reform we can see a shift toward treating and curing the mentally ill. The techniques used during this period might not have been accurate or completely humane, but the idea behind them was what’s most interesting. People wanted to help the mentally ill.
2) I found William Tuke to be interesting because of his York Retreat. Tuke was a Quaker who had a big heart and kind motive engrained in him from his Quaker background. Tuke wanted to give those suffering from mental illness the special treatment that they needed, so he founded the York Retreat. The York Retreat was to be “a place in which the unhappy might obtain refuge; a quiet haven in which the shattered bark might find the means of reparation and safety.” It was set up high on a hill in a rural farm. The Retreat promoted good hygiene and nutrition. Patients were given freedom to roam around the grounds of the Retreat and if there were on good behavior they were given recreation and work opportunities. Family and kin were allowed to make regular visits. What is so interesting is that the Retreat was the model for many private retreats in the United States. It was seen as a needed thing, a good thing, and a success.
3) I think the overall message of this chapter was to trace the beginnings of mental illness treatment. It describes the push for moral treatment, the first asylums, the first devices, the first hypnosis treatments, and the development of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. It also shows the many reforms, highs, and lows of the first mental illness treatments. I think this is very interesting because the overall goal is treatment. We want the mentally ill to be treated so that they may live the best life possible.
4) I think the whole chapter was very important. I cannot take it down to just one thing. I think the overall message portrayed in this chapter is the take away message that you should understand about psychology. Watching the shift from harsh treatment of the mentally ill toward the recognition of the need to treat to the creation of asylums/retreats to the reforms to psychoanalysis is important. You get to see how people shift their views on how the mentally ill should be treated. You get to see how the mentally ill get recognized as people who deserve to be helped.
5) This chapter mainly built on my knowledge of Sigmund Freud. It gave a very in-depth depiction of his background, his contributions, his studies, his ideas, and psychoanalysis. Before reading this chapter, I don’t think I knew about Freud’s seduction hypothesis. I knew that he really stressed sexuality. I was then able to see where psychoanalysis went after Freud’s work with it.
6) I am interested in learning more about the Enlightened Reform. I think their techniques would be interesting to learn about. I think the little bit of information given about Pinel, Tuke, and Rush weren’t enough for me. I found myself wanting to know more about their ideas of treatment. I want to learn more about his topic because I found the shift in attitude about the mentally ill interesting. I want to see just where it all started and how they decided to treat the mentally ill in this time period.
7) I wanted to know what other treatments there were in the Enlightenment. I wanted to know if hypnosis actually produced a significant change. I wanted to know what happened with Anna O. after her work with Joseph Breuer.
8) Enlightened Reform, William Tuke, York Retreat, moral treatment, asylums, Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis, seduction hypothesis, Pinel, Rush, Anna O., and Joseph Breuer

1a) The topic that I found interesting was Psychoanalysis.
1b) This was interesting to me because it is a pretty wacky form of treatment for a mentally ill patient. It is always interesting to read about the work of Freud, and how bizarre some of his theories were. Psychoanalysis in particular is probably the most logical out of all of them, because it is almost a form of talk therapy, but the part where he says he believes all events are linked to the unconscious, and things of that nature left me skeptical as to how he could even believe some of the things he came up with.
2a) The person that I found most interesting was Sigmund Freud.
2b) Freud was interesting to me in a different way than most people from this book are. Usually when I am interested in a person, I am amazed at the work they have done, and the gains they made for our field of psychology. Freud, on the other hand, interested me because of how crazy some of the things he theorized were. Even though his name is kind of shunned in the field of psychology, it is hard not to at least be interested in the things that he came up with. For example, one of the main causes of hysteria is sexual problems? I personally don't see the correlation, however it made for an interesting read, and I think that is why Freud is so popular in psychology.
3a) I think the overall message of this chapter was the beginning stages of how to treat patients with mental illness.
3b) I do think that this chapter was interesting. Severe mental illnesses is what I personally find the most interesting in the field of psychology. Reading about how people with mental illnesses were taken care of and treated in the 18th century, and seeing how things continued to improve up to the era of Freud was pretty interesting. Even though when they got to the Freud era things weren't perfect they still had made significant gains to try treat and handle patients who were mentally ill effectively and efficiently.
4) The thing I read in this chapter that I think will be the most useful in the understanding of the history of psychology is how the chapter talked about treating mental illnesses. In this chapter they are talking about how psychiatrists and physiologists are beginning to really recognize that some patients aren't just sick, but they are mentally ill, and a different form of treatment other than medicine needs to be adopted. Creating asylums, developing hypnosis, and performing psychoanalysis are all ways to try to make the mentally ill better, and that is a big step for psychology.
5) This chapter builds on what I already have learned in this class, because in the previous chapters leading up to this, we were learning about how we can be conditioned to do things either through operant conditioning or emotional conditioning. Knowing those things can lead to improvements in the way we treat mentally ill patients. If patients can get better through psychoanalysis, or hypnosis, or talk therapy, they have to be conditioned to feeling comfortable in getting their emotions out and talking about what is stressing them, or making them feel bad. So, knowing how humans can be conditioned can help in figuring out treatments for the people who need help.
6a) The topic that I would like to learn more about is hypnosis.
6b) Hypnosis was an interesting part of the chapter, but kind of got overpowered by the information on Freud. It would be interesting to research more on how hypnosis came to be, what state of mind it puts one in, and the logic behind how it is suppose to treat mental illnesses. Today hypnosis is known for something you see at a after prom show for laughter and entertainment, so knowing that it use to be used to treat mental illnesses is very interesting, and something I would like to learn more about
7) One question that I had after reading this chapter, which I kind of already talked about in this reflection, is if Freud's work leaves so much skepticism in everyone that reads his work, why is he such an icon in psychology? My theory was that his work was so abstract that it just makes for interesting learning, but am I missing something? Did Freud actually make a positive impact in psychology somehow?
8) Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, operant conditioning, emotional conditioning, mental illness, hypnosis

