FMP 055 • Controversial & Dangerous Treatments For Mental Illness – A Dark History

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“We will be judged by how we treated the most vulnerable in our society.”

Controversial Treatments

Based on listener feedback, today, I review the dark history of treatments for mental illness. In my review, I highlight the most astonishing practices – Who knows how well intentioned these actors were. Nevertheless, treatments such as blood letting, insulin shock therapy, and lobotomy were anything but humane. Finally, I draw attention to the current practice of Conversion Therapy, a modern treatment for homosexuality, based in prejudice and bigotry.

Episode Outline

Welcome to Episode 55: Controversial Treatments for Mental Illness

1. What We Do:
   • Behavioural Medicine and Health Psychology
   • Providing easily accessible content designed to help you design your own transformative experience.
2. Today:
   • A look at historical and current forms of treatment for the mentally ill that also produce uncertain, if not dangerous, outcomes.
3. Services Review:
   • Finding My Psych offers three core services focused on promoting physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness.
     • Foundations: Wellness Planning Workshop
     • Walking For Vitality: Powering Up
     • Running For Fitness: 5k Build-Up

Treatments – Dubious At Best

1. Frontal Lobotomy (Leucotomies):
   • Received the Nobel Prize – Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz in 1949
   • Insertion of Leucotomes through the orbits of the eyes, twisted and then removed.
   • Permanent form of sedation.
2. Treatment of the “Humors”:
   • Originated from Ancient Greece – Popularized in the 1600s.
   • Illness originates from out of balance substances in the body.
   • Included bleeding and vomiting were the most common.
3. “Moral” Treatments:
   • Physical treatments designed to end mental illness.
   • Popular in the 18th century.
   • Ice baths, restraints, isolation.
4. Metrazol Shock Therapy:
   • Circulatory and respiratory stimulant.
   • Treatment for psychosis.
   • GABA Antagonist – Stimulant medication inducing convulsions and coma.
   • High incidence of death – Discontinued by FDA in 1982s.
5. Insulin Shock Therapy:
   • Used widely in the 40s and 50s.
   • Regular treatments over several weeks slowly increased until coma induced.
   • 100-150 units – Some cases 450 units depending on individual.
   • Some people reported, “clarity” after coma.
6. “Fixing The Homosexual”:
   • Removed as a mental illness in the 1970s.
   • Up to its removal, several approaches were used: ECT, Castration, Vasectomy, pubic nerve surgery and lobotomy.
   • Worst? – Transplanting testes from heterosexual men to homosexual men.
   • Today – Conversion Therapy – A form of brain washing using religious beliefs, shaping, shame, and isolation.

Not Considered Controversial Treatments

1. ECT – Electroconvulsive Therapy (Since 1940s):
   • Done under general anesthesia
   • Small electric current inducing brief seizure.
   • Tx of severe depression, severe mania, and catatonia.