Ancient Greek Mental Health Essay

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Mental heath has been misunderstood since the beginning of time and continues to be a misconceived subject. Although, mental health treatment has come a long way from the ancient Paleolithic trephining, which was the process of boring a hole into the skull to relieve pressure in the head or clear out bone fragments. The Ancient Greeks were one of the first civilizations to have mental health treatment similar to modern day. Their journey to the understanding of the brain is fascinating as they were the first steps that inspired modern day treatment. One of the first people to grasp an understanding of mental illness in Ancient Greece was Pythagoras (582-510 B.C). Pythagoras, a jack of all trades which included just to name a few, an astronomer, …show more content…
He believed that knowledge was centered in the head while emotions were centered in the heart. Both were honorable notions to have and encounter. Those who are motivated by emotion are possessed by the temple of courage while those who worked to achieve knowledge were interested not in possessions, but in their pride. Emotions on one hand did have the power to overwhelm a person and their everyday behaviors. Plato argued that the mentally ill were influenced by sociocultural factors that in the end lead to their ailment. He believed that mental illnesses resulted from superstitions and unreasonable beliefs. Because of that, Plato encouraged education to modify a persons ignorance. Plato used his teachings to inform the sick and bring their beliefs back to reality. He insisted that treatment should be humane and should be treated by divine intervention. There were many people who influenced and shaped our modern-day views of mental health. Because it is something that can not be completely understood unless you’ve experienced a mental illness, it’s hard to grasp the severity of it. It’s not a physical pain but a mental one. It has been a long fight to bring awareness to the subject of mental health, but luckily it seems the fight gets easier every

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