Mental Illness In The 1800's

There are many events that can foreshadow the rest of one’s life for the better, or, for the worst. In Charlotte Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Jane (the narrator) struggles with a mental illness that causes her to become very weak so her husband, John, takes her to a country home to heal. While at the house she stays in a room that has old yellow wallpaper. Jane is deeply disturbed yet highly intrigued and maintains her deep inspections of the wallpaper as she stays there. Though Jane seemed mostly healthy, her illness takes hold and she ends up believing she had emerged from the wallpaper. John knows Jane has an illness worse than depression and takes every precaution so that when she snaps, his name does not go down with her sanity.

Occupational Therapy began to emerge in the 1700s, during the “Age of Enlightment”. It was during this period that revolutionary ideas were evolving regarding the “infirmed” and mentally ill. At that time in history, the mentally ill were treated like prisoners; locked up and considered to be a danger to society.

Her first name, Sojourner, means that she was to “travel up an´down the land, showin´ people their sins.”

In today’s society, when someone mentions a mental institution most people picture a dark, dirty, and horrendous hospital like structure. While this image may at times be accurate, this was not always the case. Mental institutions, otherwise known as asylums, have a past full of ups and downs. During different time periods standards for care in these facilities fluctuated from proper care to improper care. With more of an understanding of these mental abnormalities we have a better chance of finding solutions and resolving them.

The insane are known to have been cursed with unclean spirits ever since the beginning of America who takes its views from the Old World. It was only during the Second Great Awakening that people, Christian activists and often women, sought to reform the prisons and asylums. For Americans, asylums are now remnants of the past; the mentally ill are now bestowed the right to live normal lives and they are now even given the choice to decide if they wish to seek help and take medication. Even so, it is undeniable that people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are unwillingly trapped inside a mind often not their own. Some of them, if left alone and uncared for, face dangers in society. Their irrational behaviors are frowned upon and physical

“I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror.”

The Reform of mentally ill was led by Dorthea Dix, a teacher and activist for the treatment of

Prior to the mid-1960 virtually all mental health treatment was provided on an inpatient basis in hospitals and institutions. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was established with its primary focus on deinstitutionalizing mentally ill patients, and shutting down asylums in favor of community mental health centers. It was a major policy shift in mental health treatment that allowed patients to go home and live independently while receiving treatment, (Pollack & Feldman, 2003).

In 1843, Dorothea Dix submitted one of her first memorials to the Massachusetts Legislature. Following her visit to East Cambridge Jail in 1841, the inadequacies in the treatment of the mentally ill Dix had witnessed were highlighted in this memorial; whilst there she saw how prostitutes, drunks and criminals were housed together in unsanitary, unfurnished and unheated quarters. During this period, the mentally ill were treated inhumanely and many believed there was no cure and that the mentally ill did not feel deprivation as “ordinary” people did. Nevertheless, due to the conditions Dix exposed herself to she was often criticised. For example her opponents stated that "no proper lady would expose herself to the moral danger" of the places

Dorothea Dix once said, “In a world where there is so much to be done. I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.”- Dorothea Dix. She was a very inspiring person who never stopped doing the right thing. Today will touch on three main points, Dorothea’s childhood, her struggles in life that she overcame, and finally her accomplishments and why she was such a great, admirable person, so let's begin.

Dorothea Dix took a stand by recognizing the importance of establishing mental institutions. Her philosophy saved mentally unstable people from the harsh treatments they once received in jails

The nurse I decided to write about is Dorothea Dix. She was an author, teacher, and a reformer. Dix fought for the mentally ill and prisoners on how they were treated across the United States as well as in Europe. She established many hospitals for the mentally ill, along with how the mentally ill can be helped or even cured. Her troubling background and family history served as an impact of her career. Dix started off with creating an elementary school within her grandmother’s home. She desired to be a school teacher and wanted to share her knowledge to young women “who dominated the teaching profession” (ncbi). Along with all of her accomplishments with teaching and being an advocate for the mentally ill, Dix volunteered during the American Civil War and was appointed to organize the Union Army hospitals as well as oversee majority of the nursing staff (history).

Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb. This combination of many mind and life altering diagnoses leads to an interesting point of view, and a deeper look into the lives of people living with the

In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.

The Anti-psychiatry movement is a perspective that psychiatric treatments are usually more harmful than beneficial to patients. The movement evaluates psychiatry as a severe appliance as a result of the unequal power between physicians and patients, and extreme diagnostic action. Anti-Psychiatry also assigns to variety of people and organizations who have been highly critical of psychiatry ever since it became public known as a medical specialty in the 1800s. The Anti-Psychiatry movement emerged in the 1960s to the early 1970s, to what some people view as bad treatments such as the electroshock therapy, insulin coma therapy, brain anatomy, and the overuse of prescription drugs which could potentially be dangerous. One of the first concerns