Nine hardly credible and absurd psychiatric treatments
1 -Therapy by the Lobotomy
It is to Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist, that we owe, in 1935, the idea that the mental illnesses are caused by problems of infections and connections of the present neurones in the frontal lobe. This party of the brain, situated behind the front, is constituted by white material, a set of nerve fibers. Infected and disconnected, the neuronal circuits provoke mental illnesses such as the schizophrenia, the epilepsy, the chronic migraines… Egas Moniz and the other doctors believed that we could intervene on this region of the brain without altering the normal functioning of the patient, by means of the lobotomy and of the leucotomie. These practices consist in splitting and in removing the part of this white material which causes a dysfunction inside the brain. Moniz obtained a Nobel prize in 1949 for his works. The practice is since forbidden because it is in no way without consequences.
2 -Therapy by the electric shock treatment
We attend for these last years a discreet return of one of the roughest treatments that the man never used. It is
about the electric shock treatment. A French Hopital finished the construction of a special room intended for the administration of shock therapy (the other term to indicate éléctrochocs). This brand new room welcomes ” his
first patients ” since summer, 2002.
This treatment of shock, which created voluntarily an epileptic coma, is administered in case of depression and is practised on fragile persons without limitation nobody, for the old persons, the pregnant women, even the teenagers. At present, they are practised under general anesthesia, what limits the spectacular demonstrations on the patients, but regrettably not the side effects.
The controversy which exists in the medical environment shows that its use is far from making the unanimity. This file is intended to explain the dangers of the electric shock treatment and to present victims’ testimonies.
The Committee of the Citizens for Human Rights wishes the adoption of a text of law to restrict the practice of the shock therapy in particular to protect the teenagers, the pregnant women and the old persons. The ultimate objective of the CCDH being naturally the abolition of this practice as therapy.
Electrochoc Therapy
(This image was modified to hide the pain)
3 -Therapy by the Phrénologie
If we say that some have the ” bump of the math “, it is to make echo for this underestimated and old-fashioned science. The phrénologie consisted in trying to describe the personality and the diseases associated with an individual by observing the shape of the skull. This theoretical science, exposed in 1920 by the German doctor
Franz Joseph Gall, was not however possible that try a diagnosis and not to look after somebody. By observing a patient, and bumps situated at the level of his dome of the skull, a doctor thought he could describe his personality, and the source of his troubles. Although exceeded, not proved, and even mocked scientifically, this practice always has some followers.
4 -Therapy by the Hypnose
Frédéric-Antoine Mesmer, German doctor practicing at the end of the 70s, believed that an invisible strength surrounded us and influenced our states.
According to him, the breaks of the continuity of this strength pulled pains and sufferings at the human beings,
and the gravity of the Moon was the cause of many other troubles. To try to restore a good blood flow at his patients, Mesmer used magnets . The patients were satisfied by the obtained results , but the medicine compromised him.
If his technique had no impact on the modern medicine, its ideas on the hypnosis, which result from it, seduced more than a scientist. Interesting anecdote, in English, to hypnotize says itself “to mesmerize”.
5 -Therapy by the Malaria
At the beginning of the last century, Von Jauregg found how to cure the syphilis: by contaminating his patients with the malaria. When we did not still know the penicillin, that is before 1928, the doctors had how found to look after the syphilis. They made so that their patient catches the malaria, this one activating then a strong fever. Indeed, a high physical temperature was the ideal cure against the syphilis. The problem is evident: in spite of its good results , this method contained numerous risks. His inventor, Von Jauregg, obtained all the same a Nobel prize for this discovery and the success of this therapy. The malaria is often transmiss by a moustic!
6 -Treatment by the Hydrotherapy
This therapy consisted, at the beginning of the XXth century, in curing the patients suffering from a psychiatric disorder thanks to various techniques appealing to the water. We so plunged the hyperactive patients into the water, whereas the lethargic received stimulating jets. This therapeutic method was supposed to look by the water or to prevent(warn) the disease. Fountains(water jets), baths, showers, vapors and compresses were so used. Today
still, in the terms or the saunas, the hydrotherapy helps to clean out certain skin diseases or states of stress.
His psychiatric benefactions are on the other hand non-existent.
The treatment by hydrotherapy consisted in placing the standing patients in a big room and to spray them by means of a water jet with strong pressure by alternating the cold water and the boiling water to create many thermal shocks on the patients in situation of stress.
7 -Therapy of rotation
Erasmus Darwin (the big father of famous Charles of the same name, the editor’s note) finalized , in approximately 1750, a therapy consisting in stretching out the patient and in making him turn. Erasmus Darwin, doctor, philosopher and scientist, thought of having found a means to look after his patients by making them turn. An American doctor, Benjamin Rush, used this method in psychiatry: he thought that she would allow to decrease
the stroke, and thus, to look after certain mental illnesses. This theory was erroneous, and was neglected.
8 -Therapy the trepaning
The trepanning consists of a perforing of the cranium. Exercised on human or dead beings, this practice consists in piercing the skull to cure diverse pathologies. In Néolitique, from 5.000 to 2.200 years BC, this therapy of the extreme based a priori on the faith that the madness was caused by present devils in the skull. To fit out a “exit” so allowed to free(release) them… This method is still current, in particular to certain Peruvian or Colombian tribes, but the modern medicine condemns it and uses her it today mainly for the ablation of tumors or the evacuation of intellectual bruises.
9 -Therapy the coma
It turned out that dive a patient into the coma allowed, in certain cases, to cure him(it) of dependences due to a previous treatment. It is in 1972 when this idea germinated, after doctor Manfred Sakel gave by mistake an overdose of insulin to one of his patients diabetic. The reaction was rough: this one fell in the coma. Later, this person declared to have no more dependence in the morphine, used in the treatment of its diabetes. The accident had so cured him(it) of its dependence. Doctor Manfred Sakel then turned(shot) to specialists who managed to deal by this case-study method of schizophrenia. No scientific explanation has ever validated this method, finally
forbidden because of its dangerousness: 2 % of the patients never went out indeed of the coma.
In the memory of my Mother who has sudden these treatments to lose the reason for ever…
New Psychiatric Therapies : Behavioral and Cognitive therapies, Sexothérapie … and what else ?
The Sexotherapy of group was tried and applied in a psychiatric section of a French hopital in the 80s – 90s on the initiative of an eminent psychiatrist. In practice that consited to leave the patients free to exercise all their fantasies (even dirtiest and most daring) on their partners (men and woman), during the very private scéances. It was a complete failure defeat and the scandal burst in broad daylight!
