Posted on July 31, 2010 by crystal hatfield

To understand the meaning behind a social order, we must first learn the history of that image. The history of mental illness is as varied as the stereotypes we use to define the insane today. What we now define as “abnormal” in modern psychology and treat with medication and/or therapy has been treated differently throughout time. Today’s media displays the mentally ill as violent, but in the Middle Ages, madness was seen as a part of society, with madness even being a source of humor as opposed to a source of fear. In contract, in Paris during the Seventeenth century, one in every hundred was locked up for being insane. While the insane may be viewed as childlike today, in other times the mentally ill where put to work. In his book, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Michael Foucault discusses the way mental illness has been viewed throughout history. Foucault uses texts and literature of the times to paint a picture of how our views have changed towards this group of people. An illuminating view in how society has changed and how we view insanity. As a result, provides a glimpse in how society defines normality and what normal looked like.