1a)one topic that I found interesting in this chapter is a lobotomy.
1b)I found this to be interesting because even though they knew the destruction of brain tissue was irreversible they still attempted to treat some forms of mental illness by performing this procedure. a lobotomy is where a hole is drilled in the skull just in front of the temple and a rod is stuck in to a set depth. the rod was then moved around to sever brain tissue in the frontal and prefrontal cortex.
2a)one person that I found to be interesting was Carl Rogers.
2b)I found him to be interesting due to his style of therapy called client centered therapy. this approach appealed to many clinicians in the 1960s and 1970s. he was the fourth of six kids in his family. his family believed that anything pleasurable was a sin. when he was 12 his family moved to a farm in Wisconsin to get away from suburbia. rogers later went on to attend the university of Wisconsin to study agriculture. that soon faded and he ended up at union of Columbia teachers college and fell under the influence of leta hollingworth and began to think about a career as a professinal psychologist. after earning his doctorate at columbia earning a doctorate from Columbia he took a position as a psychologist at a children's guidance clinic and began to develop his own unique brand of therapy. this type f therapy came to be known as client centered therapy. he ignored the notion that it was important to go into the clients past for therapy to be effective. his therapy was based on three concepts the therapist must be genuine, must have a warm regard for the client, and be empathetic. in his therapy you would reflect. the concept of reflection is taking what the client says and rephrasing it to make the client think the therapist understood.
3a)I feel as though the message of this chapter was how psychology continued to change and how it got to be the modern form of psychology that it is today.
3b) I find this to be interesting because it mentioned multiple types of therapy and how they changed and interacted and caused psychology to reach its modern self.
4) this chapter helped me to understand different styles of therapy and how they came to be as well as why the people developed them and partially what they were thinking. it helps me to better understand why things were changed.
5)this chapter builds on the things and characteristics that I have learned about different types of therapy in clinical psychology. it gives me a better overlook on the topic with more details
6a)one topic that I would like to learn more about is school psychology.
6b) I would like to learn more about this because I want to know more about what al it entails. how much a school psychologist can really do and what role they play in the system of modern psychology.
7) on question that I have for this chapter is that if what they were doing before was thought to work why did they continue to change things and come up with different forms of therapy and change systems and what they were doing.
8)lobotomy
carl rogers
client centered therapy
leta hollingworth
school psychology
reflection
clinical psychology
empathy

