How not to go crazy and not cross the line of insanity: causes of insanity
The modern world can rightly be called crazy in many of its manifestations. Loose morals, immorality of various segments of the population, perversion of values, complete violation of the laws of nature - these are the characteristics that can characterize “advanced” reality. The reality is crazy because quite a few people from the current generation cannot be proud of good mental health. According to the World Health Organization, every fifth person on the planet (a shocking figure - more than 1.5 billion people) suffers from some kind of mental disorder of varying degrees of severity. That is why, in order to maintain adequate reality and life in general, so that Terra does not go completely crazy, the 6 billion inhabitants of the Blue Planet need to take care of maintaining their mental health.
In the first part of this article, we got acquainted with the signs that may indicate the development of insanity - severe mental disorders. The purpose of today's meeting is to try to understand why people go crazy, what factors provoke the development of mental disorders. In this publication, we will not consider congenital defects of the central nervous system; we will avoid the topic of the occurrence of mental disorders that are associated with the abnormal course of the mother’s pregnancy. Our work is devoted to studying the conditions and circumstances that lead to insanity in initially healthy people from birth.
It should be noted that in modern psychiatry there is no complete understanding of the causes that gave rise to many mental disorders. The culprits of some mental disorders are not at all clear. This can be explained by the following: almost all hypotheses, no matter how logical and solid they may sound, cannot be fully studied and tested experimentally. Why? The fact is that psychiatrists and psychotherapists mostly have to deal with and treat people who have already become mentally ill. Not a single sane person would agree to become a voluntary participant in an experiment that tests in practice the mechanism of how people go crazy and lose their minds.
Why people lose their minds: reasons and provocateurs
Representatives of the scientific community and practicing doctors agreed: the cause of all serious mental disorders is the combined influence of biological (physiological) conditions, psychological components and social factors.
Physiological aspects
Biological causes of mental illness are chronically affecting or rapidly acting factors that cause damage and lesions of the central nervous system, in particular the brain. Physiological provocateurs of insanity are both factors of the external world and conditions of the internal environment of the body, the influence of which causes disruptions in the normal functioning of the psyche. Suppression and collapse of higher mental activity are often provoked by the following circumstances. 
The top priority among the physiological causes of insanity belongs to traumatic effects on the cranium of moderate and severe severity. Any damage to the substance of the brain and its membranes in one way or another negatively affects mental functions. For example, a brain contusion is fraught with the formation of a lesion in the tissues and the development of hemorrhage. Subsequently, severe trauma leads to the death of nervous tissue, which becomes the direct culprit of mental defects, epileptic seizures, gross motor disorders, and speech dysfunction.
Whether a person will go crazy or avoid such a fate depends on the severity of the injury and which particular area is affected. Therefore, some patients after intracranial injuries experience amnesia - memory loss. Other people begin to believe that those around them are reading their thoughts and plotting against them. Third persons become hot-tempered and rude, demonstrating aggression against others.
Another physiological reason explaining why a person has gone crazy is the regular intoxication of the body with potent psychotropic substances and alcohol. Uncontrolled use of powerful medications, drug use, and regular drinking of alcoholic beverages gradually poison the body and destroy the nervous system. Intoxication causes particular damage to the structures of the brain. This is why a drug addict or alcoholic behaves inappropriately, degrades as a person and over time goes crazy, losing his human appearance.
The biological cause of human madness is an imbalance of certain active chemical elements in the brain. The functions of neurotransmitters are the regulation of the emotional state: a deficiency in their production or a failure in neurotransmitter metabolism leads to an unreasonable deterioration in mood or gives rise to manic euphoria.
Unfortunately, symptoms of mental disorders can also arise as a result of infectious diseases. Neuroinfection caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi or protozoa very quickly affects the structural parts of the central nervous system. For example, depression and autism are often consequences of herpetic encephalitis.
An obvious risk factor is the elderly and senile age of a person. Elderly people often have severe defects in the cardiovascular system. Severe degenerative changes occur in the structures of the brain. Due to impaired blood supply and nutrition to the brain, changes in the structure of blood vessels, gradual death of neurons - nerve cells - occurs. A decrease in the number of neurons and disruption of communication between cells directly affects the deterioration of human intelligence.
That is why among the elderly there are many people who resemble mentally ill people. Thus, with senile dementia, a significant decrease in memory is determined, and severe cognitive defects occur. A sick person loses criticism and is deprived of the ability to independently care. Age regression occurs: an elderly person “relapses into childhood.” He can demonstrate anger and aggression or, conversely, try to please everyone. He is not able to think logically, often does not understand what he is doing and why. Brain atrophy in old age leads to disturbances in the perception of reality. The patient cannot orient himself correctly in time and space. He begins to have delusional thoughts and statements. Hallucinations occur very often.
Psychological and social factors
We can be cheated in the store and scammed on the street. We may accidentally break our expensive mobile phone and forget our wallet on the seat in the minibus. We may receive notice of our termination. We may be informed that the bank where we had a deposit has gone bankrupt. Thousands of factors, both negative aspects and positive aspects, can to some extent shake our mental balance. Mental trauma causes pain, cripples the soul, deprives one of prudence, and leads to suicide.
