Strange Behaviors: part 1

I've been always interested in weird things (maybe I've watched too much "Tales From The Crypt" or Alfred Hitchcock's movies). I'm especially interested in weird/strange people. For me normal people and strange people are in something like yin-yang relationship. If there would be no “crazy” people there would be no normal people – we wouldn’t categorize anyone. And of course the boundary of normality is liquid and changes through times. Don't treat everything I've wrote too seriously because I tried to choose only more “entertaining” information (of course there are some serious exceptions).

• Evidence in the history and how those strange behaviors were treated

  Strange people and their strange behaviors always existed. The methods of trying to help them were sometimes as weird as the patients (or even weirder).

• Prehistoric times

  

  
  There is very little data on mental illnesses in the prehistoric times but scientists found many skulls after trepanation “treatment”. (Trepanation is cutting holes in the skull). Scientists speculate that this was the treatment for mentally ill individuals.

• Ancient times

  • Egypt and Mesopotamia
    Archaeologists found some papyrus that mentions basic mental illnesses like hysteria, melancholy. People affected by this were treated with bodily fluids and magic spells. To improve effect they sometimes ate hallucinogenic foods.

  • Greece and Rome
    Socrates and Pythagoras had probably “command hallucinations”. (They heard voices and sometimes they obeyed voice's commands, thinking that they're possessed by a daemon). Celsus – the famous roman physician – described healing of mental illnesses by bloodletting, drugs, incubation in temple, exorcisms , incantation/enchantment (charm or spell created using words). Those were “civilized” methods of therapy. The not so civilized methods of therapy were: tortures and starvation till individual restores rationality, and if nothing else helps the unlucky fellow would be beat and/or stoned.

• Middle ages

  • Persia, Arabia, Muslim Empire
    According to Islam's believes people with mental disorder are considered incapable (yet) to deserve human treatment and protection. Another thing is that first psychiatric hospital ward was founded in Baghdad in 705.

  • Christian Europe
    Most popular forms of treatment: purges (killing people with different opinions), bloodletting (as we see this was standard since ancient times), and whipping. Of course if there were suspicion of demonic/devil possession the individuals had to pray, receive exorcism and if it didn't work he was purged (killed). One of the most bizarre phenomena was dance mania. In wikipedia it is described as “a social phenomenon that occurred in mainland Europe. (…) It involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely” (Is it only me or it sounds like some form of flashmob?).

• Modern times

  • 16^th - 18^th centuries
    Victims of witch-hunts were admitted to local workhouses, poorhouses and jails (so does it mean that being mental was illegal?) . If you were homeless person you would also be qualified as mentally ill.
    In city of Bedalm people paid penny for watching the mental ill in madhouses (Could it be the foundation of entertainment of our times?).
    The naming of somebody mentally ill was straight-forward, you just call the individual crazy or insane (crazy means cracked in old English, insane means unhealthy).

  • 19^th century
    First laws were introduced to compel authorities to deal with those who were judged insane by family and/or hospital specialists.
    In the USA it was proposed that black slaves who tried to escape were suffering from a mental illness and (theory) was called “drapetomania” (nowadays the theory is described as pseudoscience and racism).

  • 20^th century
    In Nazi Germany, the institutionalized mentally ill were among the earliest targets of sterilization and attendees of euthanasia programs. It has been estimated that over 200 000 individuals with mental disorders were put to death. Later on they were joined by Jews and homosexuals in the Holocaust.
    Tools of 20^th century science were:

    • lobotomies - when doctor cuts the connection between your two brain halves; often victims of this procedure can't control one side of their body.

    • Insulin shock therapies – patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce comas over several weeks. The procedure was introduced by Polish-Austrian-American psychiatrist. And as usual the therapy had very small percent of curing the patients.

    • Electroconvulsive therapy – treatment with high voltage.

    It's worth mentioning that in 20^th century homosexuality was no longer treated as mental illness.

• Causes of mental disorders

  The causes of mental disorders are complex and vary according to the particular disorder and individual. But there some patterns and similarities between them:

  • Genes
    Genetics often plays important part in tendency to have mental problems. But scientists till this day haven't found an evidence for it although they believe it is true and say that finding the genes responsible for it it is just a matter of time.

  • Pregnancy and birth
    Environmental events surrounding pregnancy and birth have been identified as one of the factors of developing mental illnesses in the offspring. This includes future mother's exposure to serious stress or trauma, famine, birth complications, infections, drinking alcohol or doing cocaine during pregnancy.

  • Diseases, injuries and infections
    Higher rates of mood, psychotic and substance (alcohol/other drugs) abusing are observed in people who had traumatic brain injury but the data is not enough consistent enough to draw a direct link between it.
    There are also some very bold theories that people infected by parasite “Toxoplasma gondii” tend to have schizophrenia. But as usual in psychology there is lack of solid evidence.

  • Individual features
    Hormones and bio-balance in the brain are very important factor because it can change in what way we see and receive information using our senses.
    Basically if you are unlucky you belong to the mentally ill side of the society. You can't even blame anyone because it is just pure (bad) luck.

  • Life events, stress and relationships
    Maltreatment in childhood and in adulthood has been linked to the development of mental disorders through complex interactions of other factors. Too much stress can even cause serious mental disorder.
    Parental divorce appears to increase risk of mental problems.

  Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mental_disorders

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_mental_disorders

• http://google.com

• I've linked photos with sources of them
  

  Questions:

• Would you pay to see patients of mental houses as a form of entertainment? Do you think that such practices are moral/immoral if this money would be used for food for the patients or overhaul those institutions buildings?

• Did you ever seen any examples of mentally ill? Do you pity them or laugh at them? Maybe you feel other feelings? Tell us about it.

• Are you afraid that some day you could be one of those mentally ill? (For me Alzheimer is one of the worst and scariest mental disorders).

• Do you ever suspect yourself or your friends/family of having some sort of mental disorder(s)/problems? (Please don't answer too seriously ;)