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the way Thomas Kirkbride designed the Asylums to actually be interesting, in that when think of an asylum the one like in american horror story comes to mind, whereas his were meant to be humane and kind.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The layout of these asylums was interesting to me in the way that they were made on the thought of Moral Treatment . Kirkbride thought that the architecture could play a role in treatment, as to be aesthetically pleasing and evoke a sense of calm and healing. As many who went to these Asylums would spend the remaining duration of their lives there he at least designed them to be not such a horrible place. The book mentioned certain elements he tried to incorporate into the designs, those being: rural environment, placed on high ground, panoramic views of the countryside, central unit (or“center main”) for families to stay when visiting and for staff, pavilions on either side of the center main (one wing males and one females),every room would have a view of the countryside and was exposed to sunlight and fresh air, Wide corridors (for indoor exercise), three to four stories in height, and if possible separate smaller buildings for the most disruptive, noisiest, or more violent patients. All in all these asylums didn’t seem so bad in there drawing board stage, they almost seem like a mental health getaway (which they should have been)… sadly while planed with good intentions often times the asylums became overcrowded and also the patients were victims of abusive staff.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
As one of the most recognised names in psychology i was wondering when Freud would show up, and here he is in the chapter of mental illness and its treatment.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Freud is a psychologist people love to hate (myself being one of those people). I have tried to like the guy, and see past his ramblings that he passed off as “psychology law” (so to speak). I mean really had little (mostly No, but i’ll try to give him the benefit of the doubt) empirical evidence to back his theories. He just said what sounded plausible to him. I personally liked the Id, Ego, and Superego concepts but there is no research to support its validity.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the message of this chapter was to show the treatment of the mentally ill, how cruel it was in the past. Also who, through compassion, made the changes to treat these humans with dignity and respect (Dorothea Dix).
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
Some parts yes, others was the same dry information i learned in my Clinical Psychology class. I liked and at the same time disliked how people stood up for the rights of the Mentally Ill (to clarify that statement, i liked that they did stand up for their treatment and rights, I disliked that they had to in the first place, because patients were mistreated with no regard to the human life they were caring for).

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Most of the chapter was how we learned what not to do, so using it as a focal point, one of those teachable moments in history not to repeat again.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
In the part of the chapter on Freud it talks about WWII and how it affected him and also Gestalt Psychology (from chapter 9)
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Either Freud or Dorothea Dix
6b) Why?
Freud because it’s always easy to write about a psychologist you don’t like, or Dorothea Dix depending on the amount of information i can find on her
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
What in human nature causes them to treat people of an out group as lesser?
8) Thomas Kirkbride, Asylums, Moral Treatment, Dorothea Dix, Freud, Id, Ego, and Superego

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the topic of mesmerism to being the most interesting.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The reason I found it so interesting is basically because it sounds so crazy that I don’t understand how people believed that it actually worked. It also helps me understand how hypnosis works in the present day. I have been hypnotized before, it amazes me that we can be so easily told how to act when the suggestions are coming from another person.

2a) What person did you find interesting?
The person I found to be the most interesting was Clifford Beers.

2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to me because he compiled all of his notes from when he was in the mental institutions. I think it also interesting that he lived through being in these institutions and made it know that mental illnesses were curable. I really admire that he used his years in the mental institutions to positively influence his life and many others after her was released.

3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I believe that the message of this overall chapter is to help the reader better understand how mental illness was first treated and what changes we have made as the years passed.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
This was interesting to me because it shows that as a society we saw what we were doing and realized that it was wrong and tried our best. As the years passed the treatment of mental patients has become much more humane.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful thing in the chapter would be learning about the asylum movement in the 19th century. I think this help me understand the history of psychology, because it shows just how far we have come in the last 200 years.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter relates a lot to what I have learned in my clinical psychology and abnormal psychology classes. In both classes I learned quite a lot about Freud and psychoanalysis.

6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about mesmerism and hypnotism

6b) Why?
I think this are both very interesting subjects because it has to do a lot with how the brain works. I think it is very interesting that our minds can drift into a state that causes us to be so easily suggestible.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
The biggest question I had while reading this is why did Mesmer think that he had magnetic powers? I thought it was strange that Rush believed that bloodletting was curing the patient, when it really was just causing them to be tranquil because of the blood loss.

Terms: bloodletting, Benjamin Rush, Mesmer, mesmerism, hypnotism, Freud, psychoanalysis, history of psychology, asylum movement, Clifford Beers, mental institutions, treatments

1.I have always found mental illness and the treatments of it very intriguing, so to me, this chapter found to be very interesting. The first thing that caught my attention was the early treatment of people who were sick with a mental illness. It doesn’t really surprise me, since it was centuries ago, but the fact that they were considered witches, and killed because of it was interesting to know. This was interesting and an important fact to know because of the inhumanity. If they hadn’t started treating the mentally ill like this, there would be no room for improvement. The only way to go is up, and we have to progress somehow.