However, some of us are resilient to the effects of stressors and are not seriously harmed even after the most tragic disaster. Other people become depressed and lose their minds when exposed to seemingly tiny and harmless stimuli. This is because different people have different understandings of the same life situation. For some, a runny nose in a beloved cat is a shocking drama, but for others, even the news of their own serious illness does not deprive them of composure and common sense. This can be explained by the fact that people interpret events differently and attribute different degrees of importance to them.
Another fact is also important: a person’s resistance to stress. Resistance to stress is nothing more than the strength and ability of the nervous system to adequately respond to stimuli. The more stable the nervous system, the less a person risks going crazy.
Accordingly, the more violent the response to the presented stimulus, the more significant the change that occurs, the greater the risk that a person will “break the tower” as a result of stress. At the same time, the likelihood of going “off the rails” is present both among those who have been overwhelmed by an unexpected global misfortune, and among those who are regularly and methodically “pressed” morally and physically. The future of our psyche depends on how we behave under stress (detailed information about stress is indicated).
An inappropriately intense reaction of a subject to a psychotraumatic factor often leads to reactive psychoses, which are popularly called human insanity. As a result of the incident, a strong, independent, benevolent person can become aggressive, uncontrollable, dangerous to himself and to others. An active and energetic person can instantly plunge into depression, become isolated in his experiences and obsessively replay scenes of what happened in his head. At the same time, she will painfully experience her inferiority and inferiority, reflecting on the meaninglessness of existence.
The action of the tiniest irritant, in a fatal combination of circumstances, can overwhelm the thicket, serving as a trigger for loss of sanity. What can give rise to the formation of a mental disorder? Most often, the following situations and conditions are the direct provocateurs of insanity.
The risk of joining the ranks of madmen and going crazy is especially great for that person who constantly fails in all his endeavors. At the same time, he disclaims responsibility for the mistakes made and blames the white light for everything. In his understanding, it is the environment that is the source of troubles and problems. He is convinced that he is being treated unfairly. They weave intrigues against him and put spokes in the wheel. He perceives all his surroundings as sworn enemies. At the same time, such a person denies that there are gross flaws in his character, his abilities are devoid of perfection, and the efforts made are insufficient to achieve success. Such a life position ultimately leads to the fact that a person, exhausted by natural failures, acquires severe delusional experiences - paranoia.
Another obvious reason that a person loses his mind is pathological workaholism. A workaholic not only works excessively and too hard. He does not know how to fully relax and spend his leisure time wisely. From his point of view, rest is a kind of indicator of laziness. For him, the thought of being unoccupied and idle causes panic. However, from a scientific point of view, workaholism is a direct sign that not everything is going well in a person’s life. This is a sign that he has lost the ability to fully communicate with others, and by immersing himself in work he seeks to escape from his unresolved problems. As a result, excessive zeal and excessive workload leads to overwork and depletion of the nervous system's resources. And, as a result, a person ceases to be an adequate person.
The direct provocateur of insanity is severe mental trauma, which has had a huge impact on the life of a person and led to the loss of the meaning of existence. Mental disorders can be caused by physical and sexual violence, a difficult divorce, betrayal of a loved one, bankruptcy of one’s own company, or the sudden death of a child or spouse.
No less harmful to mental health is the forced social isolation of a person. Lack of communication, lack of new impressions, inability to show one’s emotions leads to the fact that a person loses her mind. Social isolation makes people extremely emotional and anxious. Staying outside the human community leads to a distortion of the perception of time, the appearance of hallucinations and obsessive thoughts, and a decrease in intellectual capabilities.
The culprit for the fact that a person has crossed the line between normal and disease can also be psychological dependence. Dependent (addictive) behavior is a universal solution for “escape” from real life. Emotional dependence forces a person to give up his interests and plans, forces him to ignore his own needs and change his life values. Addiction leads to the complete destruction of the original “I” and gross personality changes.
It should be remembered: an existing obvious problem provokes a “shift in the roof” not always and not fatally. An obvious cause begins its destructive effect only when a number of conditions are present. Moreover, the occurrence of mental disorders, their development, aggravation and outcome depend not only on the initial cause, but also on various harmful influences of the environment and the state of the body.
Insanity is an outdated name for insanity, which is a severe, potentially incurable mental pathology. Until the end of the nineteenth century, madness was the name given to behavior or mental functioning that exceeded the boundaries of the accepted norm in a certain society. For example, types of insanity included convulsions and suicide attempts. Also, epileptic seizures, consequences of brain injuries and concussion were considered signs of insanity. So what does the word madness mean? This term means loss of mind. A madman is an individual who has lost his mind or gone crazy. Since historically the concept of “madness” was applied to many different mental illnesses, today it is used extremely rarely in modern medical and psychotherapeutic practice, although it is also popular colloquially.
Causes of madness
Madness in life is a severe mental illness that is characterized by a distorted perception of reality. Scientists claim that mild insanity is caused by a disturbance occurring in the unity of the human soul and body. It is believed that the main factor provoking the onset of madness is the lack of possibility of adjustment and acceptance of reality. That is, insanity, in simple words, occurs when reality ceases to correspond to the stereotypes formed by the brain. Due to the fact that the varieties and forms of insanity are very diverse, today it is quite difficult to identify common causes that can lead to loss of reason.
