Alright let’s see here – we’ve got leeches, holes getting drilled into skulls, people just getting legitimately tortured, and those burned as witches. It seems that over the centuries we haven’t just dropped the ball with mental health care, but have been free-falling with it into a spiraling void while clumsy fumbling to catch it like the big dumb ol’ barbarians we are. Some of those practices seemed more depraved than the people who supposedly needed them.
Thankfully though, we’re doing a lot better now right? You’d like to think, but consider the fact that we only stopped giving people lobotomies 30 years ago. Although it has been refined and rebranded as ECT (electroconvulsive therapy), we are still shocking people and most medical professionals are under the consensus that it is safe. It may very well be, but it’s not too far-fetched to think that fifty years from now it could be a cruel relic just like so many treatment methods before it. This isn’t meant to be a paranoid revolt against modern medicine, but a reflection of how interesting it is that we put so much faith into science when the guys in starched white lab coats will forever be saying “Oh wait never mind that was so totally wrong, woops”. Admitting that you’re wrong is not only an inevitability of human nature, but a key part of progress. Embrace it!