During the Enlightenment, it was a time of progress and new ideas. People like Phillipe Pinel, William Tuke, and Benjamin Rush looked for ways to improve the care and treatment of mental patients since in the past, they were treated unlike humans. I was glad to read the Pinel sought to improve and support moral treatment of the mentally ill. I think it is important that we treat them as humans and ethically in order to improve their lives. Pinel wanted to improve patient’s hygiene, nutrition, and living arrangements. I think I am so interested in this because it is difficult for me to believe and understand just how bad these patients were treated, when they too, were only humans.

Lastly, Benjamin Rush’s idea of “bloodletting” also caught my attention while reading the chapter. I thought it was a ridiculous idea, and a very unethical way of treatment. But, at this time it was a new idea, and there wasn’t much to go off of when it came to treating the ill. This idea of bloodletting was draining the blood which was used for a variety of illnesses. By doing this, it would calm patients down who very hysterical because they would no longer have the strength to do this. It was a good idea at the time but I think today would be considered very unethical for many reasons. It was just interesting to me that this was even a way of treatment, but again, if we didn’t start somewhere we would have no improvement.

2.The topic that was least interesting to me in this chapter was the use of hypnosis and mesmerism. Don’t get me wrong, it might be a good idea for forms of treatment. But, I just don’t think it has long lasting effects of helping people.

3.Treating the mentally ill is a very important part of life in general. It is important to know how to treat them and take care of them because they are people too. Learning about the progression and history of this is important to psychologists because they do study people. By reading and learning about this topic, I understand the history of psychology much better because it explains how the treatment of the mentally ill has changed over the years, and how it has improved.

4.This chapter builds on those of the past pertaining to psychologist’s research and experiments. If they had never done this, we wouldn’t have what we do today. If we don’t experiment, then we won’t find new information and ideas.

5.I would like to learn a lot more about how the mentally ill were treated in facilities in the past. This chapter does explain some information on this, but I would like to learn a lot more about it so I can get a better understanding as to why and how we have come to this point in time and the treatment of the mentally ill.

6.I was just really surprised that people got neglected and mistreated in asylums and facilities. I would think that if the patient to staff ratio was not good, that they wouldn’t have made these facilities, but they did anyway, and it resulted badly.

7.Phillipe Pinel, WillaimT Tuke, Benjamin Rush, Bloodletting, Mentally Ill, Moral Treatment

Please read chapter 12. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
(Note: to help with organization points please keep the numbering)
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
Mesmerism and Hypnosis
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I have heard of many different people getting hypnotized in order to break a habit or just for fun. I was never much of a believer of it. So it was sort of interesting to learn about.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
Sigmund Freud
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I’ve learned about Freud in many different psychology classes. It seems as though every time his name comes up I learn something new and he intrigues me because of it. His theories are so complex.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
Mental Illness.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
It was. It seems as though that mental illness has come a long ways from where it was years ago. It was interesting seeing successes of different theories in order to have the advances and knowledge that we do today.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the Psychoanalytic Theory will be very useful. All of the information talked about with this theory can be applicable to today still. I think that understanding this theory fully will make it easier in order to see it in today’s world.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
I think this all builds on the Freudian information I have gotten in other classes. I think it is always interesting to learn even more about him.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Mesmerism
6b) Why?
I feel like this a topic that I do not know a whole lot about. I don’t know that it is necessarily something I need to know about, but rather something fun to learn of.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
Why is it that Sigmund Freud isn’t fully covered in one book? It seems like I learn piece by piece of him.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Mesmerism
• Hypnosis
• Sigmund Freud
• Mental Illness
• Psychoanalytic Theory

