Critically discuss the the extend to which attitudes towards the Essay

Critically discuss the the extend to which attitudes towards the mentally ill improved during the nineteenth century - Essay Example This responsibility slowly occurred during the early and mid-1800s. This new treatment of psychologically unstable patients marked the beginning of a new recognition that irregular psychological states and behaviour patterns were the outcomes of possibly treatable illnesses. The following paper critically discusses the degree to which attitudes towards the mentally ill improved in the nineteenth century UK. To understand this degree, the paper will begin by briefly discussing the attitude of the UK health industry and society towards the mentally ill several decades before 1800. The 1800s saw the slow emergence of a humane attitude towards the mentally unstable, but geographic and institutional separation would persist in the treatment of mental disorders. Before the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom health department, together with society, did not take psychological illnesses seriously. Before the deployment of ‘mad doctors,’ there were no medical facilities for the mentally ill. As a result, doctors often isolated a psychologically unstable patient from the rest by ensuring the patient was homebound.1 Another indication of the unserious treatment of mentally unstable patients was their relatives’ denial of the illness. Physicians who recommended mentally ill patients to remain at home often fuelled this denial by family members. In spite of a more compassionate attitude called ‘moral treatment’ having arisen between 1790 and 1800, the entire UK health department was far from treating the mentally ill morally.2 The construction of asylums did not assist in improving this attitude either. Instead, asylums simply showed society that the government had recognised mental problems as treatable issues , but not through conventional methods. The main purpose of moral treatment was to diminish external, bodily coercion, which was not evident until the onset of the