Most medieval psychiatrists, wondering what madness was, attributed to this concept such manifestations as banal deceit, lack of patriotism, as well as everything that made individuals different from the bulk of people. They were ready to recognize great artists, who are in a fit of creativity and inspiration on the verge of madness, as mentally ill.
In ancient times, there were two categories of causes of insanity: supernatural and physical. Our ancestors often associated madness with divine punishment for sins. In other words, by making a person mad, higher powers thus tried to punish him. However, divine madness often provided knowledge and therefore carried positive content.
Demonic possession was also considered a common supernatural cause of the condition at that time.
Often, problems of a moral and spiritual nature can cause symptoms of insanity. For example, loss of reason can be triggered by daily repetition of troubles, great grief, anger, and strong rage. Physical factors that cause insanity include head injuries.
The medicine of ancient Greece, based on the research of Hippocrates, explained insanity as an excess of “black bile”, the vapors of which settled in the brain, corroding it, which caused insanity. An excess of “yellow bile” led to an increase in activity, that is, choleric madness, mania and epilepsy. During the reign of the Renaissance and humanism, the described concept acquired a second life.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the theory of positivism was firmly established, which stated that the soul is just a puppet of the brain, therefore all the symptoms of madness are of a physical nature and are completely curable. Due to the influence of this concept, the word “mentally ill” went out of use, since it meant that the human subject has a soul that has the ability to “get sick.” The definition of “madman” has finally become established in everyday life.
Today, all symptoms previously generalized by the term insanity are designated as mental disorders. After all, what does the word madness mean? It means without reason, that is, a complete loss of rationality in behavior. The actions of a madman become unpredictable, as in a number of mental pathologies.
Modern psychiatry is convinced that mental illnesses occur as a result of a disorder of the neurotransmitter balance, in other words: the structural and functional elements of the nervous system - neurons are not connected to each other, the distance between them is called the synaptic cleft, in which there are neurotransmitters that transmit impulses between neurons. occur precisely because of the violation of the above-described balance.
Signs of madness
Since the forms of madness are quite diverse, identifying common features is quite problematic. Separate criteria may include behavioral deviations from generally accepted norms, for example, pathological hyperactivity and catatonic.
The onset of insanity is signaled by the following signs:
- lack of self-criticism;
- conversation with oneself as if with another person;
- sudden changes in mood that are causeless.
The diagnosis of insanity, from the point of view of its impact on the social environment, distinguishes between dangerous and useful insanity. Dangerous insanity includes rage, mania and other symptoms of madness, during which the suffering individual can cause moral harm or injury to others.
Useful madness includes the gift of foresight, creative inspiration, delight and ecstasy. Many famous geniuses were on the verge of madness and created masterpieces.
According to the nature of the symptoms, madness in life is divided into melancholy, mania and hysteria. Melancholy manifests itself in dejection, complete lethargy, and lack of interest in what is happening. Individuals suffering from this deviation experience torment and mental anguish, and remain in a depressed state for a long time. Mania and hysteria are the exact opposite of melancholy. These deviations are expressed by the patient in an excited state and rage. Individuals susceptible to mania or hysteria may impulsively commit rash acts, which often have negative consequences.
According to the severity, insanity is classified into mild (mild insanity), serious and acute. A mild disorder is characterized by the manifestation of clinical symptoms or they are expressed in a mild form. Serious insanity is a disorder of consciousness that the subject is unable to cope with on his own.
Symptoms of severe insanity are characterized by increasing intensity and frequency of occurrence. Acute insanity is manifested by severe deviations in the functioning of the psyche, which are permanent.
Treatment of madness
In the dark ages, they often tried to cure insanity with the help of magic and the reading of various spells. After all, what is madness for medieval people? This is possession, the possession of a demon. In Catholicism, the means of healing were masses, prayers and pilgrimages; in evangelism, the additional reading of the Bible to the mentally ill was used.
In the Stone Age, according to evidence from numerous excavations, a procedure such as craniotomy was used for treatment. Medieval psychiatrists believed that a hole in the skull could be used to free the demon in the head and give it a path to freedom. And although the diagnosis of insanity is unlikely to be cured in this way, it suggests that already in the medieval era, insanity was associated with the presence of pathologies in the brain.
The ignorance of psychiatrists and the underdevelopment of psychiatry as a science gave rise to its dark sides in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was then that such savage surgical treatment methods, which had no theoretical basis, began to be used, such as hysterectomy (removal of the uterus), female circumcision (removal of female genitalia: clitoris, lips), lobotomy (excision or separation of one lobe of the brain from other areas), and also a method of shock therapy.
Physician and philanthropist F. Pinel, having headed an institution for the insane in Paris, introduced humanitarian methods of therapy and classified them according to the form of the disease and the severity of its course. He divided all categories of patients into zones in which the development of individual forms of the disease can be compared and directly studied. Pinel outlined all his acquired experience in a monograph, which became the basis for the scientific classification of insanity.
Dr. G. Cotton was convinced that the main causes of insanity were localized infections. He is considered the founder of the “surgical bacteriology” method, which became widely used on mentally ill patients being treated at the Trenton hospital.
