UMW Fall 2023
I collect postcards and found this interesting one from the early 1900s showing the Westbrook Sanatorium in Richmond, Virginia. On the back it talks a little bit about how they’re a private run hospital to treat nervous and mental disorders as well as addiction conditions. This postcard got me thinking about topics/facilities close to home that I could possibly cover in our upcoming projects.
Black psychiatrist and other specialist within the field of Psychology and Mental Health gather to discuss the question: Why do Black people not go to therapy? In the video, they discuss multiple factors, but the most common reason being the stigma behind mental health within the Black community as a whole. Societal and cultural standards keep many Black Americans from being able to accept that they have a mental issue, which ultimately keeps seeking help for said issue out of the question.
Link to article HERE.
This article from the New York Times Magazine entitled “The Therapy Issue: Does Therapy Really Work? Let’s Unpack that” addresses author Susan Dominus’ struggles with finding success in therapy and then the research that followed to answer the question of how effective modern talk therapy really is, as well as what some of the different ways professionals in the field envision the current model of psychiatric care being advanced forward. One of the key points Dominus made was that there is this reluctance to consider the idea that talk therapy is not always beneficial to the patient both within the field itself and within the popular opinion of those who utilize or seek therapy; this immediately was reminiscent of the point that a number of readings have made including Tomes and Sadowksy that there was never one single patient experience within the asylum system and that more recent works on psychiatric history tend to focus overwhelmingly on the very negative experiences. This article proposes that a similar phenomenon occurs regarding modern talk therapy, but rather than rejecting ways that early treatments were helpful for some, the idea that therapy can be unhelpful or harmful are frequently dismissed. This article also discusses the patient-therapist bond as an important component in the success of therapy and indicative of how beneficial a client will find working with a specific therapist to be; this concept appeared similar to what Shorter’s identified as a key aspect of the asylum: the doctor-patient relationship.
To put Thomas Kirkbride’s vision for mental institutions into perspective, I’ve found this overhead blueprint of the Buffalo State Asylum. From this image, one can tell how sunlight and fresh air would be emphasized, two hallmarks of Kirkbride’s treatment methodologies. The Richardson Olmstead complex still stands today, relatively complete.
The reading from Grob The Mad Among Us detailed the beginnings of Mental Health Institutions in America (Grob 1-128). This link is information about the first established public Mental Health Hospital in America. Located in Williamsburg, the blog describes the first hospital as having been destroyed in a fire and the new one which was built adjacent to it.
http://livinginwilliamsburgvirginia.blogspot.com/2010/06/americas-first-mental-hospital-colonial.html
Hey there! My name is Ricky Munoz, doing my legally required introduction for this class. I’m a senior history major from Centreville, Virginia, cleaning up a few classes to graduate this semester (is the plan, at least). As many of us alluded to on Tuesday, I’m taking this class not only because it fit well into my schedule, if not on the early side, but also because the history of mental health is a unique and intriguing topic, and one that for many (myself included) hits close to home.
Without getting too much into things, and not oversharing or trauma dumping on a class blog post of all places, I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, which is probably one of the most well known mental health conditions of recent years, and thus occupies a unique spot in the history of mental health broadly, and of of my mental health in particular. I hope that we spend some time discussing neurodivergence as we get into the modern era, along with the more commonly discussed issues of depression, anxiety, etc, not only for my own sake, but that I’ve rarely heard such things discussed in a scholarly historical context.
As to the more fun stuff, I like to spend my free time cooking, gaming, smelling various candles, and thinking about putting things on my calendar. I also am a part time member of UMW’s one and only improv team, The Undeniably Adjacent, so if you loudly exhaled through your nose at any point while reading this, you may like our improvised comedy stylings. Come check us out, we have shows periodically throughout the semester, so go find our social medias if you’re interested.
In all seriousness, I’m very much looking forward to this class, and diving into these topics that have quite a bit of scholarly depth to them, and learning more about how we have built our relationship with our own minds across history.
Hello! My name is Neonya and I am a Senior History major. Not only did I take History of Mental Illness in the U.S. because I needed another 400 level course (trying to be honest) but because the course seemed genuinely interesting to me! I am excited to learn more about how the perception of mental health has changed throughout history. Also I want to disclose that my usage of word press has been very minimal so I will be relearning how to use it as the semester goes on! Stay tuned for cool updates as I expand my knowledge. 
Hello Everyone! My name is Jacob Martin and I’m a senior this year. I love animals and have a Golden Retriever named Max. In my free time I like making models from scratch, drawing, collecting and spending time with my family and friends. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always had a fascination with history especially local history. I work and volunteer at my county’s Historical Society where I’m in charge of creating displays. I’m taking this course because it seemed so interesting to me. When I took Virginia Issues and Controversies last fall we touched a little on the history of Mental health in Virginia which really got me curious to know more! I am looking forward to learning more about the history of mental health and anything we do this semester.
This is a test to make sure that posts will work in general, but also for the functional purpose of having them for my History of Mental Health in the US class. (Hello to anyone who’s traveled back here in the distant or not-so-distant future).
Did you know that the classic placeholder text “lorem ipsum” is actually nonsense Latin? Derived from the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero’s work De finibus bonorum et malorum, it’s cobbled together from different parts of the text. Here’s lorem ipsum as it most commonly appears:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
While gibberish, the part it draws from is a passage of Cicero’s thoughts on Epicurianism, which translates roughly to this:
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of reprobating pleasure and extolling pain arose. To do so, I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De finibus bonorum et malorum, trans. Harris Rackham, (New York: Macmillan, 1914), 36.
For more on this, click here. Thanks for reading!
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