The Three Ages of Treating Madness: Confinement, Conversation, Chemicals

The Three Ages of Treating Madness: Confinement, Conversation, Chemicals

“As long as I live, I shall balk at having psychoanalysis swallowed by medicine.” —Sigmund Freud Image by A-EYE Once Upon a Time in the Asylum For centuries, those labeled mad were neither treated nor understood. They were hidden, not healed. Alienists—the forerunners of modern psychiatrists—oversaw confinement not to cure, but to control. Brutal methods like iron chains, straitjackets, bloodletting, purging, and induced seizures were standard. …