Is psychiatry evil?

[Angrboda]

(Note: This relates to the history of psychiatry in general, not to CapnAwesome's specific claim.)

In 1621, Oxford University mathematician, astrologer, and scholar Robert Burton published the English language The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up. Burton wrote "I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business." Unlike English philosopher of science Francis Bacon, Burton assumes that knowledge of the mind, not natural science, is humankind's greatest need.

In 1656, Louis XIV of France created a public system of hospitals for those suffering from mental disorders, but as in England, no real treatment was applied. In 1713 the Bethel Hospital Norwich was opened, the first purpose-built asylum in England, founded by Mary Chapman. In 1758 English physician William Battie wrote his Treatise on Madness which called for treatments to be utilized in asylums. Thirty years later, then ruling monarch in England George III was known to be suffering from a mental disorder. Following the King's remission in 1789, mental illness came to be seen as something which could be treated and cured. The French doctor Philippe Pinel introduced humane treatment approaches to those suffering from mental disorders. As a result of his work, the Governor of the Bicêtre psychiatric hospital in Paris released psychiatric patients from their chains in 1793, beginning what has been called the bright epoch of psychiatry. At the York Retreat, a Quaker-run asylum in England which opened in 1796, a form of moral treatment evolved independently from Pinel under the lay stewardship of the tea and coffee merchant William Tuke.:84-85 :30 :53 Tuke's Retreat became a model throughout the world for humane and moral treatment of patients suffering from mental disorders. The York Retreat inspired similar institutions in the United States, most notably the Brattleboro Retreat and the Hartford Retreat (now the Institute of Living).