Early Treatments of Mental Disorders

Hippocrates (460 BC)

  • Illness was natural cause, not supernatural

  • Body → 4 humors

    • Balanced humors were healthy

    • Imbalanced humors were illnesses

  • Body → Ability to heal itself

    • A physician’s job is to help natural healing

Galen (130 AD)

  • If one humor dominates, that person has a specific personality trait

  • Phlegm → Sluggish

  • Blood → Cheerful

  • Yellow bile → Fiery

  • Black bile → Sad

  • Importance…

    • Laid groundwork for personality theory

    • Used to diagnose and treat disorders

Mental Illness in the Middle Ages

  • Mental disorders corresponded with witchcraft

    • Includes supernatural origin

  • Cruel treatments included being beaten and imprisoned in asylums

  • Calm manic symptoms…

    • Bloodletting

    • Whirling

Phillipe Pinel (1745)

  • Father of psychiatry

  • Lived in Paris

    • Helped the poor

    • Put in charge of notable asylum

  • Treated inmates with kindness (and removed restraints)

  • Cruel treatments were forbidden

  • First to use…

    • Case histories

    • Statistics

    • Record of patient improvement

Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802)

  • Horrific conditions for mentally ill

    • Improved physical conditions

    • Educated inmates

  • Travel extensively…

    • Obtained facts about inmates

    • Publicized mistreatments

    • Lobbied lawmakers

  • Many mental health facilities became established because of Dix

  • Worked in the US

Legacy of Pinel and Dix

  • Improved only patients’ physical surroundings

  • Patients were still treated poorly

    • Continued even after caregivers knew this was rooted from natural causes

  • Why?

    • Lack of knowledge

    • Fear of mental disorders

    • Mental disorders being incurable

  • Other researchers improved the understanding of mental disorders

Emil Kraepelin (1856)

  • Student of Wundt

  • Listed and classified mental disorders

    • Causes

    • Symptoms

    • Treatment

  • Influenced DSM

  • Termed “Alzheimer’s Disease”

  • Influence psychopharmacology

    • How drugs affect behavior

Lightner Witmer (1867)

  • Father of clinical psychology

  • Scientific Psych helped people

  • First psychological clinics ran by psychologists

  • First used “clinical psychology”

  • First program to train clinical psychologists

  • First journals dedicated to clinical psychology research

  • Role model for early clinical psychologists