How Has Mental Health Changed In The 19th Century

From Mad, Bad to Glad.
A brief look at mental health and it’s progression from the 19th century.

Mental Health issues have been around for centuries. This essay sets out to take you on a journey through time revealing how much care provision for those with mental health issues has changed since the 19th century and identifying how this has had an influence on attitudes towards mental health and mental illness.
Firstly some background information is needed. Before the 18th century the responsibility of the mentally ill lay with the family and community. The first Lunatic Asylum recorded in Europe was the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, founded in 1247, later known as Bedlam, first hosting the mad in 1370s.(Bedlam book p2). In 1774 The Madhouse
It now clearly separated idiots and imbeciles from lunatics. ( open univer web). When the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act came into effect colonies were built rather than hospitals to isolate “defectives” from ordinary society in case more interbreeding led to more “defectives” being born.(studymore web).This Act was also responsible for the possibility to incarcerate women who had “illegitimate” children on welfare.(open uni). The 1959 Mental Health Act, (1960 in Scotland), no longer accepted promiscuity or other immoral conduct, by themselves, as reasons for incarceration.(studymore web). The Act incorporated the voluntary treatment of patients and only those who were believed to harm themselves or others would be admitted, encouraging community care. A steady change in treatment and attitude from the 1886 Idiots Act, the 1890 Lunacy Act, and through the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act which sought to incarcerate people on moral grounds. Another breakthrough came in a 1926 report by the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder which stated that “mental and physical illness should now be seen as overlapping and not as distinct” (Rogers & Pilgrim op cit)( mental health
Dorothea Dix was an American social reformer who in 1855 visited all the asylums and madhouses in Scotland uncovering numerous cases of horrific abuse and evasion of responsibility, which reflected the English experience and campaigned for an enquiry into the asylums and lunacy law which sparked Scottish reform. (asylumgeography). From 1888-1939 Sigmund Freud, a neurologist and psychiatrist, published his Psychoanalytic Theory and developed all types of treatments ranging from “talking cures”, “free association” and “Dream analysis.” Freud’s psychoanalysis technique was well recognised for treating mental illness from early to mid-1900s.(skills and drills). Ugo Cerletti an Italian psychiatrist developed a treatment called Electroshock Therapy later to be termed Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). (faq web).This treatment was used on schizophrenic patients and people with severe depression and has continued into the 21st century even though there was some controversy over the mistreatment and abuse of patients within the asylums. Between 1928 -1931 Dr Manfred Sakel used Insulin Coma Therapy. (ICT) This shock therapy was used on schizophrenic patients and was popular at that time.(frontierweb). Egas Moniz introduced a technique called a lobotomy, an invasive procedure into the brain severing the nerves connecting the frontal lobes