4 ms·

Rethinking madness: inside the world's oldest mental asylum

25 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

TempleOS 10y ago
God is perfectly just. God says... leaning's reel Krakow Freida conscientiously creature stash tubercle Menuhin's Slurpee's scarce knoll declaration's entrenched seedy classic's recurrent twisters Jansenist's artistry's rid Lysistrata's Bertie's lob's specter navel's grape pagodas prehistory's sheepishly hexing cleanliness
astazangasta 10y ago
>In having the photographs, it’s hoped we can show that they were made with care and precision for the benefit of the patients – not necessarily to harm. In every depiction of the lunatic asylum, and as seems clear from history, it's obvious that the goal of interventions is improvement - of the patient, of society by their confinement, and so on. One can desire to do good and still perpetuate unspeakable cruelty and harm. Shockingly, no mention of Foucault's "History of Madness", which I love and is well worth reading if you are as interested in this subject as I. Foucault says these institutions began primarily as a moral category, and that confinement was a way to isolate the "unreason" of the mad from society in an age of Reason. The modern medical tradition certainly inherits from this moral categorization. The patient is depraved, sick, different, needs to be "corrected". One of the great confrontations that needs to be made in this century is with the idea of the "normative", of the singular human that everyone must be measured against (and somehow found wanting), a prominent tent-pole of our modern understanding of humanity. The "normative" needs to be replaced with the garden - humans, like all life, are a basket of diversity. We differ from each other in our very natures; forcing us all towards an ideal, "correcting" our sicknesses so we all become alike in thought, is the wrong model for us.
- mercer 10y ago
  Thankfully I've been seeing progress in the professional world in this regard, at least in regards to autism and schizophrenia. Treatment that is more focused on 'living with' rather than on fixing, repressing, or medicating. More emphasis on creating and finding the right environment to function in. And in the case of autism, less focus on treating the umbrella-term 'autism', and more focus on specific treatment for specific issues (many of which are not unique to autism). Perhaps this is only my experience, but I hope it reflects a larger shift in thinking. Sadly I notice much less of this in 'regular society'. Mental health issues are still 'icky' to many people and beneath a thin veneer of acceptance there's ultimate very little patience or understanding for the outliers. > The "normative" needs to be replaced with the garden - humans, like all life, are a basket of diversity. We differ from each other in our very natures; forcing us all towards an ideal, "correcting" our sicknesses so we all become alike in thought, is the wrong model for us. So true. It sometimes feels like a white lie to talk about the 'upside' of various disabilities, but when I look at my past it's not a lie at all. I, with my 'special condition' am liked (loved, even) often precisely because I'm 'weird'. Two friends of mine suffer from schizophrenia and it's not a lie to say that their 'condition', and the resulting worldview, hardships, and so on are immensely valuable.
  - astazangasta 10y ago
    I am really into R.D. Laing and a more obscure psychologist named John Weir Perry. They have fairly different approaches (Laing is more of a post-structuralist, Perry is a Jungian), but both of them were firm believers that schizophrenia was a process that could be worked through; Perry in particular believed that it was a healing process, not a destructive one, and that successfully going through it (to the other side) involved a reconstruction of the self that left people better-equipped to deal with their lives. I recommend his book, "The Far Side of Madness", for this reason alone, that it contains stories of people who recovered from schizophrenia and felt it had somehow improved them.
Cozumel 10y ago
These institutions were horrific, my friends dad wrote a book about them ( http://www.newsletter.co.uk/lifestyle/delving-into-the-world-of-1930s-mental-asylums-1-7536000 http://www.newsletter.co.uk/lifestyle/delving-into-the-world... ) If you were a single mother you'd be sent there, if you were lazy, masturbated too much (how would they even know??) etc ( http://canyouactually.com/list-of-reasons-for-admission-to-an-insane-asylum-in-the-1800s-were-pretty-ridiculous/ http://canyouactually.com/list-of-reasons-for-admission-to-a... ) Basically it seems like people were sent there for pretty much any reason, away from societies gaze. So there definitely needs to be more awareness about the history, but this article just seems to romanticise it and shies away from the reality.

