A S L 3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Conversion Disorder, Theodor Meynert, Neuroanatomy
Document Summary
Zeitgeist in vienna people with mental difficulties have mostly been treated with a combination of compassion and contempt (sometimes hostility), given that they were weak and non-productive. Compassion came from the parents and other members of the (extended) family; the contempt from society outside the family. People stayed at home and died young. People were required to take up more individual responsibility and they had to interact with an increasing number of other individuals tolerance for deviant behaviour dwindled. Informal support through family 16th century = asylums (institutions for insane, first prison-like) 18th century enlightenment = asylums became more hospital-like (zeitgeist = mental illness became something they wanted to cure rather than just lock up) In late 19th century neurologists came in and tried to fix milder forms of mental problems outside asylums (at that point still basically psychiatrists today specialists of the nervous system) Gradually the biological view of mental illness regained impetus.
