Mental Health Treatments and Asylums by Cheryl Whiting https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197 By Cheryl and Mattea en-us 2020-03-02 15:50:05 UTC 2026-03-05 11:17:38 UTC hello@padlet.com Asylums in the United States whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/451458076 Although the study of mental health was a new topic during the early 1900s, the “hospitals” for those with mental illnesses were no where near the quality of mental health facilities today. The treatment of patients in these facilitates during the 1900s was dehumanizing. 
#gruesome #watchwithdiscretion #horrifying]]> 2020-02-27 16:01:53 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/451458076 Past Treatments kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453036185 #inhumane #degregationofsociety #1900streatments]]> 2020-03-02 15:57:56 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453036185 Electroshock Therapy whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453041418  A popular form of “treatment” in the early 1900s.
https://dualdiagnosis.org/mental-health-and-addiction/history/#_ftnref4]]> 2020-03-02 16:04:42 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453041418 Rosemary Kennedy’s Experience whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453048013 Rosemary Kennedy was born during World War I with some form of mental disability.  (It is unclear what type of disability she had because the knowledge of mental illnesses wasn’t where it is today. It is believed that she has some form of learning disability.) In 1941, her father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. chose for his daughter to have a new psychiatric procedure, a lobotomy. “Instead of improving her life, this ill-conceived procedure dramatically worsened the brain damage she had experienced at birth, and she was never the same.”
(Patrick Kennedy’s Common Sense)
https://www.history.com/news/kennedy-family-secret-inspired-special-olympics
Eunice Kennedy (left) with her sister Rosemary Kennedy (right).]]> 2020-03-02 16:14:13 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453048013 kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453049231 In 1955, there were 559,000 people in asylums, and people weren’t expected to get better with treatments, yet they were given treatments anyways. 

This is similar to Esther in The Bell Jar, who is put into a mental health facility, and although her case is deemed as hopeless, she is continually 
being treated. There were also a lot of people being treated for mental illnesses at the time, and the book takes place in the 1950’s.]]> 2020-03-02 16:15:53 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453049231 Esther received Insulin Injections whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453049752 Esther received not only electroshock therapy, but also insulin shock therapy. 
“Three times each day the nurses injected me, and about an hour after each injection they gave me a cup of sugary fruit juice and stood by, watching me drink it.  ‘Lucky you,’ Valerie said. ‘You’re on insulin.’” (Plath 191-192).

The reason for giving Esther these injections of insulin was to make sure she had a reaction to it (which was really causing her body to go into shock because she had low blood sugar) and supposedly that reaction was supposed to make her feel better.  In all reality, it did the opposite. The injections didn’t improve her mental health and could have been detrimental to her physical health. ]]> 2020-03-02 16:16:34 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453049752 Waiting in Line for Treatment whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453258405 One patient’s experience:

“Begging, pleading, crying, and resisting, they [the patients] were herded into the gymnasium and seated around the edge of the room.

Between them and the shock treatment table was a long row of screens. The table on the other side of the screen held as much terror for most of these patients as the electric chair in the penitentiaries did for criminals... In order to save time, one or more patients were called behind the screen to sit down and take off their shoes while the patient who had just preceded them was still on the table going through the convulsions that shake the body after the electric shock has knocked them unconscious.

One attendant stands at the head of the table to put the rubber heel in their mouth so they won't chew their tongue during the convulsive stage. On either side of the table stand three other attendants to hold them down...The only comforting thing from those times was the sight of some of the quieter and more controlled patients comforting the terror-stricken ones. I can remember many a friendly hand placed on mine--many a comforting shoulder I leaned against while I waited my turn... This has changed somehow now I am glad to say, and treatments are not quite so inhumanely administered--but I hope to see the day when they will be entirely replaced by the new drugs now coming into use as tranquilizers."
https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/exhibits/quest/treatment/1930-1950

]]> 2020-03-02 20:50:53 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/453258405 Hydrotherapy whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454417690 Exposing patients to long, hot water baths or showers was believed to have a calming effect so doctors in asylums used this method as a way to treat mental illnesses.
https://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/exhibits/quest/treatment/1930-1950  ]]> 2020-03-04 15:48:59 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454417690 Comparison of Asylums kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454419311 Although Esther was not staying at an actual specific asylum, as she is just a character in a book, readers are able to capture an idea of what they may have been like from a patient’s point of view

 “What bothered me was that everything about the house seemed normal, although I knew it must be chock-full of crazy people. There were no bars on the windows that I could see, and no wild or disquieting noises” (Plath 140). 


]]> 2020-03-04 15:50:48 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454419311 Belsize kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454425214 One of the asylums Esther ends up at is Belsize. Although Belsize is fictional, it still replicates what asylums were like in the 1950’s.

“At Belsize, even at Belsize, the doors had locks, but the patients had no keys. A shut door meant privacy, and was respected, like a locked door. One knocked, and knocked again, then went away” (Plath 218). ]]> 2020-03-04 15:57:24 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454425214 Insulin Coma Therapy whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454433874 This treatment started in the late 1920s and ended around the 1960s.  Doctors put their patients into a low blood sugar coma with hopes that the large fluctuations in insulin levels would alter the brain. Doctors injected insulin into their patients, sending the patients into comas. These comas were risky because some proved fatal.  The mortality rate was between 1 and 10 percent. 

]]> 2020-03-04 16:07:18 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454433874 Involuntary Hospitalization kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454434849 An anonymous individual who was placed into a mental health facility involuntarily stated: “I would rather die than go in again. I am not depressed, and my psychiatrist considers me normal, but I can’t live through that again. The staff was abusive, demeaning, and dismissive. I felt in fear for my life. Any lack of cooperation was met with physical and chemical punishment. Several of the staff gave me the impression that I would never be released and would spend my lifetime forcibly retained and chemically blasted into oblivion” (Miller 3).]]> 2020-03-04 16:08:25 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454434849 Metrazol Therapy whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454438046 In this type of treatment, doctors induced seizures with a stimulant medication. Roughly a minute after the injection of metrazol was given, patients would enter into a seizure. As a result of the seizures, many patients ended up with fractured bones and torn muscles. ]]> 2020-03-04 16:12:05 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454438046 The Lobotomy whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454443169 This treatment was “designed to disrupt the circuits of the brain”. “It consisted of surgically cutting/removing the connections between the prefrontal cortex and frontal lobes of the brain.
https://online.csp.edu/blog/psychology/history-of-mental-illness-treatment ]]> 2020-03-04 16:17:21 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454443169 Overcrowding whitic0406 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454601367 Often times, the asylums were designed to hold a certain number of patients, yet the number of patients entered into the asylums were more than they could handle.  For example, some asylums were made to hold only 2,000 patients, yet doctors would take on more than 4,000 patients. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_-bg1dZb80 ]]> 2020-03-04 19:14:16 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/454601367 Invisibility kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/455545386 People in asylums feel invisible in society due to the ways they’re separated and treated. 

“It’s like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction-every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it’s really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier” (Plath 200).

In this case, Esther views her life based on the perspective of other people.]]> 2020-03-06 04:02:22 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/455545386 The Meaning of A Bell Jar kowalm0462 https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/455547903 “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream” (Plath 175 ).


The idea of the bell jar is an idea of one being trapped and unable to escape. In Esther’s case, or anyone with a mental illness, they are trapped with the idea of a mental illness that isolates them from overall society.]]> 2020-03-06 04:12:16 UTC https://padlet.com/whitic0406/xm1z4463y197/wish/455547903