HSS 2121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Electroconvulsive Therapy, Shell Shock, Solitary Confinement
Document Summary
History of mental health = history of social construction. To understand the social construction of mental disease. How homosexuality was viewed as mental illness. Used to see abnormal = sick, illegal, criminally insane (homosexuality considered sickness) From shell shock to ptsd development of our thinking around mental illness. Normal" behavior is socially and culturally determined normal is what our society says it is. Behavior can be criminal, sinful or sick (homosexuality has been all 3) Depression used to be seen as imbalance in humors, over abundance of black bile = Psychiatric diagnoses have been socially constructed e. g. hysteria melancholia, imbalanced. Term used during wwi, or war nurosis, or gulf war syndrome, now ptsd, now have more understanding of what it is and little less shame around it. People with ptsd relive the trauma they see, nightmares, heart complications, relive entire incident that gives trauma, insomnia. To cope, may turn to drinking, drugs.