25 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

God is perfectly just. God says... leaning's reel Krakow Freida conscientiously creature stash tubercle Menuhin's Slurpee's scarce knoll declaration's entrenched seedy classic's recurrent twisters Jansenist's artistry's rid Lysistrata's Bertie's lob's specter navel's grape pagodas prehistory's sheepishly hexing cleanliness

astazangasta 10y ago

>In having the photographs, it’s hoped we can show that they were made with care and precision for the benefit of the patients – not necessarily to harm. In every depiction of the lunatic asylum, and as seems clear from history, it's obvious that the goal of interventions is improvement - of the patient, of society by their confinement, and so on. One can desire to do good and still perpetuate unspeakable cruelty and harm. Shockingly, no mention of Foucault's "History of Madness", which I love and is well worth reading if you are as interested in this subject as I. Foucault says these institutions began primarily as a moral category, and that confinement was a way to isolate the "unreason" of the mad from society in an age of Reason. The modern medical tradition certainly inherits from this moral categorization. The patient is depraved, sick, different, needs to be "corrected". One of the great confrontations that needs to be made in this century is with the idea of the "normative", of the singular human that everyone must be measured against (and somehow found wanting), a prominent tent-pole of our modern understanding of humanity. The "normative" needs to be replaced with the garden - humans, like all life, are a basket of diversity. We differ from each other in our very natures; forcing us all towards an ideal, "correcting" our sicknesses so we all become alike in thought, is the wrong model for us.

mercer 10y ago
Thankfully I've been seeing progress in the professional world in this regard, at least in regards to autism and schizophrenia. Treatment that is more focused on 'living with' rather than on fixing, repressing, or medicating. More emphasis on creating and finding the right environment to function in. And in the case of autism, less focus on treating the umbrella-term 'autism', and more focus on specific treatment for specific issues (many of which are not unique to autism). Perhaps this is only my experience, but I hope it reflects a larger shift in thinking. Sadly I notice much less of this in 'regular society'. Mental health issues are still 'icky' to many people and beneath a thin veneer of acceptance there's ultimate very little patience or understanding for the outliers. > The "normative" needs to be replaced with the garden - humans, like all life, are a basket of diversity. We differ from each other in our very natures; forcing us all towards an ideal, "correcting" our sicknesses so we all become alike in thought, is the wrong model for us. So true. It sometimes feels like a white lie to talk about the 'upside' of various disabilities, but when I look at my past it's not a lie at all. I, with my 'special condition' am liked (loved, even) often precisely because I'm 'weird'. Two friends of mine suffer from schizophrenia and it's not a lie to say that their 'condition', and the resulting worldview, hardships, and so on are immensely valuable.
- astazangasta 10y ago
  I am really into R.D. Laing and a more obscure psychologist named John Weir Perry. They have fairly different approaches (Laing is more of a post-structuralist, Perry is a Jungian), but both of them were firm believers that schizophrenia was a process that could be worked through; Perry in particular believed that it was a healing process, not a destructive one, and that successfully going through it (to the other side) involved a reconstruction of the self that left people better-equipped to deal with their lives. I recommend his book, "The Far Side of Madness", for this reason alone, that it contains stories of people who recovered from schizophrenia and felt it had somehow improved them.

Cozumel 10y ago

These institutions were horrific, my friends dad wrote a book about them ( http://www.newsletter.co.uk/lifestyle/delving-into-the-world-of-1930s-mental-asylums-1-7536000 http://www.newsletter.co.uk/lifestyle/delving-into-the-world... ) If you were a single mother you'd be sent there, if you were lazy, masturbated too much (how would they even know??) etc ( http://canyouactually.com/list-of-reasons-for-admission-to-an-insane-asylum-in-the-1800s-were-pretty-ridiculous/ http://canyouactually.com/list-of-reasons-for-admission-to-a... ) Basically it seems like people were sent there for pretty much any reason, away from societies gaze. So there definitely needs to be more awareness about the history, but this article just seems to romanticise it and shies away from the reality.