Cotton and his team performed many operations on mentally ill people, often without their consent. First, they removed the patient's tonsils and teeth; if a cure was not achieved, then they removed the internal organs, which, in their opinion, were causing problems. Cotton believed in his own methods to the point of fanaticism, as a result of which he removed his own teeth and also performed a similar operation on his wife and two sons.
Cotton was convinced that the method he invented had a high degree of effectiveness in curing patients. Although in fact this statement is far from the truth. He justified the deaths of forty-nine patients from colectomy (removal of the intestine) by claiming that they had "end-stage psychosis" before surgery. After Cotton's death, his methods fell into obscurity.
Modern medicine treats mental illnesses comprehensively, including drug therapy and psychotherapeutic techniques.
Shock therapy is still used today, but in a modern variation (under anesthesia). She has successfully proven herself in the treatment of bipolar disorders.
In addition, to this day, “mentally ill” individuals are isolated from society. But modern clinics, fortunately, have nothing in common with the houses where the mentally ill were kept until the end of the nineteenth century. 
Nowadays, insanity is a mental illness that is potentially incurable, although such patients are given special treatment that affects their mental state. It is necessary to understand what exactly is meant by the definition of “madness”. For example, almost until the end of the nineteenth century, madness meant inappropriate behavior of an individual, as well as a way of thinking that was not within the framework of certain social norms. This category included people suffering from painful convulsions, or having intact minds.
In particular, those who committed self-destructive or strange actions, including suicide attempts, were considered crazy. The presence of attacks of concussion in a person, manifestations of the consequences of skull injuries, was also considered a manifestation of insanity. As can be seen from historical examples, this terminology has been used to define a significant number of mental illnesses. However, modern psychiatry and medicine use such a definition quite rarely, although this term is common in modern colloquial speech. If we define in more detail what the word insanity means, then we can say that it is synonymous with “madness”, and literally means that a person has lost his mind.
The existing forms of madness are very diverse, and in this case it is almost impossible to identify certain signs. As a general criterion, we can take such deviations in the patient’s behavior as violation of generally accepted social norms. But even in this case, the list can be quite large. Starting from pronounced hyperactivity, which is pathological in nature, and ending with depressive states and catatonic stupor. What is so-called pathological hyperactivity? In this case, the patient is not able to restrain and control his own emotions, restrain anger, anger, etc.
Features of behavior in insanity
A person diagnosed with insanity has absolutely no self-control, his actions have no meaning, or they are strictly aimed at primitive satisfaction of needs considered instinctive. In this case, the consequences do not matter to them, since their thinking is impaired. With madness, the external and internal worlds are confused, reality is perceived distorted. It is interesting that there are a huge number of similar examples in ancient Greek mythology, when Medea takes the lives of her sons.
Another hallmark of madness is melancholy and profound depression. At the same time, the patient stops communicating normally with others, he becomes indifferent to what previously aroused his keen interest. Over the entire centuries-old history, humanity has identified various forms of insanity, and has identified a huge number of signs that define this disorder. The category of insanity included such modern concepts as dementia, mania, amentia syndrome, hypochondria, paralysis, coma, and a number of other mental conditions. It is known that until a certain time, not only mental disorders, but also diseases such as rabies, lycanthropy, and so on were considered madness.
Moreover, clouding of mind caused by the intake of various poisonous substances and narcotic drugs, as well as resulting from alcohol abuse, was also considered a manifestation of insanity. Other forms of madness were also identified, for example, these included various congenital pathologies, as well as the patient’s loss of reason due to lethargic sleep and coma. Surprisingly, if a person was overcome by grief in the event of the loss of a loved one, or he suffered excessively due to unrequited love, then he was also considered crazy, devoid of reason. The literature provides plenty of examples that describe such types of madness as deep, persistent grief, hysterical crying with wringing of hands, and days-long insomnia.
How is madness treated?
Considering all the listed signs of insanity, it is quite obvious that this disease belongs to the mental sphere, and the final diagnosis is carried out by a psychiatrist. He finds out what kind of mental illness, which has an official name and treatment methods, caused the madness. The signs of insanity are different, and their range is extremely wide, so in each individual case a thorough examination is necessary, which always begins with a visual examination, testing, and a conversation between the patient and the doctor. If necessary, the doctor prescribes additional tests, for example, brain imaging and other modern diagnostic procedures are often required.
The disease called madness is called a mental disorder in official medicine. Modern psychiatry claims that most mental disorders are caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters. This means that the neurons that make up the brain are not connected to each other. Between them there is a distance called the synoptic cleft, which contains neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and others. They are designed to transmit impulses to neurons. But since the balance is disturbed, mental disorders arise, colloquially called insanity.
Madness is often attributed to creative people, geniuses, as well as magicians and psychics. In this case, it takes on a romantic coloring and borders on human genius. But insanity is also classified as a severe mental disorder. A madman is isolated from society because he is capable of causing harm to others. In order to understand the meaning of this term, you should carefully study this article.
What is madness?
The ancient name for this term is madness. Today, madness is a mental illness. And in the distant past, people who thought differently from others were considered crazy. They could go beyond the bounds of decency and did not follow generally accepted rules. Then people who committed suicide or suffered from seizures were considered insane. Today, this name is used to refer to the mental state of a person when he loses the ability to reason and becomes crazy.
