...practitioner alters the patient's energy field through an energy transfer that moves from the hands of the practitioner to the patient:” (Medicaldictionary.com) The healing hand of kindness is what Robert Whitaker entitles the second chapter of his book Mad in America. (Whitaker, 19) No, the healing hand is not the topic to my essay, but it is the first step in coming to terms with the why this chapter is just mad. When you combine two terms, both in relative meaning, it turns into a contradiction. The healing hand is kind. Kindness is a friendly act toward another. So where is the contradiction? The first section of the book describes accounts from a man names Benjamin Rush, from his book Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind. (Whitaker, 21-22) It describes patients being treated as animals: beaten, sedated, and verbally abused. (Whitaker, 22) This was the healing hand for many patients until 1793 when, as the book describes, was the lunacy reform in Europe. “Moral treatments,” and I use that phase sparingly, included, one pound of bread a day, extreme heat and cold weather in concrete cells, and sedation. Physician Philippe Pinel thought by talking to his sedated patients he was connecting with them, understanding their sorrows. He described this new interaction as such: “I have nowhere met, except in romances, with fonder husbands, more affectionate parents, more impassioned lovers, more pure and exalted patriots, than in the lunatic asylum…”(Whitaker...
Words: 1085 - Pages: 5
...Terre Blanche, Martin Apr 21 Dear Yasmin Not a problem – an extension is fine. Please just try not to go more than a week or two past the deadline and please put a note at the start of your assignment saying I said it is fine. We won't penalise you for late submission. Best of luck with your family responsibilities and heavy workload this year! Kind regards Martin Yasmin Moosagie 44670540 UNISA Pyc4811 Assignment 1: Unique no: 805932 Yasmin Moosagie 44670540 UNISA Pyc4811 Assignment 1: Unique no: 805932 2016 2016 Write an essay in which you critically compare and contrast the community psychology and public health approaches to social problems. At first glance, there seems to be a fine line between community psychology and the public health approach, however on further examination it is more than semantics that separate these two principles. Both, community psychology and the public health approach, started as a result of the frustration of main stream psychology not being able to address broader social issues. The realisation that psychology needed to focus a great deal more on community and social change in order to address mental health and illness. Although community psychology and the public health approach seem to share the same intrinsic values, the focus of community psychology seems to be more aimed at the cultural and political aspect of social behaviour and outcomes, whereas the public health is focused more on health and prevention...
Words: 957 - Pages: 4
...A History Marred with Mistakes Tara Ventres Axia Collage of University of Phoenix COM 150 Effective Essay Writing Jolyn Rex February 16, 2009 In today’s world there are places that still uses force as a means of treatment or punishment for the mentally ill. The patients are chained down, sexually assaulted and beaten. Whatever society thinks of mental illness this type of treatment has to stop. Once we have educated ourselves on mental illness, we can begin to have a better understanding of those people who suffer from these types of diseases. If we look to the past we can see where we went wrong and correct those mistakes. Mental illness is something that can be traced throughout history. By looking back over the past of mental illness we see that there were infinite numbers of mistakes made a long way. We cannot allow those same mistakes to take place again. By breaking the cycle and avoid those same mistakes we can build a better future for the mentally ill. This is why I believe it is important to study the past of mental illness. Evidence indicates that Mental illness can be traced as far back as the early Egyptians. What we know today about mental illness is far different then what early Egyptians believed...
Words: 2336 - Pages: 10
...Sigmund Schlomo Freud BRIEF OVERVIEW Although Sigmund Freud was not the first person to formally study psychology, many consider him the most pivotal figure in the development of the field as we know it today. Freud changed the way society has come to think about and treat mental illness. Before Freud, mental illness was thought to result from deterioration or disease of the brain. Freud changed all of this by explicitly rejecting the purely organic or physical explanations of his predecessors. Instead he believed that unconscious motives and drives controlled most behavior. During a career that spanned 58 years, beginning with an earned medical degree in 1881 and continuing to his death in 1939, he developed and repeatedly revised his theory of psychoanalysis. Most of Freud’s theory was developed from contact he had with patients seen in his private practice in Vienna. This type of “clinical” work was a radical departure from the laboratory research that was practiced by most leading psychologists of the day. When Freud first presented his ideas in the 1890s, many of his contemporaries reacted with hostility. In fact, throughout his career, Freud faced enormous opposition to many of his ideas. Those especially controversial included notions about the role of the unconscious in behavior, childhood sexuality, and how the mind was governed (id, ego, and superego). But despite the opposition, Freud eventually attracted a group of followers that included well-known theorists 1856–1939...
Words: 21427 - Pages: 86
...THE B L A C K SWAN The HIGHLY I mpact IM of the PROBABLE Nassim Nicholas Taleb U.S.A. $26.95 Canada $34.95 is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpre dictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9 / 1 1 . For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. A BLACK SWAN Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don't know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate oppor tunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the "impossible." For years, Taleb has studied how we fool our selves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. Now, in this reve latory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don't know. He offers...
Words: 158140 - Pages: 633
