History of Psychiatry.. My Class Project

Hello Folks!

Yep...going to school again has it's funny points but on the other hand there are many spiritually enlightening  concepts and ideas that come to the surface...Ideas and concepts are shared whole heartily among students and teacher..thus resulting in a very positive experience for all! The above  research topic was submitted to our NGH Hypnosis class for April 2011.

                                         History of Psychiatry

Let's analyze the time period prior to actual psychiatry. Around 1000 BC in Egypt a patient diagnosed with mental illness was thought to be possessed by demons. Their cures at the time? They were treated by exorcism and the utilization of excrement. Even though historic records does not mention the effectiveness of this treatment we can surely say that it wasn't effective.

5th century BC. In ancient Greece Plato classified mental illness using mythology. The four categories were:
Prophetic, ritualistic, poetic and erotic. Modern day records does not record if any therapies evolved from these categories.

400BC. Slight improvement in the understanding of the human mind began in ancient Greece. The father of modern medicine (Hippocrates) isolated the brain as the organ of thought and feeling. The first isolation of anxiety and depression was attributed to mental illness.History does not say if treatments were used in this very early period.

1700-1800 AD-France. A new therapy of injecting lambs blood into mental patients evolved. Once people started dying from this it was immediately discontinued. Further classifications were generated such as retardation, mania, or demonic possession. No records of therapies under these classifications were found.

18th Century France. French Dr. Philip Pinel pleads to society to treat the insane more humanly. At that time the insane were chained like wild animals. His pleas and observations eventually led to better treatment which further led to more gentleness, persuasion and a more cheerful environment.Even though society's intentions were good it was very difficult to implement. It later disappeared as a main attitude shift.
At the same time Dr. Joseph Gall from France developed the science of phrenology. They believed the intellect and emotional functions could be studied by examining bumps on the head. It was practiced for over 100 years but no historical data past that time period was found.

19th Century Europe. Psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin made more advances in classifying mental illness. No improvements were initiated from this and historical records show no treatments evolved from these advancements in classification.

1879-Germany. Wilhelm Wundt developed the first laboratory for experimental psychology and moved the study of the human mind from philosophy, natural sciences, and religion to the domain of the medical doctor. Even though Wundt never really proves that the mind and brain are one entity the general consensus today is that it is.

1900's Austria. Sigmond Freud, publishes the interpretation of dreams and is the seminal starting point in the evolution of psychotherapy. This type of psychology  deals with issues of the subconscious. He follows Wundt and makes the prediction that all mental processes could be examined and explained in biochemical terminology.

1930...ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy) were starting to be used on the insane. It was and still is considered a brutal and evasive treatment. Despite the pro-ECTers it has never been found to cure one single mental illness. My interpretation of this was that medical professionals administering this so called therapy never really vigorously complained and even today it is being used in a limited sort of way.

50-60's Psycho-surgeries such as lobotomies were being done in the US, Europe and Russia. Certain nerves were cut in the brain which  made the patient a walking Zombie... half functioning and mentally disabled. Again this practice was soon abandoned and found to be too cruel to be continued. (please note the movie One flew over the Cuckoo's nest..in which Jack Nickelson get's a lobotomy at the end of the movie)

Enter: The medication Age: Thorazine was introduced to treat psychotic patients and was eventually replaced by the so called new and improved Hadol..which was a bit more effective than Thorazine.In fact the list of side effects is virtually similar to Thorazine . Hadol is the most commonly used anti-psychotic drug being used in the last 20 years. The new anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa (olanzapine) has minimized the side effects only slightly but prolonged use can lead to Tardive Dyskinesia (irreversible disease involving uncontrollable movements of the body)
Again all these drugs shows us that we are all guinea pigs to a monster 'Pharma -Devil' which really hasn't changed in the last 40 years.

Enter: The Neurotransmitter Revolution. During the 70's it was discovered that the body has it's own opiate chemicals in certain neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are comprised of chemicals which send impulses through the nervous system. The actual neurotransmitters are actually opiates and are called Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Acetylchlorine, Dopamine, and gamma-aminobutryicacid ..

