Introduction Everyone beginning the advanced research of mental health disorders is probably aware of the large amount of methods and ideas present in the field. Such amount may suggest a picture of huge complexity. Closer examination, however, shows that although these methods differ in important ways, they also share certain themes and historical roots.
Accordingly, this paper will examine some historical methods of dealing with people who have mental health problems. In considering this history the paper will trace early connections among what have evolved into major methods; in addition, the paper will specify some major modern methods to treat patients. By referring to the history, it is possible to understand much of the contemporary scene in mental health treatment. History
Mental health problems have been of considerable interest since at least the period of the ancient Greeks. Greek and Roman medical theories considered that behavioural abnormalities were related to imbalances in the four bodily fluids and malfunctioning of organs. Hysteria, for instance, was considered to be caused by wanderings of the womb. In the time of the Middle Ages, medical theories competed with methodical theories of treatment of abnormal behaviour.
Whether a mental disorder was blamed on physiological dysfunction or evil spirits, however, “treatment” often consisted of rejection, incarceration, or punishment, although more humane treatments were also evident at times (Neugebauer 483). The evident success of moral treatment created conditions to cure people who have mental health problems by modelling new state hospitals after the retreats. By the 1860s, nevertheless, results failing to meet expectations led to renewed pessimism about mental health problems.
The state hospitals, first inspired by moral treatment, became fiercely custodial. Why had moral treatment become unsuccessful? There were three important reasons: One was that the early cure rates had been inflated by statistical fallacies, such as counting every release from a retreat as a cure, even though the same patient was soon readmitted. A second reason was that the big state hospitals were never funded well enough to provide the family-like environment that might have accounted for any success the retreats did have.
A third was that the impoverished clientele of the state hospitals lacked the requisite skills and secure homes to facilitate adaptation to the outside world, should they improve while hospitalized (Neugebauer 483). The disappointment with moral treatment is thus not surprising. Most modern methods of dealing with people who have mental health problems are offshoots of approaches to adult psychopathology. Before considering the important modern methods, however, it will be appropriate to examine approaches to treatment in the 1950s and 1960s.