The question of how to address mental health issues has existed since antiquity; the answers have evolved across cultures and millennia, adapting as the understanding of the human condition has changed in the face of advances in science, chemistry, medicine, and psychology.
Ancient theories about mental illness were often the result of beliefs that supernatural causes, such as demonic possession, curses, sorcery, or a vengeful god, were behind the strange symptoms. Remedies, therefore, ran the gamut from the mystical to the brutal. Anthropological discoveries dating as far back as 5000 BCE showed evidence of trephining, which the Inquiries journal explains as the process of a hole (or a trephine, from the Greek word for boring) being bored into the skull, with the use of rudimentary stone instruments. The humans of the Neolithic era believed that opening up a hole in the skull would allow the evil spirit (or spirits) that inhabited the head of the mentally ill to be released, thereby curing them of their affliction.
Ancient theories about mental illness were often the result of beliefs that supernatural causes, such as demonic possession, curses, sorcery, or a vengeful god, were behind the strange symptoms. Remedies, therefore, ran the gamut from the mystical to the brutal. Anthropological discoveries dating as far back as 5000 BCE showed evidence of trephining, which the Inquiries journal explains as the process of a hole (or a trephine, from the Greek word for boring) being bored into the skull, with the use of rudimentary stone instruments. The humans of the Neolithic era believed that opening up a hole in the skull would allow the evil spirit (or spirits) that inhabited the head of the mentally ill to be released, thereby curing them of their affliction.
Remarkably, the process was not universally fatal. Since some trephined skulls showed signs of healing, researchers believe that those individuals survived the trephining process and might even have lived for years afterwards. This may have encouraged the practice, as did the incidental success of relieving brain swelling that can arise from infections or trauma to the head. As a result, trephining endured for centuries, used as a treatment for a number of different conditions: skull fractures, migraines, and mental illnesses, although the tools were gradually upgraded to skull saws and drills that were developed for the exclusive purpose of “treatment.”
Modern advancement in mental health is attributed to William Sweetzer who identified it as mental hygiene in 1843. Whereas this was treated in Mental Health Level 2