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400 BCE
Greece
Family members care for most people with mental illness in ancient times. -
May 15, 750
Middle ages
The Renaissance brought both progress and a decline in the views of mental illness. On one hand, there were many more witch-hunts and executions throughout Europe, and the mentally ill were among those persecuted.On the other hand, protested these supernatural view and had more rational explanations for the behavior of the mentally ill. -
Europe
Europeans increasingly begin to isolate mentally ill people, often housing them with handicapped people, vagrants, and delinquents. Those considered insane are increasingly treated inhumanely, often chained to walls and kept in dungeons. -
France
After the French Revolution, French physician Phillippe Pinel takes over the Bicêtre insane asylum and forbids the use of chains and shackles. He removes patients from dungeons, provides them with sunny rooms, and also allows them to exercise on the grounds. Yet in other places, mistreatment persists. -
America
U.S. reformer Dorothea Dix observes that mentally ill people in Massachusetts, both men and women and all ages, are incarcerated with criminals and left unclothed and in darkness and without heat or bathrooms. Many are chained and beaten. Over the next 40 years, Dix will lobby to establish 32 state hospitals for the mentally ill. On a tour of Europe in 1854-56, she convinces Pope Pius IX to examine how cruelly the mentally ill are treated. -
Civil War America
The most common disorder that results from exposure to combat is called post-traumatic stress disorder or more commonly known as PTSD. Mental illness in the 1800s was not treated with much concern, PTSD didn’t have any effective treatment. -
America
The nonspecific concept of madness has been around for many thousands of years and schizophrenia was only classified as a distinct mental disorder by Kraepelin in 1887. He was the first to make a distinction in the psychotic disorders between what he called dementia praecox and manic depression. -
America
In the mid-20th century, researchers theorized that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain, a theory based on observations made in the 1950s of the effects of reserpine and isoniazid in altering monoamine neurotransmitter levels and affecting depressive symptoms. -
America
Founded in 1979, ADAA is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention, treatment, and cure of anxiety, depressive, obsessive-compulsive, and trauma-related disorders through education, practice, and research. -
America
A new generation of anti-psychotic drugs is introduced. These drugs prove to be more effective in treating schizophrenia and have fewer side effects. -
America
Drugs that treat mental illness as of Feb of 2017-Drugs used today are a medical breakthrough such as: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil,Celexa, Lexapro, and Luvox. Selective serotonin & norepinephrine inhibitors (SNRIs), such as Effexor, Cymbalta, Khedezla, Pristiq, and Fetzima. Novel serotonergic drugs such as Trentellix (formerly called Brintellix) or Viibryd. -
Britain
Victorian Era-Insanity was classified as any behavior that was outside of the accepted social norms of middle class society. Unconventional ideas and actions or lack of contribution and productivity were reasons to be labeled mentally ill. The asylum served an important social function, a diagnosis of mental illness provided patients and their families with an excuse for disrespectable behavior. It was also a way to control and remove socially undesirable citizens from the public sphere.
