Chapter 5 - Moral treatment

Abstract

Moral treatment was an approach to intellectual impairment and/or mental that emerged in the 18th century and became influential in the 19th century. It was based on contemporaneous scientific, religious or moral concerns and was associated with attempts to reform and develop the European asylum system into a more humane framework. It fell into decline as a distinct method in the 20th century due to overcrowding and misuse of asylums. Nevertheless, it is also seen as having influenced several areas of psychiatric care up to today. Moral treatment has been praised for freeing asylum inmates from shackles and barbaric physical treatments and for taking into consideration patients’ feeling and social interactions.