Madness may vary in form of manifestation:
- Useful madness is a state in which a person is not dangerous to others. Can be: mystical, poetic or erotic. Creative people or magicians often become crazy. This also includes a state of ecstasy or delight.
- Recklessness, which is divided into insanity, insanity and insanity. According to I. Kant, the first is manifested in the absence of logic, and the second - in recklessness.
- Melancholy. Previously, this condition was previously attributed to creative individuals. In those days, special attention was paid to a person’s appearance. If he had thin facial features and pallor, then he was considered a melancholic madman.
- Hysteria and mania are the opposite state of the previous one, manifested in increased activity and inability to control one’s own emotions. A person with this form of the disease achieves his goal by any means.
Previously, madness meant a bunch of diseases. These included various conditions: hallucinations, coma, lethargic sleep, epilepsy and much more that distinguished a person from others.
Symptoms of the disease
The main criterion for determining insanity is the loss of the ability to think logically. This condition does not have a clear manifestation. It can manifest itself in the form of systematic inappropriate behavior in a sick person or temporary in a healthy person. Lack of logic in judgment and thinking refers to the manifestation of madness, as well as fear, rage, and passion. A person ceases to understand the consequences of his actions. The main goal in life for him becomes the satisfaction of animal instincts. He is unable to distinguish between reality and inner experiences. A person is immersed in the illusions of his imagination.
Insanity may manifest itself as the following symptoms:
Psychologists have divided madness into the following states:
- Melancholy - manifests itself in the form of dejection, apathy, indifference, lethargy, and mental anguish. This condition is long-lasting.
- Mania and hysteria - manifests itself in the form of aggression, rage, and impulsive actions.
The state of madness is constantly progressing, it becomes longer lasting. Serious mental abnormalities may occur and become permanent.
How to define insanity?
It is not difficult to identify a madman. If a person commits actions that do not fit into the framework of what is permitted, his speech is illogical - this is madness.
Signs of the disease:
- lack of self-criticism;
- loss of self-control;
- self-talk;
- a sudden change in mood that occurs for no reason.
Madness can be both beneficial and harmful. The first includes actions that do not harm others. These could be acts of love or the creation of poetry. If an act is capable of harming others, then such a person is forcibly forced to undergo treatment in a hospital.
Sometimes creative people are considered crazy. In their reasoning, they go beyond the boundaries of social consciousness and perceive the world as different. But if a person is able to logically justify and derive a theory, then he cannot be called such. People with mental disabilities are classified as disabled if they lose their sense of reality and through their actions can harm others, and are also unable to care for and provide for themselves. These people stand out for their appearance and non-standard behavior.
Causes of madness in modern medicine
There are many manifestations of this condition and therefore the origin of the disease differs significantly. Various factors can provoke it.
Depending on the severity of the condition, insanity is divided into:
- Weak - can sometimes occur even in a healthy person, against the background of inconsistency of one’s own stereotypes. Reluctance to accept reality leads to internal conflict. A person in such a state sometimes does strange things.
- Severe - with this form, the patient may often experience severe attacks that he is unable to control;
- Acute - the condition is expressed in pathological changes in the psyche on an ongoing basis.
Causes of madness in ancient times
Previously, the causes of insanity were divided into:
- Supernatural. It was believed that this was a punishment from a higher power to a person for bad deeds. Possession by demons was also considered the cause. But if a madman brought new knowledge, then much was forgiven.
- Physical - believed that the disease arose as a result of a head injury.
Modern medicine identifies completely different causes of insanity. Constantly being in a stressful situation when a person does not see a way out of it and constantly feels anger, rage or grief. Such feelings can trigger the development of insanity. Another reason in psychiatry is considered to be a malfunction of the nervous system, which affects the conductivity of neurotransmitters.
Treating insanity earlier
At different times, methods of combating the disease differed significantly. During the years when insanity was thought to be possessed by demons, it was treated through spells, Bible readings, and other magical methods. And before that they even did it. Although this method was ineffective, even then it became clear that the cause of the disease lay in the head. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that madness was a physical illness. Treatment methods did not exist in those days. People of that time tried to understand what kind of condition this was - madness. Therefore, they looked for the cause, removing various parts of the body one by one, which, naturally, did not bring results.
Cure madness now
In modern medicine, medication and therapeutic methods are used to treat insanity. Treatment is determined by the symptoms of insanity and its severity. During rehabilitation, patients are isolated from society. A mild form of the disease is treated by a psychologist or psychiatrist. A specialist helps you accept reality and get rid of unwanted behavior.
The disease does not affect life expectancy if proper care and treatment is provided. A person cannot independently identify his condition and is not able to undergo treatment on his own. Therefore, such patients are often isolated from society. People suffering from this disease often commit crimes, after which they are forcibly sent for treatment.
Ancient culture
This disorder has frightened people since ancient times. Therefore, the images of the gods of madness look terrifying. In ancient Greece, the embodiment of madness was Pan and Mania. The Hellenes depicted the Goddess with a strange smile, a protruding tongue and an empty gaze. Mania, according to legend, could stupefy a person and reward him with any obsession. It could be overconfidence or an excessive passion for money.
