Since ancient times, people have been faced with a manifestation of madness. Someone considered it an incurable disease, someone, on the contrary, a divine gift. What is madness? What are its reasons? Is it treatable? And if so, in what ways?
What does the word madness mean?
Until the end of the 19th century, a whole series of human mental disorders was called madness. These included hallucinations, delusions, epilepsy, convulsions, attempts to commit suicide, depression - in general, any behavior that goes beyond normal and familiar.
Currently, insanity is an outdated concept, which, however, people still actively use in colloquial speech. Now each specific mental disorder is assigned its own diagnosis. Madness is a general concept that can be called any deviation in human behavior.
Forms of insanity
There are many different classifications of insanity. From the point of view of influence on others, they distinguish useful and dangerous madness. The first type includes the magic gift of foresight, poetic and other types of inspiration, as well as ecstasy and ecstasy. Dangerous madness is rage, mania, hysteria and other manifestations of insanity, during which the patient can cause injuries and moral harm to others.
By the nature of the manifestation, madness is divided into melancholy and mania or hysteria. The first form of mental deviations is expressed in depression, complete apathy to everything that happens. People suffering from this disease experience torment and torment, for a long time they are in a depressed state.
Hysteria and mania are the exact opposite of melancholy. They are manifested by the aggression of the patient, his excited state and ferocity. Such a person can commit impulsively rash actions, which often have terrible consequences.
Also, madness can be classified by severity (mild, serious and acute). With a mild mental disorder, people experience unwanted symptoms quite rarely, or they appear in a mild form. Serious insanity is a violation of consciousness with which a person is not able to cope on his own. Symptoms are becoming more frequent and powerful. Acute madness is characterized by severe mental disorders that are permanent.
Reasons for insanity
Due to the fact that the forms and varieties of madness are very diverse, it is very difficult to identify common factors that can lead to madness. Usually distinguish between supernatural and physical causes of insanity.
In ancient times, madness was often associated with divine punishment for sins. Higher powers, making a person crazy, thus punished him. As for useful insanity, on the contrary, he was considered a divine gift. Another supernatural reason for this condition was considered obsession with demons. As a rule, in this case, the patient's behavior was accompanied by uncontrolled actions.
Very often, moral and emotional problems can cause madness. This is a repetition of troubles day after day, great sorrow, intense rage or anger. All of these conditions can bring the human mind out of control. The physical causes of insanity also include injuries that damage the human brain. It leads to insanity and a violation of the neurotransmitter balance.
Symptoms of insanity
Due to the variety of forms and varieties of insanity, it is impossible to single out common symptoms that characterize this condition. The only common feature of any madness is behavior deviated from the usual norms.
Very often, insanity is a complete loss of control over oneself and one's actions. It manifests itself in the form of aggression, fear, anger. At the same time, human actions are meaningless or aimed at satisfying instinctive needs. Self-control and awareness of their actions are completely absent. In some cases, insanity is the exact repetition of meaningless and useless actions.
Symptoms of melancholy craziness are depression, apathy, estrangement from the outside world. A person closes in himself, weakly reacts to external stimuli, does not come into contact with others.
Madness is often characterized by symptoms such as loss of a sense of reality and time, a mixture of objectively existing and fictional. In this state, a person can rave, say strange things and see hallucinations.
Madness in Culture
In the history of human culture, madness has not always been considered a disease. At some times, people considered madness a gift of the Gods, a source of inspiration. In the era of humanism, for example, the cult of melancholy flourished. This form of madness served as a means of expression for many poets and artists.
In painting, there are a number of paintings with images of crazy people. Patients are shown on them with contorted faces, in ridiculous poses, with squinting eyes and terrible grimaces. Very often, their facial expressions and facial expressions do not correspond to the situation depicted in the picture. It’s just crazy to see, for example, at the funeral of a laughing man.
Literary works also often describe people with mental disorders. They can play the role of fortune tellers and sorcerers, or people with mental illness. The theme of insanity is addressed in both classical and contemporary literature.
Madness Treatment
Throughout the history of the development of mankind, there have been various methods of treating madness. In ancient times, they tried to get rid of this disease with the help of magic and witchcraft. They tried to drive the demon out of a man, cast spells over him and recited prayers. There are cases when holes were made in the patient’s skull, supposedly helping thereby to leave the demon’s head.
In the Middle Ages, madness was considered the punishment of people for sins, so they did not deal with it. As a rule, at all times, people were cautious and contemptuous of the blessed. They tried to isolate them from society, expel them from the city or lock them away from the rest. Even in the modern world, lunatics are placed in clinics and treated, preliminarily protecting them from the rest of the world. Today, there are several ways to cure madness. The word "psychotherapy" is used more and more often and includes various types and methods of getting rid of madness.