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460-377 BC Hippocrates developed the theory that the “four humors” or bodily fluids were responsible for physical and mental health. The four fluids he named are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood.
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Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) developed the idea of animal magnetism which he defined as a natural energetic transference between all animated and inanimate objects.
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Phillipe Pinel (1745-1826) became chief physician at La Bicetre’s ward for the mentally ill. Pinel is considered to be a primary figure in the movement for the humanitarian treatment of the mentally ill.
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Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) the “father of American Psychiatry wrote the first text book on the subject Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind.
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Dorothea Dix (1802-1877) visited the Cambridge House of Corrections. The mentally ill were kept in the same facilities with prisoners and treated inhumanely. They were abused physically and sexually. This visit changed her life and started her on the path to reform prisons and mental hospitals.
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The United Kingdom’s Statistical Committee of the Royal Medico-psychological Association came up with a classification scheme. The scheme was revised many times but never adopted.
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1856-1926 Emil Kraepelin brought order to the classification of mental disorders focusing on the biological aspects of mental illness.
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1856-1939 Sigmund Freud developed theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression. Freud established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis. This is a process where a patient talks to a psychoanalyst.
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1876-1943 Clifford W. Beers suffered a mental breakdown and spent time in an asylum. After his recovery published a study of his experience in the asylum called A Mind That Found Itself (1908).
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John B. Watson (1879-1958) delivered his lecture “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it” at Columbia University. In this lecture he first proposed the idea of an objective psychology of behavior called “behaviorism.”
