Mental Health
As the works featured in this chapter demonstrate, much progress has been made in the area of mental health over the course of many centuries, although substantially less than that achieved by the other branches of the healing arts.
Abstract
Chapter 6 (“Mental Health”) contains works that speak to psychiatry’s long struggle to attain the professional status of the other branches of the healing arts. These works tell the story of a discipline that has struggled to understand and manage diseases of the mind, based on concepts ranging from the work of malicious spirits to humoral dyscrasias, demonic possession, lunar influences and “rocks in the head.” Past treatments, no less than those of the present, have, of necessity, focused on alleviating symptoms rather than preventing or curing the underlying disorders. As the works featured in this chapter demonstrate, much progress has been made in the area of mental health over the course of many centuries, although substantially less than that achieved by the other branches of the healing arts.