Abnormal Psychology

Individuals that are checked into or admitted into hospitals and nursing homes go in with the belief that they will be taken care of and treated with respect. Patients are individuals that are ill either physically or mentally. They come to these facilities in hopes that there will be some improvement or cure for their illness. The focus of this paper is the mistreatment of patient that was put into asylums (mental hospitals) during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Between 1700 and 1900 there were many beliefs, thoughts and reasons as to the cause of mental illness. “Early writings revealed that the Chinese, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks contributed abnormal behavior to daemons or god” (Butcher, Mineka, Hooley; 2013). The abuse or mistreatment of patients that was living in hospitals or mental wards was considered human in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of those individuals, but was it? Were the rights of those individuals violated? Why and how this occurred is the focus of this paper. In addition this paper will also focus on if there are other personal, cultural, or situational factors that can have impacted the care providers?

At the beginning of mental illness there was not a lot of information on the cause and or a cure, also there was not a lot of information as how to treat such individuals, however “mental disorders were quite predominant during the Middle Ages in Europe” (Butcher, Mineka, Hooley; 2013). Individuals that was mentally ill and could not care for themselves, society created a place that was called asylums, the name for early hospitals for the mentally ill. The care in which the residents received was not the care that any human being nor animal should have received. The residents died in the asylums and hospitals because of filth and cruelty within the asylums. According to a case study provided by Butcher, Mineka, Hooley (2013) the residents was chained, both their hands and feet was chained to a wall. It was...