• Question: how did scientist find out about anxiety and other mental health problems?

    Asked by anon-289993 on 23 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 23 Mar 2021:

      Hi,
      I think mental illness has always been with us as humans. If we look at the Middle Ages, there was something called ‘trepanning’ where they drilled holes in the skull to ‘let out the demons’ of people with mental health issues. There were the witch trials too where they accused those of hearing voices (who we would probably see as psychosis today) of being witches.
      Much more recently though, we can see mental health as more of a brain based thing, not a demonic or supernatural occurrence. We have brain scans (like I do!) and measures such as memory tests (such as used in assessing dementia) that can shed light a bit more on the basis, symptoms and treatment of all mental health problems to varying degrees.
      Where the future lies in our understanding, who knows!?

    • Photo: Lisa Orchard

      Lisa Orchard answered on 23 Mar 2021:

      Hello! Lara has given a really good answer, but just to add that in regards to research going forward, we now have questionnaire scales that can measure things such as anxiety (for instance, a high score would suggest someone with high anxiety, or a low score would be someone with low anxiety) and these can be used to try and understand how mental health perhaps interacts with other factors in our life.

    • Photo: Dennis Relojo-Howell

      Dennis Relojo-Howell answered on 24 Mar 2021:

      Hello base430her. Our current understanding of mental health issues has evolved over time. Before we had the tools to diagnose mental health issues, we were guided by social attitudes, observations, and scientific approaches available during a particular period. For example, during ancient times Hippocrates combined naturalistic knowledge with ancient science and philosophy to offer the first systematic explanations of human behaviour in relation to health and illness. And then much later (during 18th century), French physician Philippe Pinel noticed that there were a group of patients who behaved in irrational ways even though they seemed to be in touch with reality and were aware of the irrationality of their actions. And then more and more scientists added their own contributions to the stock of human knowledge about mental health issues.

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