Pan, according to legend, shocked his mother because he was born with horns, hooves and a goat's beard. Immediately after he was born, he began to dance. Having become the shepherd's patron, he constantly disturbed their sleep with his cries. Both mythical heroes later became names for psychiatric terms that characterize madness. Mania is an excessive passion that can manifest itself in anything. The second term is panic attacks. They manifest themselves as an uncontrollable state of terror.
The lack of knowledge about mental illness has led to the attribution of mystical origins to madness. There were even rumors that one could draw inspiration from it. This opinion was especially popular during the Renaissance, when melancholy came into fashion. But modern psychologists have proven that giving a romantic color to madness is a manifestation of fear of it. And now there is an opinion that genius borders on madness. Therefore, a new term has appeared in the modern dictionary that characterizes the creative manifestation of madness - creativity. Which means "crazy" in English.
So, madness was interpreted in different ways in ancient times. It was considered both a punishment from above and a genius. Different treatment methods have been used at different times. Some of them cause shock and disgust in modern people. In modern society, insanity is treated in specialized institutions using medications and psychotherapeutic methods.
This term has other meanings, see Madness (meanings).
Madness(also outdated) madness) is a potentially incurable severe mental disorder.
Until the end of the 19th century, madness or insanity was considered behavior or thinking that went beyond the accepted social norm, such as painful convulsions, hallucinations while remaining sane, strange or self-destructive actions, and suicide attempts. In addition, epileptic seizures, contusions and the consequences of traumatic brain injuries were also considered a manifestation of insanity.
Because the term has historically been applied to a number of different mental illnesses, it is rarely used in modern medicine and psychiatry, although it remains popular colloquially.
History of definition
"Madness" is a more modern version of the concept of "madness" and literally means: gone crazy, lost your mind. The noun “madness” is formed by direct translation from the Greek aphrosyne: a - without, phronis - mind, syne (suffix) - ie. In many Slavic languages, the word “madness” has a similar sound.
Symptoms
Since the forms of madness are very diverse, it is not possible to single out specific signs. A general criterion can be a deviation of behavior from accepted social norms, ranging from pathological hyperactivity to catatonic stupor and depression.
The first is manifested by a loss of control over emotions, the inability to restrain manifestations of fear, anger, malice and is defined in psychology as a state of passion. In this state, behavior is beyond self-control, actions are meaningless or aimed at satisfying instinctual needs, and the consequences of actions do not play any role. The external and internal worlds are mixed, the perception of reality is disrupted. Examples can be found in ancient Greek mythology: Hercules kills his children, Ajax slaughters Odysseus' flock of sheep and runs into his own sword, and Medea kills her sons. The other extreme of madness is depression and melancholy, impaired communication, indifference and lack of interest in life.
Madness in painting
Literature and painting help create an impression of what was considered madness in the past. The sources are paintings, icons, frescoes and other works of art. But since painting has an emotional basis, these sources cannot be considered unbiased. Madness in painting is manifested by distorted facial expressions, contradictory or meaningless gestures, absurd actions, as well as incorrect, distorted body position. An important role is played by a face with inharmonious, asymmetrical or distorted facial features, grimaces, disproportionately wide open, squinting eyes. Often inappropriate facial expressions are used, such as laughter in a tragic or frightening situation. The gestures of a madman are most often contradictory and incomprehensible, the position of the body is incorrect or distorted by a spasm.
Madness in literature
Descriptions of madness are found not only in painting, but also in many historical and modern works. Most often, crazy people play the role of fortune tellers, wise men, sorcerers, or show and ridicule the existing social order in works with social themes. Examples of Russian literature with the theme of madness include “The Idiot” by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, “Notes of a Madman” by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, “Woe from Wit” by Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov and others.
Forms
Over the centuries-old history of mankind, many different forms of insanity have been identified and several classification systems have been proposed. Historically, various symptoms have been attributed to madness, such as dementia, amentia, melancholy, mania, rage, lycanthropy, ecstasy, lethargy, delirium, coma, somnambulism, ignorance, epilepsy, stroke, paralysis, hypochondria and others.
Useful Madness
In ancient Greek μανία, manía means passion, attraction and is akin to μαντις, mantis, which means soothsayer, prophet. In Antiquity, poetic inspiration, divination and ecstasy, especially the madness of Dionysus, were considered useful forms of madness. Plato distinguished four forms of useful madness: magical, mystical, poetic and erotic madness. In the Middle Ages, there was also so-called permitted madness. It included ecstasy, delight and visions.
Reasonable and Reckless
In 1798, Immanuel Kant proposed a description of madness as a dichotomy of the rational and the unreasonable. According to severity, Kant divided madness into three groups: insanity, insanity and insanity. His definition of insanity as the displacement of the reasonable into the reckless was the classic definition of insanity in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kant defines insanity as a systematic violation of the rational, which manifests itself in “positive” madness: patients develop their own logical rules that do not correspond to the logic of healthy people. In all forms of madness, personal perception replaces common sense.
