History of Mental Illness By Stacy Clark Classical Understandings Early Greek Literature Mythology Homer Iliad Ajax Gods blamed for the sacred disease Healing prayers sacrifices to Asklepios god of healing Drama Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides Madness often results as Psychic civil war becomes endemic to the human condition and introspection begins to dominate drama Medea Greco Roman custom Violence cannibalism grief seen as markers No asylums family responsibility for care Fear of contagion from evil spirits keres Cure for hysteria wandering uterus marriage Idea of melancholy genius Plato Aristotle Early Medicalization Hippocrates ca 460 357 BC natural explanation for epilepsy naturalization of madness the sacred disease appears to me to be no more divine nor more sacred than other diseases but has a natural cause from which it originates like other afflictions Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder because it is not like other diseases Mania and melancholia excitement depression Humoral theory usually choler black bile Melancholy madness sometimes seen as genius i e modern ideas of bipolar creativity Plato Timaeus 375 B C E Physiological cause of madness therefore possibility of treatment by medical means Also concept of madness as a transcendental divine fire with the power to inspire Naturalistic Notions Galen Mania disease of yellow bile the heart hot disease called for cooling treatment Soranus Mental illness caused by continual sleeplessness excesses of venery anger grief anxiety or superstitious fear a shock or blow intense straining of the senses and the mind in study business or other ambitious pursuits Arataeus of Cappadocia contemporary of Galen 150 200 C E Descriptions of mental disorders depression mania melancholy bipolar disorders and epilepsy one believes himself a sparrow or they believe themselves a grain of mustard and tremble continuously for fear of being eaten by a hen Criticized Dionysian frenzies as disgraceful Greek ideas dominated medical thought for centuries providing basis for medieval European and Islamic thought Biblical Examples Madness as divine punishment Deuteronomy 6 5 The Lord will smite thee with madness King Nebuchadnezzar New Testament examples of Jesus healing demonic possession Non Western Antiquity Hinduism Goddess Grahi she who seizes India Dog demon Mesopotamia and Babylon Spirit invasion the evil eye demonic power breaking of taboos led to mental disorder If at the time of his possession his mind is awake the demon can be driven out if at the time of his possession is not so aware the demon cannot be driven out Assyrian text 350 B C E Early Christianity Holy Madness vs Diabolic Possession Supernatural forces battled for possession leading to despair anguish etc Madness of the Cross ecstatic revelations saints and mystics But cause usually diabolic spread by heretics witchcraft Anatomy of Melancholy 1621 Richard Burto Oxford sick people particularly susceptible Devil true author of despair and suicide Religious Treatments Spiritual treatment for unclean spirits masses exorcism pilgrimages Catholicism Insane cared for in religious hospitals houses Prayer counsel Bible reading Protestantism Madness as Heresy Reformation and Counter Reformation Political purposes of diagnosis False doctrine and delusion formed two sides of the same coin the mad were judged to be possessed and religious adversaries were deemed out of their mind Madness as Blaspheming against God Mental anguish bringing sinners to acute spiritual crisis leading hopefully to recovery Conversion narrative of George Trosse b 1631 Witch Hunts Late 15th cent peak around 1650 Unusual speech and behavior sign of consorting with the Devil satanic maleficium malice Over 200 000 people primarily women executed Led to popular and official skepticism of the doctrine of demonic possession Skepticism of Witchcraft Johannes Weyer 1515 1588 De Praestigiis Daemonum witches to be pitied and treated not feared and punished Product of imaginations or hallucinogenic substances Natural disasters as cause of crimes Devil s power somewhat limited by God Dr Edward Jorden 1569 1632 naturalistic explanation Hysteria suffocation of the mother Womb bred vapours which unbalanced body leading to odd behavior attributed to possession Relied on Galenic concepts Biological explanation Humoral theory Obstructions vapors as causes Misogyny remained Witches became hysterical women Witch hunting ultimately failed as tool of enforcing social order Comparisons drawn between religious extremists and mentally ill Result of 30 Years War 1618 48 English Civil Wars 1642 51 Similar behavior speaking in tongues convulsions weeping and wailings Zeal a sign of mental instability Renaissance anatomy and physiology begin to displace Greek humoral theory Vesalius Harvey Thomas Willis Coined term neurologie Excluded demonic possession from consideration Biological explanation for mental illness Enlightenment Europe The rest of Europe retained beliefs in possession longer than England by 1700 most of Europe believed in natural explanation Elites scorned religious explanations in favor of natural causes Religious beliefs became concern of psychopathology Blame placed on Methodists for surviving popular belief in witchcraft possession Pathologization of religion in general Mainly Enlightenment free thinkers Philosophes Voltaire Diderot saw Christianity as function of sick brains Doctors replace clergy as healers Reason and Rationality Rene Descartes 1594 1650 Dualism mind and body disconnect Mental illness ascribed to problems between mind and body Implied that insanity precisely like regular physical illnesses must derive from the body Thomas Hobbes 1588 1679 Materialistic worldview insanity was thus erroneous and thought caused by some defect in the body s machinery John Locke 1632 1704 insanity delusional caused by faulty cognitive processes Romantic ideas of madness for artists writers Madness as creative genius or melancholy malcontent Shakespeare Hamlet King Lear Feste 12th Night Cervantes Don Quixote Famous writers poets suffering from madness mental breakdowns Shelley Byron Rousseau Pascal Poe Nijinsky Sylvia Plath Virginia Woolf Parisian avant garde society true art from mental physical sickness Hashish opium absinthe crucial to this phase Critique of bourgeois values Medicalization of mental illness led to less romantic ideas about madness St Mary of Bethlehem Bedlam mental hospital