1a) What topic did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it interesting that in the past people with mental illness have been feared and hated and treated inhumanely. They have been regarded as evil or possessed by the devil and punished by being tortured and put to death by being burned or drowned. They have also been considered morally deficient and dangerous to society and should be locked away from other people. However, there is evidence that the insane were treated with compassion in some cases. In medieval times and today community size and socioeconomic status are a big predictor of the type of care they receive. The mentally ill received poor care and especially in larger populations where they might not have received help at all. I find it very interesting how far we have come in our ways of thinking of the mentally ill. And although I believe there is still a stigma or that some people don’t fully understand what it means to be mentally ill and the impact it has on a person, at least the majority of people are not of the opinion that they are evil. If anything, I think people don’t understand how serious it actually is and they don’t accept that it is a real problem.
2a) What person did you find interesting? 2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I thought Franz Mesmer was interesting because he believed that magnetism affected a human’s physical and psychological well being and that he could cure a person by giving them a high dose of iron and passing magnets over them, which was supposed to straighten out the forces within the body. He called his theory animal magnetism, and though he did not know it, he had discovered what is now known as the power of suggestion on human behavior. I find it interesting that even though he may have been a little off on his actual theory, that he ended up causing the discovery of something else in the process.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? 3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not? This chapter was interesting to me because I enjoyed learning about the history of mental illness treatment and discoveries and I am grateful for how far we have advanced in this field and excited for how much further we will advance in the future.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Learning people’s initial theories on mental illness and seeing how far we have come since then really helps me put it into perspective that even though we think we have everything figured out there will still be a lot more to learn, and that will never really change. I think this will be useful to keep in mind as I continue my studies.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes? This chapter is another good example of how theories on a certain subject were started and how much they change and are influenced by different people before they get to our current knowledge that we have today.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about psychoanalysis because I’ve always been interested in it.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I would like to know exactly how widely accepted the belief that the mentally ill were the devil or evil was in the medieval times and how that belief changed for the better.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
mental illness
socioeconomic status
Franz Mesmer
physical and psychological well being
animal magnetism
power of suggestion on human behavior

1) What topic did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?

I found mesmerism and hypnosis interesting. It was interesting because I did not realize hypnosis originally came from a method of treating the mentally ill.

2) What person did you find interesting? Why were they interesting to you?

I found Franz Anton Mesmer interesting because he created the method of treating hysteria, called mesmerism. He believed magnetic forces could realign the body with itself, eventually believing that he had magnetic powers. In reality, the power of suggestion was working to his benefit.

3) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?

Overall, the chapter discussed mental illness and the development/history of treating mental illness. It was interesting to me because my mom is a special education teacher and a legal guardian of three mental/physically disabled adults. I have grown up around people with disabilities and have been taught by example the importance of including these people and treating them as equals. Learning the history of how mental illness was treated, medically and socially, is important to understanding why problems of inclusion exist today.

4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?

I think understanding that mental illness is not the only part of and not the most important part of the field of psychology is important to the history of psychology. We need to understand the norms before we study the abnormal.

5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?

Like I stated in number four, understanding history of psychology in general is an important base before studying abnormal aspects of psychology, such as mental illness. One aspect of psychology we have studied that relates to mental illness and its treatment is IQ testing. One week, I researched Ellis Island and the mental tests completed on immigrants. Mental illness, as discussed in chapter 12, is treated in the same way as mental abnormalities on Ellis Island. Early on they were treated very poorly, as if they were non-human, undeserving to be treated well.

6) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?

I would like to learn more about the Anna O. case. It seems like there is more about the case that is not describe within the book. I'd like to know more about Freud's theories about the case.

7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?

Why did Phillipe Pinel suddenly decide to treating the mentally ill differently, with more respect?

8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.

