vintage
From Freud to phrenology to old-school outlooks, a look back at vintage psychiatry and mental health treatments as documented throughout history.
Descartes' Bad Apples Analogy
The French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) set himself the task of determining how certainty could be established. How could a person be certain that their knowledge was set upon firm foundations? His method was to doubt everything that could be doubted, with the idea that anything that remained, and which could therefore not be doubted, must be certain.
By John Welford5 years ago in Psyche
Breakfast at Lion’s
Once upon a Summer I lived on a bus in the mountains with a roommate named Lion. One July morning Lion drove the bus to a rent a car place to visit our friend Nova. Just having left the world of dreams and not having had coffee yet I was not yet ready for socializing. So Lion says here I got breakfast eat some of these and drink your coffee and I will be inside with Nova when you are awake. So I made coffee and had a morning toke. Then looked at the gallon ziplock bag on the table that he called breakfast. It appeared to be filled with special mushrooms. I had never before eaten special mushrooms but one or two might just make a wonderful breakfast. Now munchies being what they are I never could recall how many I actually ate but it was a significant sight beyond one or two.
By Miles Modine II5 years ago in Psyche
The Unsparing Psycho Surgery
The Trans Orbital Lobotomy Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the procedure that involved hammering an ice pick — like instrument into a patient’s brain directly through their eye socket, believed that this 10 — minute process will all but end the need for mental institutions. He had the best of intentions but wound up creating an entirely new kind of Horror Story.
By Manasvin Mahajan5 years ago in Psyche
The Behaviorists Theorists
Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936) Credit: http://bnhspsychology.blogspot.com/2009/12/welcome-to-bnhs-psych.html Ivan Pavlov was born in a small village in central Russia. The work that made Pavlov a household name in psychology actually began as a study in digestion.
By Kay Johnson-Clennon6 years ago in Psyche
The State of Mental Illness in America
The hard truth is that mental illness occurrences are significantly higher than what is reported by research studies. The Surgeon General expresses that very few people in a population are untouched by mental illness either directly or indirectly in their lifetime. More importantly, mental illness is often the underlying cause of many other healthcare-related events.
By Angela Harper6 years ago in Psyche
The State of Mental Health in America
The history of mental illness in the United States illustrates how our understanding of mental illness and trends in treating mental health influence both our attitude toward mentally illness and national policy policy governing mental healthcare.
By Angela Harper6 years ago in Psyche
Psychosexual Stages and Their Fixations
Before I begin, I’d like to make a disclaimer for the LGBTQ community. Although, Freud did mention in his famous letter from 1935 “…It cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development,” referring to homosexuality. Freud’s psychosexual stages assume that each individual will take on their biological gender and participate in heterosexual relationships.
By Cheyenne Harbison7 years ago in Psyche
Clouded Vision
** Holly I knew he loved me before he even saw my face. From behind, he was captivated by my shape. Over the past year and a half, it had softened and smoothed to that of any young woman. The dark chiffon of my skirt accentuated my hips, which were still growing wide. The pain in my chest and lower back confirmed my thin, pear figure was blossoming into what would seem a fertile young woman. Quite the contrary. I’d never bear a child of my own, something that still haunted my maternal disposition at the time. A child of the future that would never be. At night, all cats were grey but the feline cultivating in my mind and physicality were simply too black or too white. I couldn’t forget the past, and evening usually spent on the prowl for my generation were a constant reminder to put up a wall more often than not.
By Blaise Terese8 years ago in Psyche
The Forgotten
There are a lot of people who crack jokes about asylums, including the entirety of the horror movie industry, and how terrible they are. I am no different. Looking back on the first time I saw the clock tower building at the edge of town I distinctly remember saying it looked like an old asylum. Honestly I meant that it would make a good scene for a horror movie, little did I know that I wasn’t far off. It was a behavioral health clinic in its prime. Once I actually moved to Topeka I started taking a more in depth look into the old asylum and its property.
By Courtney Seever8 years ago in Psyche
