Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Stone, Michael H
• Maj, Mario
• Tasman, Allan
• Lieberman, Jeffrey A
• Kay, Jerald
• First, Michael B

Titel

A Brief History of Psychiatry

Ist Teil von

• Psychiatry, 2008, p.203-242

Ort / Verlag

Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2008

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley-Blackwell Online Books - All Titles (includes Withdrawn titles)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter covers the history of the treatment and classification of mental illnesses, beginning with the philosophers and religious figures of the pre‐Christian era. Examples are given of the Buddha's approach to the therapy, as we would now call it, of a woman driven mad by the death of her infant. The early Greek classification of mental conditions is described, including melancholia and mania—terms still in use today. Mental illness was often ascribed to supernatural forces such as the Devil or (in Islam) evil spirits called “jinns.” More rational approaches to mental conditions were developed in the 15th century when, for example, Vives asserted that the soul was not from a divine source but came from the body. Johann Weyer in the 16th century debunked the notion of “witches.” Descartes in the 17th century gave a sensible classification of the emotions, though for him body and soul were still distinct. Burton gave a detailed account of melancholy. Francis Bacon wrote his Advancement and Proficiency of Learning, where the imagination and reason are seen as two independent mental faculties. Willis gave an early description of what we now call schizophrenia. Wolff in Germany used the term psychology in the modern sense in his 18th‐century monographs. Battie in England wrote the first psychiatric textbook in English. Later Mesmer was to cure milder mental disturbances via the power of suggestion. His techniques evolved into Braid's use of hypnosis in England and to the work of Charcot on hysteria. These advances were the forerunners of Freud's psychoanalysis. Earlier in the 19th century the texts of the French “alienists”—Pinel and Esquirol—became available, containing chapters on diagnosis and treatment. More humane methods were inaugurated by Chiarugi and Pinel—in removing the chains from hospitalized mental patients. French physicians in the late 19th century described bipolar illness and obsessive compulsive disorder. In the 20th century, America became prominent in psychiatry, both in the arenas of psychotherapy and biological psychiatry. Developments over the past 50 years have been so numerous (psharmacotherapy, diagnosis, forensics, child and adolescent psychiatry, epidemiology, etc.) that they are here represented in tabular form at the end of the chapter.