From Demons to Dopamine: History of Mental Illness and Treatment

The provided text offers a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of mental health treatments, tracing how approaches have shifted in response to changing beliefs about the causes of mental illness. It begins with ancient and medieval supernatural explanations, leading to practices like trephination and exorcism, before detailing the Greco-Roman shift to somatogenic (body-based) theories and the subsequent re-emergence of supernatural views in the Middle Ages. The text then describes the rise and fall of asylums and the moral treatment movement, highlighting key figures like Pinel, Tuke, and Dix, and the eventual decline due to overcrowding. Finally, it explores the emergence of modern psychiatry, covering Freud's psychoanalytic revolution, aggressive somatic interventions like lobotomies and ECT, the transformative psychopharmacological revolution, and contemporary advancements including CBT and "third-wave" therapies like ACT and DBT.

Research done with the help of artificial intelligence, and presented by two AI-generated hosts.