History of Mental Health
Ancient Beliefs
In ancient times, the term “mental illness” had yet to be established. Ancient doctors focused almost entirely on bodily health, and psychic health and disease were considered more philosophical matters. Thus, various philosophers came forward and attempted to take care of the “ills of the soul” (Ahonen, 2018).
Plato
One of these philosophers is Plato, and the term “mental health” can be observed by what Plato establishes as madness. Plato establishes that there are two forms of madness: madness due to illnesses and madness due to other causes (Burton, 2012). In his book, Laws, he claims that a ‘normal’ person should be punished for his wrongdoings in order to prevent him from turning mad, whilst those who are mad due to illnesses must be contained within their homes, isolated from society.
Aristotle
The Stoics
The Sceptics & Epicureans
The 18th and 19th Centuries
The Pioneer of Modern Psychiatry and Moral Therapy: Philippe Pinel
The Transition from Moral Treatment to Mental Hygiene
Modern Discussions of Mental Health
The 20th Century
The 21st Century
Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman.
Social Media Platforms and Mental Health
Similarly, for Aristotle, the mentally ill are an aberration – they do not see sense, and hold deranged ideas that cannot be argued with reason (Shields, 2020). For example, when a person has mania or epilepsy, he explains that they regress towards animalistic behavior that strips them of their rationales. When we take a look at his famous idea of the ‘natural slave’, we see an inferred message about the mentally ill- some people are born with low rationality and that makes them natural slaves (Preus, 1986, p. 421).
Although their ideas are both extreme, they did come to an agreement that otherwise ‘normal’ people can be mad when they are consumed by their desires. But due to the fact that they closely linked mental health to morality, an idea that a person with good morals will have good mental health, their ideas can be only limitedly applied to our understanding of mental health today.
While Aristotle discussed mental illness in terms of “madness”, the Stoics believed that everybody except the stoic sage—an inaccessible ideal, rather than a concrete reality—was “mad”, and that the virtuous human soul likely does not exist (Ahonen, 2018). They argued that the madness of all mankind is “true” madness, but that this was different from the “madness” of mental illness. This distinction was particularly important to the Stoics.
On the other hand, “madness” and “mental derangement” are only occasionally mentioned in ancient Epicurean and sceptical writings. They contended less for the distinction between “madness” and mental illness. Epicurean poets such as Lucretius argued that what are now seen as common symptoms of mental health issues, such as grief, anxiety, fear, lethargy, and “madness” are evidence for the soul’s and mind’s “passability”, which related more to the idea of a soul and the non-existence of an afterlife rather than self-improvement (Ahonen, 2018).
Philippe Pinel (1745–1836) was a French physician who is, today, considered the father of modern psychiatry. Advocating for more humane approaches to the care and treatment of psychiatric patients, the personally aloof but ideologically humanitarian Pinel paved the way for the study of mental illness to expand significantly (Woods and Carlson, 1961, p. 16). Pinel’s ideas of mental illness as being related to social or psychological stressors, heredity, or physiological damage rather than demonic possession were revolutionary for his time, and his work of reform at French asylums remains relevant to this day (Woods and Carlson, 1961, p. 18).
Pinel advocated for a more “therapy-oriented” approach to treatment, gathering a multitude of data on his four categories of observable mental illnesses (melancholia, mania, dementia, and idiotism), analyzing various manifestations of them, and then initiating active therapy (Woods and Carlson, 1961, p. 21). Pinel’s active therapy included releasing psychiatric patients from their asylums, gaining their trust through kindness combined with firmness and/or strategy/coercion, and only using light force when absolutely necessary to subdue the patient enough to initiate therapy (Woods and Carlson, 1961, p. 23). He worked together with former patient Jean-Baptiste Pussin to establish these more humane treatments (Farreras, 2021). Pinel emphasized to patients that they “should not lose hope, [and] that recovery was still possible”, underscoring his humanitarian approach to psychiatry and mental health (Woods and Carlson, 1961, p. 23).
