my lovely term paper for life science on psycho therapy

Throughout history different forms of psychiatric therapy have been used, experimented with, and rejected. Forms of therapy range from physical means, such as drugs and psychiatric surgery, to more of a one on one or even a group discussion type therapy. Along with therapy evolving so has the classifications of what is considered mentally ill and what is not. Psychiatry in itself was once stigmatized and is now becoming more common and less feared (Palmer), to the point that almost every one knows someone in therapy or on medication for a mental illness, where in the earlier 20th century being ill was not something people shared openly or accepted.

Different forms of therapy ranging from pills, surgery, submission techniques, psychoanalysis, and institutions of nurture have been experimented with, extinguished, and developed over the years. The most referenced form of psychiatric surgery, the lobotomy, was created in 1890 when Friederich Golz used dogs as subjects to make them calmer by slicing their frontal lobes.(Rotten) Gottlieb Burkhardt decided to try the procedure on humans, with successful trials for 5 out of the six patients used in the experiment. The patients did not necessarily get better but did become much easier to handle, which was Burkhardt's goal. Making docile patients and controllable people is largely the true goal of psychiatric methods. There is no attempt or intention to bring about sanity, happiness, causitiveness or responsibility for the patient.(Zimmer) More experiments were carried out using humans and animals such as monkeys, and a year later lobotomies were taken to the next level by Walter Freeman who began using a faster technique where an ice pick like object was used and was inserted into the eye socket verses the previous technique where holes where drilled into the patients head. The same affect was reached but in a shorter amount of time. During his "career," he performed an estimated 3,500 or more lobotomies, fully aware of the destruction he was causing.(Zimmer) The lobotomy grew in popularity to the point where in 1942 approximately 5,000 people were lobotomized each year and in1949 Egaz Moniz won a Nobel prize for his technique.(Austin,1) Not only are lobotomies not a thing of the past, even after the gruesome tales of how they didn't fix the patients but made them easier to handle, as if they were an annoying pet or something one doesn't want to deal with but they have been further developed and are now being practiced safer using radio active implants, proton beams, cryogenisis and ultrasonic waves(Austin,1) to simulate the same effects. A more encouraging fact is that even though lobotomies are still being preformed fewer than 20 psycho surgical operations are now carried out each year in the United States and are not as damaging as lobotomies once were.(Austin,1)

Another more recent form of therapy, shock therapy, or Electro convulsive Therapy (ECT) is thought to have been banned by many. But in the United Kingdom studies show in the three month period of January to March 1999, 2,800 patients were shocked with 16,000 individual administrations of electroshock. Of 700 of these patients detained against their will during this time, 59% were given ECT against their will. (Austin,2) Side effects include memory loss, permanent epilepsy, dyskinesias, tics and twitches and even death. ECT is performed by placing electrodes on either side of the patients head or sometimes just on the one side, shocks are administered about 6 10 times in intervals of 3 shocks a week. ECT is marketed in the psychiatry field as quick and cost effective.(Austin,2)

There were many other forms of therapy used that were not quite as damaging and controversial as shock treatment and lobotomies. There were many procedures used just to scare the patients into submission. Examples are confinement to a chair, referred to as the Tranquilizing Chair and plunging patients into ice cold water from a bridge that would collapse unexpectedly. These procedures caused the patients to be quiet and to comply with the doctors, but never actually cured them.(Pols)

Therapy was not always so cruel and demeaning, some religious groups felt that insane people were more so misguided and confused and needed to be nurtured and helped. In 1792 William Tuke, a Quaker, collected funds and created a retreat where patients where surrounded with a nurturing pleasant environment.(Pols) People grew interested in his ideas and the first United States mental hospital was opened in 1859, The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital.

A man heavily associated with psychology, Sigmund Freud made psychoanalysis popular. It is now one of the most popular and common forms of therapy. This form of therapy uses a persons psyche instead of their biological aspects to determine their problems. Psychoanalysis has been one of the most influential treatment methods in the twentieth century. (Pols) The only problem with psychoanalysis was the expensive cost, so some patients were still made to suffer more primitive means of therapy.