Melancholy
This form of madness was described already in Antiquity, and during the times of humanism it gained particular popularity, although the physique of a melancholic person with thin bones and a dead face was not considered beautiful. The reason was the hint in the works of Aristotle and Cicero of the genius inherent in illness, which led to the spread of the cult of melancholy. It was believed that gifted artists, writers and poets were on the verge of genius and madness. This form of madness as a means of self-expression only fell out of favor at the beginning of the 19th century.
Mania and hysteria
Mania is considered the complete opposite of melancholy. Unlike melancholy, mania manifests itself in ferocity, excitement and ardor. Characteristic manifestations of mania are also considered to be increased appetite, impaired attention, and overestimation of one’s own personality.
Hysteria has long been considered a female disease, and the cause was sought in disorders of the female reproductive system. In the second half of the 19th century, many women were maimed by doctors who unsuccessfully treated hysteria with surgery.
Other forms
Until recently, insanity included not only mental disorders, but also diseases and defects such as epilepsy, rabies, lycanthropy and others. Clouding of consciousness after taking narcotic and toxic substances such as alcohol and hallucinogens was also considered a manifestation of insanity. Other forms of insanity included, for example, congenital conditions and loss of reason due to coma, lethargy, disease, or old age. Grief at the loss of a loved one, like the pain of unrequited love, was also classified as madness. The literature often contains descriptions of such manifestations of grief as insomnia, crying and wringing of hands. All these manifestations were considered a sign of madness.
Until the middle of the 20th century, the concept of health for most members of society was determined by the concept of the norm. Everything that was rejected by society for any reason was considered a painful deviation. As a consequence, members of society who did not fit the description of a “reasonable” person were ostracized and persecuted. The ideal of a mentally healthy person changed with the development of society, but was sometimes forcibly imposed.
Causes of madness
The first person to give a scientific description of madness was Plato. In the dialogue "Phaedrus" he distinguishes between two types of madness: illness and divine gift. In the following description, the causes of madness are also divided into supernatural and physical for better comparison.
Supernatural reasons
Witchcraft and the gift of the gods
The Babylonians (XIX century BC - VI century AD) and Sumerians (XXVII-XXIV centuries BC) considered madness to be a consequence of witchcraft, violation of taboos, and madness was a sentence and punishment at the same time.
In ancient Greece, madness was considered demonic possession, but it could also be sent down by the gods. While physical disorder was considered a disease of the soul and, as Plato described in the Timaeus, brought evil, divine madness gave real knowledge and therefore had a positive meaning. Contrary to what was said in ancient Greek myths, divine madness most often led to self-destruction and the murder of innocents - usually close relatives.
In the Old Testament, madness is also attributed to the role of punishment. An example is the image of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, punished with madness for his pride. Moreover, at first Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about this punishment, which was interpreted to him by the prophet Daniel, and only then the punishment was carried out, and Nebuchadnezzar turned into a wild beast for seven years, as was predicted to him. This description formed the basis of views on madness in the Middle Ages and was considered a punishment sent by God for sins. In addition, madness is also mentioned in the biblical book of Psalms. The Prophet David reports another reason for madness - this is unbelief in God, and in the book of the Wisdom of Jesus, the son of Sirach, pride and unbelief in God are closely linked.
Demon Possession
Over time, madness was increasingly regarded as possession by demons and demons. The example of King Saul, possessed by a demon and tormenting him for his sins against the Amalekites, served to confirm this theory, especially during the Inquisition. In the Gospel you can find examples of the exorcism of demons, for example, Jesus casting out a demon from a resident of Jarash. The main signs of demonic possession were uncontrolled actions and especially glossolalia. And only in the 17th century did Dutch Calvinists begin to interpret this example not as God’s punishment for sins, but as “ordinary” madness.
And finally, in the late Middle Ages and in modern times, madness acquired the meaning of a struggle between a demon and the forces of God for the soul of the possessed.
Physical reasons
Mental and moral
According to Homer's epic, it can be judged that the ancient Greeks understood “ordinary” madness as a loss of self-control and clouding of reason due to pain, rage, desire for revenge or hatred. In ancient Greek tragedies, madness is described as the loss of self, which has catastrophic consequences for the madman and those around him. At that time, no attempt was made to describe the physical causes of insanity.
Only at the end of the Middle Ages, when the witch hunt became rampant, did the physician Johann Weyer speak out against the Inquisition and debunk religious misconceptions. Unfortunately, he was unable to overcome religious superstitions alone. The works of Paracelsus (1493-1541) and Felix Plater (1536-1614) are also known, supporting Weyer's point of view. Thus, Plater believed that not all madness is demonic possession; there is also a simple, “ordinary” form of madness.
From the 16th century, the definition of insanity began to change little and in the 17th century it ceased to be used in the context of demonic possession. By this time, madness acquired the meaning of punishment for licentiousness and recklessness and was imputed to the insane.
The Age of Enlightenment brought a new definition of insanity and explained insanity as a disorder of an initially healthy mind. In this way, madness was opposed to reason and could be justified and described. The proof of the impossibility of madness without reason was given by Arthur Schopenhauer, who substantiated his theory by the fact that animals do not go crazy because they do not have reason.
Physical
Greek medicine, based on the texts of Hippocrates, interpreted madness as an excess of “black bile,” whose vapors settled on the brain, corroded it and led to insanity. “Yellow bile,” on the contrary, led to increased activity - choleric madness, epilepsy and mania. This theory found a second life during the times of humanism and the Renaissance.
