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Questions for Thursday 9-2-2021


1.	Foucault states: The absence of constraint in the nineteenth-century asylum is not unreason liberated, but madness long since mastered (252). Foucault is praising Tuke’s Quaker ideals that used religious principles as humane treatment for the insane. What is your opinion of these methods that integrated moral principles (shame with transgressions as sins and the idea that each man was morally responsible to NOT disturb society) rather than physical restraints?

2.	Shorter’s first chapter (22) addresses the idea of moral therapy as a “stroke of genius” that a “handful of great men” envisioned. Shorter states that it is “astonishing” that this productive and humane therapy was “later lost so completely from view in asylum life”.  When and why did the US shift into asylums as “custodial care” facilities with maintenance of chronic patients consuming all the resources and energy of the staff? 

Submitted by Bonnie Akkerman     I pledge…

1) What was the true cause for the increase in psychiatry as a practice? Shorter mentions the possibility of it being the desire to gain personal wealth and recognition for having the most effective/best institution or model? Could it have also been that the increase in those who were deemed mentally ill increased the desire to research it and better understand why it may be happening and how to combat it? Was capitalism the main source or could there be the chance that there was an actual moral obligation among these doctors to help those who had been deemed uncurable? 

2) If kindness showed early promising results in treating the mentally ill, why was it then lost? Kindness seems far more simple than bloodletting and cheaper than making huge institutions to isolate and chain patients. As both Madam Pussin and Tuke showed, kindness helped cure patients as well as save their lives (21), therefore why would it be ignored? Could it have been ignored due to the desire for wealth from this field or due to the interest in medical research? 

3) Shorter mentions how Joseph Daquin believes that his female patients had become mad due to the vapors that would come from the uterus and derange al functions of the brain. While these women were not institutionalized for their believed madness, it is still a very subjective hypothesis and begs the question of what Daquin’s explanation for men who become mad be? 

Posted by Mallory Karnei

1. In Foucault, we see the history and origins of the asylum and how they have changed throughout their history. However, Foucault spoke of Tuke and his methods that broke away from the traditional means of dealing with those who have a mental illness. The concept of Stranger Par Excellence is brought up, a concept that aids in the reforming and reintegration of those at the retreat back into normal society. Nevertheless, does this method merely containing or covering up the issues faced? Mean that they are merely being taught how to blend in and not cured in some cases?

2. When Shorter writes on the origins of biological psychiatry, he brings up two of the foremost pioneers of this field of research and thought, Benjamin Rush and Philipe Pinel. However, he later gives credit to Johann Reil as the forerunner of this field, Due to the matter that Rush and Pinel wrote “Sketchily.” What does that even mean in the context of founding this field? Many scholars considered founders of a particular field of medicine or science even if their ideas were wrong or if their writing was viewed as vague. What makes it different in this field?


-Parker Siebenschuh I pledge