Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Bedlam and Bad Cures,” on the troubling past of efforts to treat mental illness, with Brittany Trexler, licensed professional counselor, sex therapist, psychology instructor at Anne Arundel Community College, and scholar of the history of mental-health treatment.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating.]

The history of mental-health treatment is a masterclass in confidence without evidence, as doctors often possessed alarming certainty but little reliable data in dealing with serious mental illness.

Psychological problems have been blamed on the shape of craniums, imbalances of “humors” in the blood, and the suspected movement of uteruses throughout women’s bodies. Lobotomies were embraced widely as a cure.

Come to Baltimore’s Guilford Hall for a talk that explores how misguided theories about the mind inspired wrongheaded but widely accepted medical practices, many of which were defended as humane, progressive, and scientific while actually being anything but.

We’ll examine medieval diagnoses, the rise of asylums, and how various social forces gave rise to bizarre and harmful “cures.” Along the way, we’ll confront how power, race, sexuality, gender, and class influenced who was labeled “mad,” who was institutionalized, and who was subjected to invasive or experimental treatments.

You’ll learn how religious beliefs caused mental illness to be viewed as a sin, moral failing, or symptom of demonic possession, with extreme and painful treatments justified as righteous spiritual correction. You’ll get a sense of how both a lack of understanding of neuroscience and poor scientific methodology played a role in the embrace of ineffective or harmful “cures.”

We’ll look at how mental-health diagnoses were skewed by biases related to race, class, cultural background, sex, sexuality, and disability, as well as how moral panics and political abuses gave rise to bad diagnoses and harmful treatments.

Dr. Trexler will describe how various improvements and reforms in mental-health care have led to it being more effective and humane. As a cautionary note, she’ll discuss how psychology as a whole remains a young field with many ongoing debates, and how some of the treatments considered "top-tier" today may be viewed skeptically down the road. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: From an 1815 George Arnald illustration of a restrained patient at Britain’s notorious Bethlem Royal Hospital, the psychiatric facility commonly known as “Bedlam” (Public Domain).