The asylum for the Criminally insane

Untitled Part 1

The asylum for the Criminally insane

An asylum for the insane is more than u know they build them out of stone it is a house for those who could not take care of themselves, for those who heard voices, who had strange thoughts and did strange things, the house was meant to keep them in once they came they never left,the house has an everlasting history that will scar the people who live their life for life written by Nathan.T.Blaes

The First Facilities: The first mental asylum can be traced back as early as the 5th century in the Middle East. Prior to that, families who had members suffering from mental health disorders just kept their ill relatives at home. Even after the advent of the mental asylum, it really wasn't until the 18th and 19th centuries that urbanization allowed for greater access to these facilities. A psychiatric hospital in Aleppo, Syria, that operated from the 14th century into the 20th century. A Prison, Not a Hospital: Most sufferers of mental disorders throughout history have not been treated as patients, but rather as prisoners. This illustration depicts female mental patients chained up at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France. Although the facility has since evolved into one of the largest hospital's in Europe In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the lists of reasons that people were admitted to these facilities ranged from (what are now known to be) actual medical conditions, chemical imbalances, mental issues, poverty, crime, and even just when people became too much of a burden for their families. The mental hospitals of that era had some of the most horrific and torturous "treatments" that you can imagine. Reading these treatments is like reading entries out of Dr. Mengele's experiment journal. It makes a lot of sense that these places would at least be very creepy, Made in America: Psychiatric institutions first appeared in the United States during the Colonial era as a result of urbanization, according to the website of the U.S. Surgeon General. In this photo, Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum, built in New York at the beginning of the 19th century, was the first municipal mental hospital in the United States, according to the American Journal of Psychiatry. A Jolt to the System: As mental health asylums gradually transformed into institutions that went from confining those with mental health disorders to treating them, psychiatrists began experimenting with different therapies for treating a range of diseases. Although drugs treating depression, anxiety, psychosis, or any number of different symptoms of a larger disorder are readily available today, early patients of the new psychological revolution did not have quite the range of options available to them. In this photo, a medical team preps a patient for electroconvulsive treatment, better known as shock therapy. Although the practice continues to this day in hospitals around the globe, its efficacy as a treatment for psychological disorders has long been questioned by the medical community. A Surgical Solution?: The lobotomy is among one of the most brutal and infamous treatments for mental health conditions. The process involves a surgeon intentionally causing trauma to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that deals with behavior and personality among other functions. Ever since its invention in 1935, the treatment has sparked controversy over its effectiveness and sheer brutality. Many patients who underwent this procedure were left permanently incapacitated; some even died. In this photo taken in 1961, a prison official preps a convict to undergo a lobotomy. "Nervous Sleep": Hypnotism was another popular early form of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. Hypnotism predated psychological study, but was first described in clinical terms in the 19th century. It was employed as a diagnostic and treatment tool by some of the earliest pioneers of the field of psychology, including Sigmund Freud, who eventually fell out of favor with the practice. Even today, hypnotism is promoted with the promise of helping patients with sleep disorders, nicotine addiction, depression, and a whole range of diseases and conditions. Art Therapy: Not all treatments are as aggressive as electroconvulsive therapy. In this photo, a painting, the product of a patient's therapy, provides medical professionals with an insight into the patient's condition. Art therapy could also be a window through which patients along with their therapists can examine past traumas or challenges that they wouldn't have been able to approach otherwise.