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Allison Kuehn

Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Martin

APWH 3rd, Humanities 2-5th

21 February 2017

Mental Illness in the Industrial Age

What is a mental disorder? According to the DSM-V, (The Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders), a mental disorder is classified as a clinically significant

behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is

associated with present distress or disability. Mental illness has been present in society as far

back as 5000 B.C.E.; how its been treated though, is where the radical changes lie. Treatment of

mental disorders took a massive spin during the Industrial Revolution. In order to understand

mental illness in the Industrial Age though, one must first understand mental illness in past times.

In the days of the Ancient Greeks, it was believed that evil spirits possessed the mentally ill

because of their sins. Many religions, such as Christianity, believed that these ailments could be

cured with faith. The first asylum was the Bethlem Royal Hospital, located in London, which

began admitting people in 1357. The problem with Bethlem though, was that the people were

treated very brutally. The general public didnt see the mentally ill as human; instead, they would

come to visit and observe as if they were in a zoo. By the Industrial Ages, little improvements

had been made; the main change though was that the population boom made the need for more

asylums very apparent. This need was not met in a satisfactory manner though, and as a result,

made already tragic illnesses worse. The Industrial Revolution, as a whole, was a colossal factor

in the deterioration of mental illness awareness.

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The brutality of poverty, and subsequently unemployment, during the Industrial Age

aided in the collapse of the mentally ill. Poverty not only affects materialistic ideals, but

psychological ones as well. In Morton O. Wagenfelds essay, The Primary Prevention of Mental

Illness: A Sociological Perspective, he alludes to this notion by stating a major aim of many

community mental health specialists is the reduction or elimina- tion of mental illness through

primary prevention. Crucial for primary prevention is the notion that mental illness is

etiologically or sequentially associated with social conditions such as poverty (195). The

Industrial Revolution was a time of extreme poverty due to the introduction of specific labor.

Families were no longer providing for themselves, and instead had to rely on the money provided

by their employers. This was very difficult for the average citizen, but even more difficult for

those with mental illness. Along with mental illness, comes a comfort with routine. As this

routine changed due to an unreliable income, it led to extreme poverty for many. Poverty is an an

extreme factor in mental illness because of its instability. Those in poverty had less than

satisfactory lives, which when mentally ill, was a worsening factor. Poverty during the industrial

revolution was also caused by unemployment. Through the creation of new machinery during the

Industrial Revolution, fewer jobs were needed. As a result, a newly established selectivity of

employment arose. The issue with this selectivity though, was that the mentally ill were not even

considered for jobs. In Ville Lehtinens essay Unemployment and Mental Disturbance, he

describes the correlation between work and mental health by proposing that in the relation to

work and to fellow workers, man is able to test his own identity; these relationships provide, as it

were, a mirror image of self-concept. One gains realistic information about one's own abilities,

one's position in the community, and one's relationships in the immediate interpersonal milieu. A

clear sense of identity leads to self-acceptance and realistic attitudes in relation to the
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environment in which one lives and toward other persons, factors which are again directly

related to mental health (506). Lehtinens claim that employment gives one a sense of identity

is significant to the Industrial Revolution; the mentally ill were blamed for many occurrences,

such as crop failures, so they were institutionalized and denied jobs. This denial of occupations

due to uncontrollable illnesses not only created a loss of income, but also a loss of self purpose.

The unfair judgment and public treatment towards the mentally ill led to the eventual

demise of mental health awareness. B. Crowhurst Archer alludes to this in his essay Mental

Health, when he says there [are], however, far too many jokes about psychiatry...which

suggested that the present public attitude towards this particular branch of medicine [is] puerile,

if not unhealthy. The suffering of mental illness far exceeds that of cancer, yet, while the popular

comedian or the cartoonist would not dare to ridicule a case of cancer, he would not hesitate to

caricature cruelly the victim of mental illness in a way that savours of the Dark Ages (44). This

admittance to the general public's joking nature on the subject of mental illness is quite evident

in the Industrial Revolution. In this period of time, the mentally ill were thought of as rabid

beasts; this was greatly due to their treatment within asylums. By the Industrial Ages, people no

longer thought that the mentally ill were possessed by demons. Instead, they confined them to

the asylums, where they typically spent the rest of their lives. The mindset of the public on the

mentally ill, however, was where the problems lied. They were no longer treated as criminals;

instead, they were treated as lunatics. This mindset spread rapidly, and as a result, mentally ill

became synonymous with insane. This idea has been carried out to modern times, and is one of

the central problems with public thoughts on psychiatric and therapeutic treatment today. The

harsh public treatment towards the mentally ill can also cause the relapse or worsening of a

certain condition. In Abhinav A. Shah and Richard H. Beineckes essay, Global Mental Health
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Needs, Services, Barriers, and Challenge, this issue is addressed as they suggest that to some,

mental illness suggests not a legitimate medical condition but rather something that results from

an individual's own actions and choices. People may blame the individual and even believe that

the condition is all in his or her head. They may think that mental illness is an indication of

weakness or laziness, that such an individual is a moral failure or simply cannot cut it, that he or

she should just "get over it... the presence of stigma starts a vicious cycle that leads to

discrimination in all walks of life , decreasing self-esteem and confidence, a low treatment effect,

and high probability of relapse (23). During the Industrial Revolution, the already present

judgment towards the mentally ill worsened as stigmas became apparent. In a life that is already

lived with difficulty, the denial of public acceptance to the mentally ill can be a worsening factor.

This denial was largely related to the governments treatment of the mentally ill; as they denied

them of jobs and treated them as animals, the public took notice and caught onto these actions.

Because of this, public treatment wasnt necessarily a result of the public, but more-so a result of

the government. This is what made the Industrial Revolution such a determining time; as

government plans and machinery changed, so did their attitudes. These attitudes reflected on the

public and as a result, led to the brutal treatment of the mentally ill.

The Industrial Revolution, as a whole, was a colossal factor in the deterioration of mental

illness awareness due to the brutality of poverty and public treatment. Although this is a

controversial issue, it is a necessary to understand for the development of mental health

awareness. While observing the Industrial Age as a whole, it is easy to assume that since jobs

were scarce for all, the mentally ill had the same predicament as everybody else. In actuality

though, it is estimated that around 30-50% of the general public were unemployed, while the

numbers for those unemployed with mental illnesses were shockingly above 80%. It is clear to
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see that there was harsh judgment against the mentally ill during the Industrial Ages; this has not

completely disappeared and is still apparent in modern society. It is vital that the people of the

modern age spread the awareness of mental illness so that there is not a repeat of the tragedy

witnessed during the Industrial Revolution.

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Works Cited

ARCHER, B. CROWHURST. 'MENTAL HEALTH'. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political

Theory, no. 19, 1962, pp. 4346., www.jstor.org/stable/41801302.

Lehtinen, Ville. Unemployment and Mental Disturbance. Scandinavian Journal of Work,

Environment & Health, vol. 10, no. 6, 1984, pp. 505509.,

www.jstor.org/stable/40965123.

Shah, Abhinav A., and Richard H. Beinecke. Global Mental Health Needs, Services, Barriers,

and Challenges. International Journal of Mental Health, vol. 38, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1429.,

www.jstor.org/stable/41345271.

Wagenfeld, Morton O. The Primary Prevention of Mental Illness: A Sociological Perspective.

Journal of Health and Social Behavior, vol. 13, no. 2, 1972, pp. 195203.,

www.jstor.org/stable/2136901.