Historical Maltreatment of Psychiatric Inpatients Essay

Introduction

A mental disorder is an illness that is characterized by an abnormal development. The patient may become distressed or subjected to some kind of disability. The patient suffering from such a disorder may portray abnormal character in their behavior hence leading to the patient being rendered harmful to the community.

Mental disorders dates back over million years ago. Previous study indicates that the western cultures developed a belief that the patient could be possessed by either a good or bad spirit. The behavior or speech of the patient was assessed to determine the kind of spirit that had possessed him.

If for example the patient behaved in a religious manner and exhibited some mystical signs that seem to have significance, he won the people’s admiration. On the contrary, if the patient seemed to be engaged in evil activities, the community shunned him. The religious leaders treated the particular patient by casting out the evil spirit, a process known as exorcism.

Historical View Of Maltreatment Of Psychiatric Patients

The early medicine men attempted to treat all the disorders depending on the behavior exhibited by the patient. As earlier mentioned, the primary source of treating mental disorders was through exorcisms and witchcraft. The clergy treated the patient by praying for the patient and using holy water to drive out the evil spirits.

Most of the patients during the middle ages were accused on engaging themselves in witchcraft which led them to be killed. These kinds of maltreatment triggered a movement towards the end of the Middle Age period to abolish the treatment criteria used on the ground of humanitarian interests.

The main reason for coming up with the movement was to challenge the superstitious beliefs in the western culture. Therapeutic treatment of mental illness began to be understood at the humanitarian level. The physicians insisted that mental disorder was a disease and not a possession. In the 16^th century, special refuge centers known as asylums were set up to cater for the mentally ill patients.

The asylums were primarily meant for isolating the patients from the community. They did not serve as hospitals and the patients were required to choose normalcy over insanity. The mode of treatment thereby administered was aggressive as an attempt to maintain a balance in the body and brain of the patient. The patient was intimidated by bleeding, use of strong drugs aimed at calming the nerves or even using electric shocks.

The Maltreatments Of Inpatients During The 18^th and 19^th Centuries

A clear understanding of mental disorder has not been smooth over the years. This has been attributed to factors such as social, religious and economic issues that have played a significant role in the maltreatment of the inpatients.

The western culture for example was characterized by various treatments being administered on the patients suffering from mental disorders. The mental institutions set up to take care of the mentally ill were run by unprofessionals. The medics or psychiatrists during this period played a very small role in the management of these institutions.

The care providers at the time treated the patients as insane due to the culture beliefs that had been cultivated in them. They had no training on how to handle the patients and the only mode of treatment that was administered was exerting painful procedures such as bleeding. There was a vague understanding of mental illness at the time and certain conditions such as depression were taken as a result of nervous tiredness (Barlow and Durand, 2009).

The early psychiatrists at the time argued that the nervous tiredness was as a result of emotional problems brought about by the lifestyle of the individual. In their explanation, the lifestyles problems caused the person to use excessive energies hence leading to abnormal behaviors in an individual.

The mental illness institutions that had been set up at the time became a landmark in the western cultures. The patients were subjected to all kinds of harsh conditions. The public on the other hand had been influenced by the culture to believe that the patients were insane and deserved the maltreatment being administered to them at the asylums. Due to lack of any educational background by the care providers at the time, they lacked the definite and correct means of treating the sick.

Reforms

Prior to the period before 18^th century, the patients suffering from mental disorders were treated as outcasts and had to be isolated in the asylums that had been set up for that purpose. As previously discussed, the asylums were in poor condition and no medical care was given to the patients (Butcher, Mineka and Hooley, 2010). The patients ended up dying due to the poor services and atmosphere in the asylums. There was a dire need to reform the mental institutions by early 18^th century especially in the western cultures.

An experiment set up by Philippe Pinel in 1792 gave a new perspective of the humanitarian treatment of the patients in the asylums. The experiment advocated that patients be treated with kindness like other sick people and not like outcasts. The move was grudgingly accepted leading to the patients being placed in comfortable rooms with sufficient sunlight and subsequently unchained.

The experiment recorded positive responses from the patients and considerable improvements in their behaviors. Another outstanding work during the same period was by William Tuke who set up a homely institution to house the mentally ill persons. He supported Pinel’s idea of treating the patients kindly by providing humane treatment to the mentally ill. The works by Pinel and Tuke were upheld especially in the Western cultures and other innovations were put in place by the end of the 19^th century.

Learning The Abnormal Behavior

Towards the end of the 19^th century, there was a need to learn about the behavior that was exhibited by the patients to enable them be treated. The physicians adopted a scoring guide to enable them learn the behavioral perspectives of the individuals.

One type of learning was based on the classical conditioning by Ivan Pavlon and John Watson, which involved pairing both the neutral and unconditioned stimulus many times. The process enabled the neutral stimulus to integrate with the unconditioned stimuli hence resulting to an unconditioned character.

The other scoring guide used was the operant conditioning by Thorndike and Skinner. This experiment included studying behaviors that operated in a certain environment. The study showed that the behaviors exhibited a similar repeat pattern in that particular environment. It was therefore possible to shape the behavior of the patient by studying how they repeatedly behaved in a particular environment.

Conclusion

The maltreatment of psychiatric patients during the 18^th and 19^th century in the western cultures was as a result of inadequate education of the causations of mental illness. It should however be noted that the attempt to treat the patients during the period differed from the treatment administered in the middle Ages. It can be attributed to the modern inventions that have led to understanding the causes of mental disorders and their treatments hence changing the public’s attitude towards the psychiatric patients.

Reference List

Barlow, D.H,. and Durand, M.V. (2009). Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach. USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Butcher, J.N., Mineka, S., and Hooley, J.M. (2010). Abnormal Psychology (14^th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.