Mesmerism
Hypnosis
Franz Anton Mesmer
Anna O. case
Freud
Phillipe Pinel

1a) What topic did you find interesting? 1b) why was it interesting to you?
I found the early treatment of mental illnesses by society to be really interesting. The thought at the time was the illnesses were possessions by the devil and that it was incurable. People who were mentally ill were not talked about or brought out into public to be seen. They were often times neglected. There was a sense of shame put on people with mental illness at the time, and that stigma still exists today. People began receiving treatment in the 18th century but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. One of the major activists during the time period was Phillipe Pinel who believed in moral treatment. He worked at a major hospital in France and was recognized for his efforts for trying to abolish the use of chains in restraining the mentally ill.
It is interesting see what has changed and what hasn’t in the way the mentally ill are treated. Also seeing how the similar and different the views are form then with now. The treatment of these people in the past was extreme and very inhumane. It is interesting reading about the early types of reform taken to improve conditions for the mentally ill.
2a) What person did you find interesting? 2b) why were they interesting to you?
Benjamin Rush interested me because he was one of the first people to begin letting the mentally ill walk about and study them instead of locking them away. What was more interesting was the methods that he came up with to calm his patients. First the bloodletting, a method in which he would actually bleed out his patients in order to calm them. I guess it was successful but only because when people lose blood they become weak, which translate to being calm. I can’t believe that this was ever a method! Also the chair, something that is a little bit more humane, it is interesting to me though because it kind of goes with the out of sight out of mind idea. The fact that when the brain cannot see something it will calm you. People do this all the time, when something is bothering them they get away from the situation and take a time out, this allows the mind to process and calm yourself.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? 3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I thought that the overall message of this chapter was about the mentally ill and the early treatment and diagnosis of these conditions. This chapter focused on psychopathology including mentally ill as well as hypnosis and mesmerism and then ended with talking about Freud and his theory on psychoanalysis. This chapter discusses parts of the mind and conscious/unconscious drives and thoughts. I found this chapter to be extremely interesting. I hadn’t previously learned about mental health or mental illness. I was not informed about Dorothea Dix and her contributions to reforming asylums at all
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter is a very important on. It talks about how originally in the past if you were feeble minded or even really smart, you could be viewed as possessed by spirits and demons. Especially individuals that suffered from schizophrenia. This chapter talks about how moral treatment started. It talks about the improvement of hygiene, and living conditions.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter built on what we have already learned in psychology classes. It seems a though Freud the first person that is studied in intro to psych classes and a lot of this information definitely was repeated. There was a lot of new information that I took away from this chapter. I learned more about how psychoanalysis developed and the evolution.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 6b) Why?
I would really like to learn more about the leaders and originator that worked hard to bring about change in the ways that the mentally ill were being treated. We hear about the bad condition that were in the asylum but not really a whole lot about the evolution of the treatments and how these treatments were discovered and tested. In order to keep improving the system, we need to be aware of where it started from.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter? How often were/are people misdiagnosed?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Mental illnesses, Phillipe Pinel, Benjamin Rush, bloodletting, Dorothea Dix, schizophrenia, Freud, hypnosis

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic I found to be most interesting was the origins of mesmerism and its transformation into the field of hypnotics.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting to be because I have always had a fascination with hypnosis and to learn that it had its origins in the field of psychology is a very interesting way to tie a few of my interests together. I had no idea that the psychology of hypnosis started with a man who was convinced that aligning the bodies magnetic balances, animal magnetism, could cure people of illnesses and rid them of symptoms. The transformation of this field into hypnosis is interesting as well. While this transition had a little more basis in science, it still had its questionable tendencies, such as mainly being used on women and only curing things such as stomach aches or fainting spells. Its transformation can even be seen in our society today. I've heard on the radio now and then hypnosis sessions to help you quit smoking, or lose weight, and it is very common at colleges to host hypnosis show for the students entertainment.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Franz Mesmer to be the most interesting person to me this chapter.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Mesmer was the most interesting person because his findings with animal magnetism did start out with a loose basis of what he thought were facts, and spiraled into an almost cult like following of mesmerism. I also find it fascinating that because of his work with magnetics the word 'mesmerize' was coined after him and his work.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I believe the overall message of this chapter was how mental illness was perceived and attempted to be treated at the time.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
It was very interesting to me because this part of psychology, mental illness and its treatments, have always been very interesting to me.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe understanding the atrocities that happened with mental health and its treatment is very important in understanding the history of psychology because it is a reminder of where we cannot go back to. The mistakes that were made came at the cost of the well being and some times the lives of humans, and it is very important that these mistakes were not made in vain, that we learned and can and will continue to evolve from them.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter has built onto what I have already learned on its topic of Freud which is a man who I have heard about in every single one of my psychology classes.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about hypnosis
6b) Why?
I want to know what sort, if any validity it holds in psychology today. I have heard of people even today opting to use hypnosis instead of anesthesia for surgeries and I would like to know about the subject in general.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I would like to know how often hypnosis is used in therapy today. I've heard of hypnosis to help you lose weight, quick smoking and so on, are they all gimmicks or do they work?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Mesmerism, hypnosis, Franz Mesmer, animal magnetism,

