Health and Medicine
106 Psychopharmacology Revolution
Tess Keenan
Introduction
Our world went through a “psychopharmacology revolution” between 1950 and 1970. This time involved a shift from psychotherapy and nonpharmacologic somatic therapies to an incline in the reliance of drugs for treatment. This shift was described as changing from psychoanalysis to neurochemistry, or understanding there was scientifical evidence for mental health. The rise of psychopharmacology in the nineteenth century began the process to gain more biological knowledge regarding mental illnesses (Baumeister, 2006). People who struggle with mental illnesses can live much more fulfilling lives in current society due to new treatment methods such as talk therapy, psychopharmacology, and deinstitutionalization compared to ancient harmful treatments.
Connection to STS
The development of mental illnesses and how they are treated is very closely associated to STS. Science and technology in society is all about the relationship of these three things and how they work together. Technology is continuing to advance everyday in our society. Technology has been proven to have great affects on people with mental health issues especially due to social media. However, it has also become a great tool to help people struggling. The discovery of virtual reality has been an important asset. It can be used to show real world environment scenarios as exposure therapy, virtual classrooms provide an individualized scenario, and the virtual reality functional capacity tool is used to simulate daily routine activities (Harvey and Keefe, 2012). VR has different benefits for different illnesses which include exposure therapy, practice of social skills, cognitive behavioral therapy, and assessing mental health. VR allows both assessment and treatment and it is so efficient because it can all be done remotely (Harvey and Keefe, 2012). This shows science and technology being used to create new treatment methods for the benefit of society.
Evolution of mental health
In this age of reform, mental health became a priority for the government. Major changes that occurred were the transference of responsibilities to localities, adoption of Community Support Programs enabling community care systems for patients after institutionalization, and the use of Medicaid financing to provide a significant amount of community care costs. The states began to prioritize funding for mental health patients to make treatment seeking easier. This new public mental health system was much more beneficial, and humane compared to how state-run hospitals were previously run (Hogan, 1999).
The stigma around mental illness has evolved over time. In ancient times, most people did not even believe mental illnesses were a real thing or they believed it was due to supernatural causes. Since they believed it was caused by evil spirits, their treatment methods included prayers, rituals, exorcisms in an attempt to drive away evil spirits