In the more current culture psychotherapy is losing followers and the majority of patients are now using pills to solve their problems, which were once reserved for the extremely ill, but are now being taken by people who can manage every day life but suffer from depression and anxiety. This treatment is viewing psychological ailments as biological problems once again instead of viewing variables and events in our lives, interpreting pain and suffering as caused by brain chemistry rather than by unusual challenges faced in life. (Pols)

Throughout time what is being defined as mentally ill has been changing. Homosexuals are no longer recognized as being mentally afflicted, and promiscuity has become a symptom instead of a disease in itself. When the church was more involved with the government and citizens, having problems that reflected sinful activity were classified as being possessed by a demon or even a witch, the people of the church did not recognize gamblers or lustful women as having a mental problem as much as they made it seem it was their own fault for not being one with God. Even in different countries mental illness means something entirely different. Eastern cultures tend to not recognize depression because it is their tradition to not complain repeatedly about vague symptoms and in some cultures women's complaints are almost entirely ignored, being brushed off due to hormones, blamed on their time of the month, and even that women are naturally sensitive and emotional. Women have been subject to ads for Prozac with a tone making it come off as if being depressed or anxious is something happening to all women. One advertisement depicts a woman almost dancing in front of a giant box made to look like laundry detergent with the words: Prozac, Mood Brightener, New Improved Life! Fresher! Cleaner! Better than Ever!, Wash Your Blues Away! (Pols)(attached) Making it appear to women that it is normal and that all they have to do is buy a little pill to make their lives better, which causes a dependency which could probably have been avoided with a little therapy to find out what is wrong with their life instead of what they think is wrong with their brain.

When psychiatric therapy first came about it was a rather taboo subject where people who were ill were treated like they were no longer human, When physicians became interested in insanity, lunacy, and madness, they portrayed mentally ill individuals as having lost their reason, which makes us human beings human.(Pols) The techniques were barbaric with little care for the patient and its been portrayed even in more recent institutions that the patients do not particularly matter and that they are there only to be rehabilitated enough to be placed back into society with out causing problems. Doctors were using people as guinea pigs to understand how to sedate them easier, and most treatments were not proven to work, or cure anything at all. The treatments were similar to training an animal where if the patient did not perform well or fit in well with society you gave them either positive or negative reinforcement until they learned to follow the rules of society, but this does not help the individual who is seeking help. Even though some institutions have been rumored to still treat patients like this, therapy and psychiatry have grown into a very respectable field. Going to therapy has become common and for some people its a way of life that does not seem strange or wrong to them. Some people use therapy to regulate themselves, to have someone to talk to when they have no other outlet, or some are even introduced to it through a friend or family member and just enjoy having it to turn to, not necessarily using it because they think they are ill. With group therapy being prominent in todays culture you can join a group for just about any problem or reason imaginable, its not just for adults portrayed as stressed out and in need of therapy, schools as young as elementary offer therapy and counseling for student with subjects ranging from assault and bullying to dealing with a divorce. Psychiatric therapy has become an every day, unavoidable aspect of life even if its imagined as extreme treatment it does include counseling and more calm, less medical approaches. Because counseling, therapy, and some anti-depressant drugs became so common defining mentally ill in our society is almost impossible, the line between sick and well is blurred. Some one can be a little neurotic but not need medication while at the same time someone seemingly fine could qualify to be on some form of medication or therapy, but no one can really say for sure who is more sane of the two.

Psychiatric Therapy has changed drastically throughout the years, becoming more humane and less experimental, though there are still lapses in current strategies. Time and society have redefined aspects of how psychological illnesses are viewed and handled, and it will continue to change with the debate of psychological ailments being mental or physical. Treatments can only improve with the experience being gained and the knowledge and learning we have from past mistakes and experiments.