Where did the lies and deception begin? Well...when some big money men from Big Pharma said that these "re-uptake inhibitors"(more steady flow of these neurotransmitters in pill form) could be a cure for depression. If we examine the time line of deception we can say that at this critical point the science stopped and the snake of profit and greed begins..

The old saying : "If you build it they will come" holds true.Using comparison analysis, if someone announces a cure for depression there will be millions who will buy into it. Enter:  The anti-depressant scam of deceit. Most doctors now believe that the lack of sufficient neurotransmitters in the body is the result of such diseases as schizophrenia, anxiety, stress disorder, and OCD.This could be an educated guess by the medical researchers but the confusion lingers on as dozens of these drugs flood the market..only to line the pockets of the drug companies.

Honorable mention to this Insanity..(The Rose among the thorns)
Carl Jung gives us encouragement and positive  reflections. Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology. He developed the concepts of the introverted and extroverted personality and the collective unconscious (archetypes). He was the only research psychiatrist who had a more holistic approach to the human mind linking it with the collective unconscious (as expressed in dreams and the imagination). Some say he really promoted a religious viewpoint of the human mind but remains influential in religion and literature as well.. He continued to research the unconscious from the earlier work of Freud.
His most interesting introduction to a novel theory was the term "Synchronicity" which stipulates that certain co-incidences in nature and day to day life are really an expression of a deeper order.
Jung believed that synchronicity served a similar purpose in a person's life to dreams but with the purpose of shifting a person's misguided conscious thinking to a more greater wholeness. Jung was the first to acknowledge the mind as something far more important than one realizes and that it could also be spiritually significant to the evolution of humanity..In order to get a better understanding of Carl Jung let us quote some of his famous lines which to many are quite profound....Please read his quotes below and examine this blog and the situation around you and see if it applies in your life..

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct  acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves"

"Where love rules there is no will to power and where power predominates love is lacking. The One is the shadow of the other".......(taken from the psychology of the unconscious 1917)

"if one does not understand a person one tends to regard him as a fool"

"In all chaos there is a cosmos and in all disorder a secret order"

"man's main task is to be conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious "

"The healthy man does not torture others generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers"

In my research Carl Jung has resonated profoundly and because of this we can cite many examples in nature which could attest to a secret order to events or co-incidences...such as synchronicity..please have an open mind and decide for yourself if you want to implement this concept into your own life!

Is it a co-incidence that beets are red and human blood is also red? Betacyanin is the pigment that gives it's red color. It is absorbed in the blood corpuscles and can increase the Oxygen carrying content of human blood by up to 400 per cent! It is a traditional treatment for leukemia when eaten regularly and aids in certain oxidation stress related disorders.It builds and cleans the blood building up it's iron while keeping the arteries flexible... thus lowering blood pressure significantly! Is there a deeper order behind this? You decide!

Walnut: is  shaped like a brain when opened from the shell. It has omega 3 and is actually good for the brain membranes while giving the brain the fatty acids necessary to function...The walnut actually is split in two just like the left brain and a right brain ....Co-incidence? you decide!

metamorphosis  of a caterpillar..after several weeks turns into a butterfly...more like suspended animation for a while then turns into something greater..could be compared to our lives ...we die then can evolve into something better? Maybe our death is temporary just like the caterpillar who is non functional for several weeks? There are some who think this is a synchronous  event in nature...a clue in nature for us to ponder!

The Titania sunk 2 years before the Titanic..very similar sounding names and both well documented..could it be synchronicity at work? Mere co-incidence of very closely sounding names? You decide!

Carl Jung and maybe even Freud have been very influential in a holistic and pure sort of way..paving the way to a more holistic approach to psychiatry and isolating the subconscious as an important factor..They certainly have made me think about using a more holistic approach..drug-less and less evasive procedures resonate more loudly to a lot of people..By studying Jung and Freud.. Hypnosis, meditation and yoga make terrific sense to someone who may be looking for answers..

Nevertheless, no significant progress to date in psychiatry has been achieved. To be honest the only intention of the historical time line of Psychiatry was that of CONTROL. ECT, psycho-surgeries, and mind numbing drugs are really not a cure for mental illness but in reality were only aimed at establishing CONTROL over the mentally ill...

Stay tuned for the next entry of the verifiedbeliever....Love ya!