The history of mental illness in the past is not that pleasing neither was it humane. People with mental illnesses in the past was always treated inhumanely. Mental illness was believed to have been caused by demonic possession, witchcraft or even angry gods. These kinds of beliefs made innocent patients be treated like animals and denied excellent health care services. If a person was seen behaving abnormally then, it was thought that demons had possessed that person. In medieval times, for instance, an individual who was considered to be possessed was approached with various forms of treatments to release the spirits from them.
One of the most common treatments of the past was exorcism which was often conducted by priests or other religious persons in the area. The religious unit was given the responsibility of performing incantations and prayers over the possessed body while being given some medicinal drinks. Although this method sounds suitable and even still used today, in a real sense, the patient required medical care alongside prayers. Another example of treatment in the past that seems extreme was trephining. Trephining method involved drilling a small hole in the patient's skull just in the sake of releasing the evil spirits from the body (Furber et al., 2015). This was one of the inhumane method employed to treat mental illnesses. It was inappropriate treatmen since most people died in the treatment process when trephining was employed as a cure. Other methods include execution and imprisonment with mental disorders.
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The mental health treatment today is much better since there are mental health centers all over the nation and worldwide. In the US, for instance, mental health centers are mostly located in neighborhoods to make access to such services much more accessible. Nevertheless, mental health patients are given rights and are protected by law. They have the right to seek treatments from psychiatric hospitals which are run by the federal, state and local governments. These centers came to replace the asylums that were used before which were not that good (Furber et al., 2015). Following an illustration from the APA code of conduct in ethical principles of psychologists, the current medical ways of mental illness treatment are in respect to the first principle which is beneficence and non-maleficence. This means that psychologist work towards the benefit of others rather than themselves.
Reference
Furber, G., Segal, L., Leach, M., Turnbull, C., Procter, N., Diamond, M. … & McGorry, P. (2015). Preventing mental illness: closing the evidence-practice gap through workforce and services planning. BMC health services research , 15 , 283. doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0954-5