1a) The topic I found to be most interesting was about dementia praecox.
1b) It was the most interesting to me because, it is now called schizophrenia, of the what happens with those people who suffer from it. The previous name was established by Emil Kraeplin. Dementia praecox translates to premature dementia. I find this mental disorder to be really interesting. Those who suffer from schizophrenia suffer from so many different symptoms. For example schizophrenics hallucinate, have trouble concentrating, they often mutter incomprehensible things and phrases. Learning about schizophrenia is very intriguing.
2a) The person I found to be most interesting was Franz Anton Mesmer. 
2b) I found him to be extremely interesting because of his many findings, research and discoveries. He basically discovered hypnosis. He would give his patients a heavy dosage of iron medicine and use a magnet over their bodies. This was called animal magnetism, later called hypnosis. He was no longer allowed to practice in Vienna and moved to Paris. He renamed animal magnetism and called it mesmerism. He faded from history but his practices lived on.
3a) The overall message of this chapter was very informational. It included the works of Freud. It discussed hypnosis, schizophrenia, and the early treatments of mental health. 
3b) I found this chapter to be one of the most interesting chapters that we have gone over so far in this book. It was interesting to learn that mental illness was regarded so poorly as it was back then. I also liked the information on asylums and the treatments they believed worked. It was also interesting to learn that schizophrenia had a different name as well as hypnosis.
4) I think the most useful information from this chapter was the new idea that mental illness could be helped, cured or treated. Many didn’t believe it was possible, that it was a cause of witchcraft, and many other beliefs. It helped shaped the future treatments that have become much more humane and reasonable. Freud is also a major contributor to psychology. Some of his ideas are still in use and he is regarded pretty highly despite some of his theories having fallen out of favor.
5) It builds on to what we have already learned in that psychology was advancing and it was advancing fast. Without some of the experiments that they did we wouldn’t have progressed as fast. It really showed how much development we have gone through to the treatments we see today with the mentally ill and how previous treatments have been disregarded now.
6a) I would like to learn more about early treatments of the mentally ill.
6b) It was interesting to see what they believed would work to help those that needed it. Many of the treatments were ridiculous but it really shows how we have learned from trail and error. It also shows the beginnings of something that was believed to be hopeless. They chained people up and locked them up for years sometimes because they needed to be kept away from society and by learning more I believe it would help to understand why.
7) One question I did have was how could people be treated so poorly back then and why didn’t anyone realize they were human and needed to be treated as such.
8) TERMS:
Freud
hypnosis
mesmerism
mentally ill
asylum
mental health
schizophrenia
Emil Kraeplin
Franz Anton Mesmer
dementia praecox
premature dementia
animal magnetism

1a)
1b)
I was very interested in learning about the history of Sigmund Freud and the history of psychoanalysis. Most of what I had heard of Freud was the “myth of the hero” events as the text stated. My prior idea of Freud was that he was an old man who had some big ideas that a lot people thought were accurate and most of the theories included sexual desires or instincts. I had also heard that Freud hated women or at least saw them as inferior beings. Instead, as the author had stated, basically all of what I had heard in the past was false information. It assures me a bit to know that Freud’s biases towards females did not go much past the typical Victorian beliefs, especially since he was encouraging to most women who wished to pursue an education in psychoanalysis (such as his daughter Anna). I did find it interesting--although honestly not that surprising--that Freud was willing to completely lose friendships, some of which later becoming intense rivalries, because others disagreed with his theories and opinions and he was not about to change his mind or theories for anyone but himself. I also am a bit grateful for these “breakups” because in return we were given Alfred Adler and his individual psychology, as well as Carl Jung and his analytical psychology, both of which have contributed greatly to modern therapy techniques.

2a)
2b)
The person I found most interesting was Franz Anton Mesmer. I found him to be most interesting because, for starters, I had no idea that was where the word “mesmerize” originated. Secondly, I was especially intrigued by his outcasting from Vienna to which the author so fittingly followed with, “It was time to move on.” Mr. Mesmer was not about to be deterred and he was going to make something of his potentially magnetic powers. I personally am glad for Mesmer’s insistence on the function of mesmerism (even if it did not entirely workout for him as he may have wished) because of its development into neurypnology and then into hypnotism, because this is an area that interests me. I think that the coolest contribution that Mesmer and his mesmerism made was the use of the “crisis state” or trance that was used as an “anesthetic” for surgeries. Amputating a leg and the patient not even giving a twitch of a muscle is a pretty impressive use.

3a)
3b)
I felt the overall message was to see an early view of the diagnosis and discovery, as well as overall attitudes and cultural changes in these views, of mental illness. I found it to be especially interesting that Emil Kraepelin, who discovered (and was first to truly research) dementia praecox, or schizophrenia as it is known today, was really close friends with Aloys Alzheimer, who discovered and researched Alzheimer’s disease. Freud and his psychoanalysis also played a big role in his chapter but I felt that it still tied into the overall message of the diagnosis of mental illness. With a lot of Freud’s early work involving hysteria patients and really promoting the setup of treatment, and really the patient-counselor setting itself as we often stereotype it today, I felt he had a significant place in this chapter.