The ideology of moral treatment for the mentally ill was difficult to sustain, however, as asylums that treated the mentally ill through more humanitarian approaches became overcrowded. In America, teacher and activist Dorothea Dix advocated for the establishment of state hospitals and mental institutions (Farreras, 2021). With this, a mental hygiene movement emerged by the late 1800s and early 1900s, which aimed to reduce the preconditions for mental illness by ensuring proper upbringing, adequate living and working conditions, and more accessible psychiatric services. Thus, the idea of self-improvement in regards to mental health was not only prolific but actionable by this time.
In the early 20th century, psychotherapy was prevalent as a treatment for mental illness, with therapy focusing on broader behavioral, cognitive, or psychodynamic approaches to mental illness (Farreras, 2021). However, many physicians also held the view that mental illness was due to defects in the nervous system, in part due to the revolutionary work of Emil Kraepelin during the late 19th century. Kraepelin focused on biological or genetic malfunctions as potential origins of psychiatric disorders (Ebert & Bär, 2010). Thus, the two schools of thought on whether mental illness was due to chemical imbalances in the brain and nervous system defects (somatogenic) or psychology (psychogenic) persisted.
With the rise of rapid communication in the 21st century, mental illness became a widespread topic of discussion, with awareness of different mental illnesses being raised. Mental health became a crucial and, at times, pressing issue, and with this came different thoughts on how to improve mental health and overall life satisfaction.
One prominent figure in modern self-improvement is Martin E. P. Seligman, the founder of positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on positive events and influences in life, such as positive experiences, states and traits, and institutions. It is self-described as the “scientific study of what makes life most worth living”, emphasizing strengths rather than weaknesses (Ackerman, 2021).
Of course, we can’t discuss the 21st century without discussing social media. Though social media platforms are notorious for promoting negative self-image, cyberbullying, and depression or anxiety, social media is multifaceted, and many platforms have taken initiative to better address mental health issues. Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have features that offer support for individuals who may be going through difficult times, and also have banned hashtags to ensure negative thoughts are ot promoted (Mental Health, 2017).
However, the net effect of social media on self-image and mental health is often negative, and platforms do not fully address the extent to which their collateral damage reaches. But resources for mental health have become more accessible than ever due to the development of the internet, with suicide prevention hotlines, mental health information accounts, and self-improvement blogs becoming ubiquitous. Mental health is and has been an ever-persistent issue all throughout history, and we are still looking for ways to best address it to this day.
Work Cited
​
Ackerman, C. E. (2021, November 25). What is Positive Psychology & Why is It Important? Positive Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-positive-psychology-definition/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPositive+Psychology+is+the+scientific+study+of+human+flourishing%2C+and,%2C+and+organisations+to+thrive.%E2%80%9D.
Ahonen, M. (2018). Ancient philosophers on mental illness. History of Psychiatry, 30(1), 3-18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X18803508.
Burton, N. (2017, September 6). Plato and Aristotle on Health and Disease. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/plato-and-aristotle-health-and-disease.
Ebert, A. & Bär, K. (2010). Emil Kraepelin: A Pioneer of Scientific Understanding of Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 52(2), 191-192. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.64591.
Farreras, I. G. (2021). History of Mental Illness. Noba. https://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness.
Preus, A. (1986). Aristotle on Healthy and Sick Souls. The Nature of the Soul, 69(3), 416-433. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27902984.
Mental Health in the Modern Age. (2017, July 28). Medium. https://medium.com/@madebyalive/mental-health-in-the-modern-age-1f847ff6450.
Midelfort, H. C. E. (1981). Madness and the Problems of Psychological History in the Sixteenth Century. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 12(1), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.2307/3003698.
Shields, C. (2020). Aristotle’s Psychology. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/.
Woods, E. A. & Carlson, E. T. (1961). The Psychiatry of Philippe Pinel. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 35(1), 14-25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44446761.