Mental Health in the Islamic Golden Era: The Historical Roots of Modern Psychiatry

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rania Awaad ◽  
Alaa Mohammad ◽  
Khalid Elzamzamy ◽  
Soraya Fereydooni ◽  
Maryam Gamar
2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-254
Author(s):  
John Breeding

The history of modern psychiatry includes a legacy of coercion and infamous physical and mechanical treatments, on the one hand, and progress in human rights, particularly patient rights, on the other. The purpose of this article is to remind readers that this modern progress in psychiatry is more apparent than real. The author’s experience with recent cases in the mental health courts is discussed in order to demonstrate the ongoing abuse of human rights in psychiatry. A brief look at other aspects of the current mental health climate in the United States is also provided, along with considerations of informed consent.


Author(s):  
Donald W. Winnicott

In this essay, Winnicott deals with the theory that mental illnesses are disorders of emotional development and that there is no sharp line between mental health and mental illness. He stresses the importance of medical students being informed correctly about the relation of mental illness—both neurosis and psychosis—to normal emotional development. Winnicott states his belief that the best trend in modern psychiatry is inviting mentally ill people to ask for mental hospital treatment early in their illness.


Author(s):  
Tom Burns

Inpatient wards in asylums were the cradle of modern psychiatry and have remained a central component ever since, even in the most radical services. Their configuration has evolved pragmatically but since the arrival of evidence-based practice in mental health care in the early 1980s, attempts have been made to derive guidelines and provide principles for their design. There is little in the way of experimental evidence but there is a growing international consensus. Wards now strive to be small (around 15–20 places) and to provide single en-suite accommodation. Isolated small wards emphasizing a domestic configuration have generally faced problems with caring for disturbed patients. The last decade has seen a disappointing move back to single-sex wards, with greater emphasis on security and doors often locked as bed numbers have fallen and patient acuity has increased. International observations are provided about staffing, design, and standards.


2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Calton ◽  
Helen Spandler

SummaryUK guidelines for treating people diagnosed with schizophrenia currently emphasise the primacy of antipsychotic medication, with or without psychosocially based interventions as circumstances dictate. We now see increasing calls, most notably from mental health service users, for the provision of ‘whole-person-based’, minimal-medication approaches to treating people with this diagnosis. This article is intended to locate the development of such approaches within the history of modern and pre-modern psychiatry and, in doing so, summarise the available evidence base that underpins their efficacy.


1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 139-141
Author(s):  
Chris Thomas

In 1793 Pinel started the move towards modern psychiatry by removing the chains from patients at the Bicetre Psychiatric Asylum. In 1986 the Mental Health Commission through their draft Code of Practice (COP) are metaphorically attempting to place those chains upon the professionals whose job it is to treat psychiatric disorder. Psychiatry will not benefit by having either the patients or the carers chained. I feel that if the COP in its current form is accepted, then it is likely in the long-term to lead to a deterioration of services for the mentally ill and we should ensure through the Royal College that we are not forced into accepting proposals from people who are in a worse position than ourselves to determine what is best for our patients.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. A. Ioannidis

AbstractNeurobiology-based interventions for mental diseases and searches for useful biomarkers of treatment response have largely failed. Clinical trials should assess interventions related to environmental and social stressors, with long-term follow-up; social rather than biological endpoints; personalized outcomes; and suitable cluster, adaptive, and n-of-1 designs. Labor, education, financial, and other social/political decisions should be evaluated for their impacts on mental disease.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
O. Lawrence ◽  
J.D. Gostin

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 959-970
Author(s):  
Kelly M. Reavis ◽  
James A. Henry ◽  
Lynn M. Marshall ◽  
Kathleen F. Carlson

Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between tinnitus and self-reported mental health distress, namely, depression symptoms and perceived anxiety, in adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examinations Survey between 2009 and 2012. A secondary aim was to determine if a history of serving in the military modified the associations between tinnitus and mental health distress. Method This was a cross-sectional study design of a national data set that included 5,550 U.S. community-dwelling adults ages 20 years and older, 12.7% of whom were military Veterans. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the association between tinnitus and mental health distress. All measures were based on self-report. Tinnitus and perceived anxiety were each assessed using a single question. Depression symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire, a validated questionnaire. Multivariable regression models were adjusted for key demographic and health factors, including self-reported hearing ability. Results Prevalence of tinnitus was 15%. Compared to adults without tinnitus, adults with tinnitus had a 1.8-fold increase in depression symptoms and a 1.5-fold increase in perceived anxiety after adjusting for potential confounders. Military Veteran status did not modify these observed associations. Conclusions Findings revealed an association between tinnitus and both depression symptoms and perceived anxiety, independent of potential confounders, among both Veterans and non-Veterans. These results suggest, on a population level, that individuals with tinnitus have a greater burden of perceived mental health distress and may benefit from interdisciplinary health care, self-help, and community-based interventions. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12568475


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