4)
Understanding the background of Freud as it more accurately happened is what I would probably find to be the most useful. Freud is a hot topic that seems to come up in every psychology or therapy class I have taken, so I feel that having a more accurate understanding of him and his theories will help me to sort out what is “myth of the hero” and what is truth, as well as help me to better choose which of his theories and ideas (or aspects of them) I will put into my own “therapy toolbox”.

5)
I already knew about mistreatment of the mentally ill, but I did not realize how far back in history that mistreatment reached or how long some have advocated for the betterment of their lives. I had a slight idea how it would have worked for someone who was mentally ill but I was under the impression that it is only for the poor who went to these asylums. I had not realized that the start of treatment of illness had not been thought of as an option yet for anybody, not just the poor. I sort of assumed that those who were rich would go to a psychiatrist until I read about Clifford Beers and his experience in an institution. A well educated and likely affluent man getting depressed and being put into an institution surprised me. I am glad that the author made a point to say that since he had been released, and later wrote a book about his experiences, this showed not only all of the mistreatment that went on but also that mental illness was not permanent, but rather treatable if someone knew how.

6a)
6b)
I would be interested in knowing more about Freud’s actual history and what Mesmer might have to say about the development of his concept of mesmerism into hypnotism and its uses today.

7)
My questions are what kind of results would Sigmund Freud have in relation to the Big Five personality traits and what parts of his life (especially childhood) led him to be so sure of his own opinions that he was willing to completely destroy long-time friendships because they disagreed with his theories and opinions. I would include the act of his followers making arguments that those who were critics and disagreed were then just further proving his point, based on random subconscious happenings, to the investigation of his potential narcissism.

8)
Sigmund Freud, Emil Kraepelin, Aloys Alzheimer, dementia praecox, hysteria, mesmerism, hypnotism, neurypnology, Clifford Beers, Franz Anton Mesmer, Alfred Adler, individual psychology, Carl Jung, analytical psychology

1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic from this weeks reading I found very interesting was mesmerism and hypnotism.

1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This topic interested me for a few reasons. Firstly, I was shocked when I read about James Esdaile and his research that amputations done with mesmerism-induced anesthesia had only a 5% mortality rate and that this was even done. Secondly, I was hypnotized in high school at post-prom and I still to this day am not sure if I was actually under some trance or I was just a good actor and the group contagion caused me to enact whatever I was told to do. Thirdly, I am very curious as to how hypnotism works and the book does not provide an answer. Only that it's done through the power of suggestion.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
A person from this weeks reading that I found interesting was Clifford Beers and it wasn't because of his last name.

2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I found Clifford Beers interesting because he spent over three years in three different mental institutions. The text doesn't specify exactly how he got committed to one of these but it says it was due to a suicide attempt, followed by a year of depression. I find it interesting that he spent so much time in multiple institutions because of depression. This makes me interested in how he was committed and believe that he perhaps became more convinced he needed to be there with how he was treated.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the overall message of the chapter was to show us how we came to need the DSM and to show that although these mentally ill patients were not treated correctly, it was because we did not know how to treat and help them. They were, at the time, a lost cause.

3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
Yes this chapter was very interesting to me because it delved into questions that even today don't have answers that are easy or even answers at all. I also think today, the mentally still aren't treated fairly but this showed me that things are way better than they were in the past.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think something that will be useful to understanding the history of psychology is how badly the mentally ill were treated in medieval times. This is because we must look at this from a historic perspective. The reason it was not important how these people were treated to the rest of the population is because at the time there was no hope for them. People saw them as a lost cause because they were not understood. From a presentist view, many of the treatments done to the mentally ill seem inhumane but at the time, it was their only options because they didn't have the technology or means to give these people the treatments they actually needed.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter also talked about Sigmund Freud and the Psychoanalytical Approach, this is something that I have learned about in almost all of my psychology classes but this chapter elaborated on what the times were like as well. This helped me understand why he had some of the theories that he had that today, seem crazy. His Oedipus Complex is one of these for example.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
A topic I would like to learn more about is hypnotism.

6b) Why?
I want to learn more about hypnotism because it has always intrigued me, since I've been little. I also want to know more because I am still shocked that people were amputated with only hypnotism to sedate them.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I wonder what other practices like hypnotism are used in psychology today but still not fully understood at a biological level.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terminology: Mesmerism, hypnotism, James Esdaile, group contagion, Clifford Beers, DSM, historic and presentist view, Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalytical Theory, Oedipus Complex