The Stigma The History Trepanation St. Vitus Dance Introduction
to Mental Health
Slide 2
Stigma and Mental Illness The lives of people with mental
health conditions are often plagued by stigma as well as
discrimination. Stigma is a negative stereotype. Stigma is a
reality for many people with a mental illness, and they report that
how others judge them is one of their greatest barriers to a
complete and satisfying life.
Slide 3
Stigma is the negative treatment that may result from a
condition or experience one may experience Mental Health patients
experience negative treatment due to stereotypes that exist around
their condition Discrimination results on multiple layers
(intersecting) For example, a woman with a mental illness may
experience discrimination due to sexism as well as her illness, and
a racialized individual may experience discrimination due to racism
in addition to their mental illness. In addition, living with
discrimination can have a negative impact on mental health.
Slide 4
Media plays a key role in shaping public opinion People with
mental health conditions are often depicted as dangerous, violent
and unpredictable. News stories that sensationalize violent acts by
a person with a mental health condition are typically featured as
headline news Good things arent reported Entertainment frequently
features negative images and stereotypes about mental health
conditions, and these portrayals have been strongly linked to the
development of fears and misunderstanding.
Slide 5
Impact of Negative Public Attitudes Consequences to public
stigma: Justified Bullying Some individuals have been denied
adequate housing, health insurance and jobs due to their history of
mental illness. Difficulty making friends leads to low self esteem
People who suffer from mental health issues are very reluctant to
come forward due to the stigma and treatment from others.
Slide 6
Lets take a closer look
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTIZ_aizzyk
Slide 7
Slide 8
A Brief History of Mental Illness Anthropological Connection It
is greatly important to look at how past societies have treated
mental health it gives us an understanding as to how we have
developed our own biases. Results: In all periods, mental illness
is attached to those who are thought to be OUTSIDE the cultural
norms This greatly helps to explain why certain forms of behavior,
such as expressions of religious fervor, depression, or wandering,
have been considered quite normal in some historical and
geographical contexts, while they have been considered to be forms
of mental illness in others.
Slide 9
A Different take on Mental Illness Native North Americans
understood mental trouble as an indication of an individual who had
lost his/her equilibrium (balance) with the world In Native healing
beliefs, health and mental health were inseparable, so similar
combinations of natural and spiritual remedies were often employed
to try to relieve both mental and physical illness. Ill health was
considered to be a community problem, not just an individual
problem, and so the response frequently involved the participation
of many in the group in the form of healing ceremonies.
Slide 10
Early European settlers to Canada, in the 17th and 18th
centuries closely linked mental troubles to demonic possession,
Gods will, and to humeral imbalances. Bizarre behavior among early
settlers was often attributed to a persons body having been plagued
by demons or by the devil. Exorcism was occasionally performed to
remove the presence of the devil or demons. People also prayed to
God to end the demonic presence in the sufferer. A famous chapel at
Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupr (near Quebec city), built in 1658, became the
site of a regular pilgrimage of people who thought that through
worshiping St. Anne, their physical and mental ills could be
miraculously cured.
Slide 11
Treatment and Remedies It is becoming clear to historians that
home care of those considered mentally ill was a very important and
persistent aspect of mental health history. From the early settler
period, a wide range of home remedies were used In the 17th and
18th centuries, some combination of prayers, and home remedies was
often tried. Households that could afford it also often hired
nursing care to help manage with the mentally unwell. Neighbors
also helped to share the burden of mental illness by taking in a
mentally disturbed relative or friend into their households until
his/her condition improved (for a fee)
Slide 12
Perhaps the best known and most controversial form of mental
health treatment in Canadian history is Asylum care. By the mid
19th century, the first permanent lunatic asylums were established
in the four eastern BNA colonies (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) and in Ontario and Quebec.
By the turn of the 20th century, western Canada had also erected
asylums. These institutions reflected a revolutionary form of
health care for those considered insane. Run by asylum doctors and
attendants (later psychiatric nurses), asylums were part of the
same reform movement that led to more permanent schooling for
children, reorganized prisons for criminals, and reformatories for
wayward youth
Slide 13
Slide 14
Trepanation- A Short Intro Clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84PWUXKKvLM
Slide 15
Trepanation Trepanning is one of the oldest recorded surgical
procedures and has been documented world wide. Although trepanning
was used over many time periods, the procedure was first used in
the Stone Age. Researchers have found evidence of trepanation used
in North America, South America, Africa, and Europe (Missios,
2007)
Slide 16
Gradual scraping of the skull in small circles was the most
common used technique. Many North American Indian tribes, including
Kwatkiutl and Pueblo Indians, used techinques very similar to
trepanation to treat the mentally ill. During the Stone Age,
doctors used sharpened stones to scrape the skull and drill holes
into the head of the patient. Over the years, wooden trepans and
then metal trepans were used in addition to stones (Missios, 2007).
Circular or rectangular holes would be cut by drills such as the
one pictured to the left. The procedure was performed on men,
women, and children, but predominantly on males.
Slide 17
St. Vitus Dance Think about the following quote. Discuss it
with a partner. Share your ideas with the class. Men, it has been
well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in
herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay
Slide 18
In 1374, dozens of villages along the Rhine River were in the
grips of a deadly plaguea dancing plague called choreomania. By the
hundreds, villagers took to the streets leaping, jerking, and
hopping to music no one else could hear. They barely ate or slept,
and just danced, sometimes for days on end, until their bloodied
feet could support them no more. The plague swept the countryside
and, almost just as suddenly as it had come, disappeared. Until
July 1518, in Strasbourg, when a woman called Frau Troffea picked
up the tune again and danced for days on end. Within a week, she
was joined by 34 people; by the end of the month, the crowd had
swelled to 400
Slide 19
So what happened? Historians, psychologists and scientists have
tried to forensically get to the bottom of the dancing mystery. For
a while, the prevailing theory was that it was a mass psychotic
episode sparked by eating bread tainted by ergot, a mold that grows
on the stalks of damp rye. When consumed, it can cause convulsions,
shaking and delirium. John Waller, a history professor at Michigan
State University, disagrees: According to all contemporary accounts
of both outbreaks, the sufferers were dancing, not convulsing. As
to the other popular theory, that the victims were part of some
heretic dancing cult, Waller says theres nothing to suggest that
they wanted to dance.
Slide 20
Waller has a different theory- these plagues were mass
psychogenic illnesses, sparked by pious fear and depression. Both
manias were preceded by periods of devastating famine, crop
failures, dramatic floods, and all manner of Biblical catastrophe.
Anxiety, fear, depression, and superstitionin particular, the
belief that God was sending down plagues to persecute the guilty
made people susceptible to falling into this kind of involuntary
trance state. Dancing plagues were the calling card of one St.
Vitus, an early Christian martyr venerated with dance parties,
meaning that the idea was already in the victims heads. All it took
was one person to start it, and then everyone else followed.
