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Issues in Mental Health

Historical views of mental illness

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 03

Overview

Recall questions on historical views of mental illness from trephination and Hippocrates' humours to medieval explanations, early asylums such as Bethlem, moral treatment, Kraepelin, chlorpromazine and deinstitutionalisation.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

An excess of which humour was thought to produce melancholia?

Key term

What happened to explanations of mental illness in medieval Europe?

Key term

Describe the conditions found in early asylums such as Bethlem.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What did prehistoric trephination involve, and what was it believed to achieve?

    Model answer

    It involved cutting or drilling a hole through the skull of a living person, apparently to release the evil spirit thought to be causing their disturbed behaviour.

  2. 2

    How did Hippocrates break with the supernatural view of madness?

    Model answer

    He argued that disturbed behaviour came from an imbalance of the four bodily humours of blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile, locating the cause inside the body rather than with the gods.

  3. 3

    An excess of which humour was thought to produce melancholia?

    Model answer

    An excess of black bile was believed to produce melancholia.

  4. 4

    Why is humoural theory regarded as an ancestor of the modern medical model?

    Model answer

    Because it treated madness as a physical disturbance of the body that could be corrected by physical means, which is the same reasoning the medical model uses today.

  5. 5

    What happened to explanations of mental illness in medieval Europe?

    Model answer

    Supernatural explanations returned to dominance, so disturbed people were frequently treated as possessed or as witches and were punished or exorcised rather than cared for.

  6. 6

    Describe the conditions found in early asylums such as Bethlem.

    Model answer

    Inmates were confined, often chained and neglected, given no real treatment, and members of the public could pay to come and stare at them as a form of entertainment.

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