1950s Psychological Treatment

During the 1940s and 1950s, psychology experienced a complete transformation that incorporated massive amounts of research and discoveries that had been accumulated earlier in the decade (Haggbloom 139). The aftermath of World War II lead to a demand for psychological services which fueled this transformation by giving psychologists the opportunity to put new methods into practice (Street). Author J.D. Salinger, known for his work The Catcher in the Rye, was one of the soldiers who experienced psychological trauma during the war (Medicus). After World War II, recently discovered treatments and knowledge in psychology rose to prominence in order to cope with the needs of soldiers such as J.D. Salinger and the people who had been affected by …show more content…
Salinger experienced from the war, the demand for psychological treatment was growing more rapidly than ever. Prior to the period that followed World War II, psychological treatments were dangerous and used potentially fatal methods in an attempt to rid the patients of their illnesses (Scull). To cope with the growing demands for treatment, military psychologists of the 1950s took a dramatically different approach to treating mental illness that was based on psychoanalysis (Scull). Psychological treatment was no longer confined to asylums as clinical psychology was developed (Street). Psychoanalysis became the main tool for diagnosis and treatment (Street). Suggested as a treatment by Carl Luce for Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger 148), psychoanalysis is a system of therapy that explores the conscious and subconscious aspects of the mind in order to determine the cause of and treat mental disorders (Scull). With the success of the treatments in the military, applied psychiatrists quickly found interest in using these methods as opposed to the harsh methods from earlier in the decade (Scull). In addition to psychoanalysis, clinical psychotropic drugs were implemented for the first time (“Psychiatry” 1012). These psychotropic drugs aided in the reform of asylums and helped to end the inhumane treatments used in these facilities (“Psychiatry” 1012). One particularly common drug was chlorpromazine (CPZ) which made even the most violent and disturbed patients calm and made them conducive to psychoanalytic therapy (“Psychiatry” 1012) which lead to the overall improvement of the atmosphere of mental hospitals (“State Mental Hospitals” 445). Within a decade, the combination of psychoanalysis and new psychotropic drugs helped to improve the field of psychology and to be more beneficial to the mental health of the