Tag Archives: gender-specific treatment for insanity

Gender Inequality

Portrait of An Insane Woman, Hugh Welch Diamond, 1852

Portrait of An Insane Woman, by Hugh Welch Diamond, 1852

Treatment for mental disorders was generally hit-or-miss in most insane asylums, and many superintendents embarked on experimental procedures simply because there weren’t any reliable ways to help patients. Some treatments were more bizarre than others, and unfortunately, some of the treatments aimed at female patients were based on mistaken physiology-based causes of insanity. Continue reading