A personal journal filled with all of the information I have discovered since I first started studying mental health and psychology. Feel free to ask questions in the comment section of any chapter if you're confused or are interested in some more i...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
For years, mental health in the U.S. has been swept under the table, placed to the side, left for the rats. Upon the early discovery of personality and psychological disorders, abnormal mental health was seen as a form of punishment or demonic possession by the gods or whatever directly related to the religion discussing it. Most of them were killed or tortured in an effort to rid them of negative spirits. This played a huge role as the roots of ideas encouraging negative views towards mental illness. After more psychiatrists began looking into mental illness deeper, asylums and psychiatric hospitals were developed. Psychiatrists developed damaging techniques of treating mental illness like the lobotomy (late 1800s) or electric shock therapy [was not very damaging if used correctly, but it was more commonly not used correctly] (late 1930s) which were used on into the 70s and later. Patients instated in these hospitals were treated almost as animals. Most were abused physically and emotionally by the staff and others were overmedicated, used as scientific specimens, or treated with damaging techniques that worsened their conditions. These asylums weren't even for prisoners who were held separately, experiencing a vastly greater amount of abuse. It took years to even consider treating criminals who have mental health issues. Today, mental health is still treated as such a small issue when in fact mental illness rates are rapidly rising. There are, unfortunately, still some psychiatric hospitals that refer back to abuse due to their misunderstanding of a condition. There is definitely mistreatment of criminals, not only with the mentally ill ones. Our society needs to be better, and that's part of what drove my ideas of diving into Forensic Psychiatry. I want to make a dent in the system of reacting brashly to things we don't understand and spread awareness, so others know, we are all human, and we all deserve respect and a chance to get better.