Melancholy was classified as a disease of the heart, which, unlike the brain, was considered the guardian of character and feelings, although this opinion was disputed in medical circles. For example, Girolamo Mercuriale described melancholia as damage to the active imagination region at the front of the brain.
On the contrary, scientists were unanimous in the opinion that inflammation of the meninges of the brain leads to loss of reason, although the cause of inflammation was still considered to be an excess of “black bile.”
Traumatic brain injuries are also a known cause of insanity. For example, Wilhelm von Conches (1080-1154) described the influence of head injuries on the occurrence of mental disorders, and Mondino de Lucci (1275-1326) created the theory of the ventricles of the brain.
The theory of positivism stated that the soul is just a puppet of the brain, all manifestations of madness have a physical explanation and are curable. This point of view was finally established in the second half of the 19th century, and the concept of “mentally ill” (which implied that a person has a “soul” that could “sick”) finally replaced the definition of “madman”. And at the beginning of the 20th century, the concept changed again, and today all the signs previously summarized by the word madness are designated as a mental disorder.
In modern psychiatry, it is generally accepted that mental disorders occur due to an imbalance of neurotransmitters, that is: the neurons that make up the brain are not connected to each other, there is a distance between them - the synaptic cleft, which contains the so-called neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, etc.), which transmit impulses between neurons. Mental disorders occur due to disruption of this balance. It is treated with antipsychotics, which restore this balance.
Diagnostics
Observational diagnosis of madness was started in 1793 by the physician and philanthropist Philippe Pinel (1745-1826), who became the managing physician at the Parisian institution for the insane, Bicêtre. He introduced humanitarian methods of treatment, obtained permission from the revolutionary Convention to remove the chains from the mentally ill and classified them according to the severity and form of the illness. All groups of patients were divided into zones where the development and course of individual types of disease could be directly compared and studied. Pinel put all his experience into a monograph, which was published in 1798. It was this work that became the basis for the scientific classification of madness.
Another physician known for his contribution to the development of psychiatry, Joseph Gall, considered madness to be an organic disease and looked for the physical reasons for its development. In 1785, in his laboratory in Vienna, he began studying the neurological structure of the brain. As a result, he was able to establish a connection between damage to certain parts of the brain and forms of insanity, and, as a result, became the founder of phrenology.
Today, mental disorders are not united by such a general concept as “madness” or “madness”, but are divided using diagnostic systems such as the American Psychiatric Association (APA) DSM-5 or the World Health Organization (WHO) ICD.
Treatment
Magic treatment
In the Middle Ages, they often tried to cure insanity with magic and spells, while trying to drive out the evil demon from the patient. It was believed that there was a possibility of replacing one demon with another, and thus the unsuccessful “treatment” was not blamed on anyone. The means of treatment in Catholicism were prayers, masses and pilgrimages to holy places; in evangelism, reading the Bible was additionally used for the mentally ill.
Surgery
Excavations have confirmed that already in the Stone Age craniotomy was used for treatment. It was believed that the hole in the skull frees the demon and gives him the way to freedom. And although this method of treating madness is questionable, it can be assumed that even then madness was associated with brain damage. Similar methods were used at a later time.
The dark side of psychiatry came to light in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when surgical treatments such as hysterectomy, female circumcision, lobotomy, and the infamous shock therapy were used.
Exile and education
During the times of absolutism and mercantilism, madness was crowded out of people's consciousness: patients were expelled from society and condemned to life in workhouses or educational institutions. It was believed that work, control, and sometimes corporal punishment had a positive effect on the mind and prevented madness from developing. Often the sick were exposed to the amusement of the crowd and thus earned money.
At the end of the 18th century, the Enlightenment freed the sick from this unenviable fate, and society recognized them as people in need of treatment. And although patients were still isolated and doctors were often engaged not in treating the disease, but in “disciplining” the patient, this was a big step in the development of a humane attitude towards the sick.
No treatment
In the Middle Ages, when madness was considered a punishment for sins or the machinations of Satan, there was no treatment for madness. Society's attitude towards the sick varied significantly and depended for the most part on the social status of the patient. The higher the social and financial status of the family, the greater the chance for the patient to receive good care and recovery. Patients from wealthy families were most often integrated into society, while patients from poor families were left to their own devices. Harmless people often wore jester clothes as a warning to random people about illness. If the patient posed a danger, he was put in a cage outside the city walls or completely expelled from the city.
Psychotherapy and psychopharmacotherapy
Today, mental disorders are treated both with medication and psychotherapy, combining one with the other. Depending on the type of disorder and its severity, the proportion of one or the other type of treatment may vary. Shock therapy in its modern form (under anesthesia) is still used to treat diseases such as bipolar disorder. In addition, people with mental disorders are still isolated from society. Fortunately, modern clinics have nothing in common with the mental asylums of the 19th century, although this word still has a negative connotation.
Literature and quotes
- Mikhail Epstein. Methods of madness and the madness of the method // Epstein M. Space sign: On the future of the humanities. - M.: NLO, 2004, p. 512-540.
- Michel Foucault. A history of madness in the classical era.
