Mysteries of Mental Illness

In 1936, neurologist Walter Freeman performed the first lobotomy in the U.S. It was widely seen as a miraculous intervention and a solution to saving some of the half-million mentally ill patients languishing in asylum 'hell holes'. The procedure soon became widespread and was even used for a member of the Kennedy family. But many lobotomies were performed on patients against their will.

For many of the million-plus people with mental illness in the U.S., access to treatment and insurance is limited. Psychiatrist Sidney Hankerson is working to combat this by bringing healthcare to culturally relevant settings. In the black community, this might mean forming partnerships with trusted community establishments, like barbershops and churches, and developing interventions from there.

By the early 20th century, mental asylums had become extremely overcrowded, and very little was known about how to treat these patients. Out of view from the public eye, desperate doctors experimented with new treatments. When treatments failed, patients were labeled biologically defective, fueling the Eugenics program, and the involuntary sterilization of thousands of patients.

Thomas Kirkbride's 'hospitals for the insane' were built for people who had nowhere else to go. They were intended to be a retreat from the world; a place to be cured. Kirkbride believed that the restorative atmosphere of his institutions would be therapeutic. The goal was to rehabilitate patients and send them back to society as productive citizens.

Mass confinement in mental asylums and extreme treatments – from lobotomy to coma therapy – were the standard for treating mental illness in the United States until a few decades ago. Today, one of the largest de-facto mental health facilities in the United States is Cook County Jail in Chicago, where more than one-third of inmates have a mental health diagnosis.

Matthew Rosenberg is having deep brain stimulation surgery to help his debilitating OCD condition. In three weeks he'll have another electrode implanted in the other side of his brain, followed by a separate surgery to put batteries in his chest to power the device. Will the groundbreaking surgery help him to manage his severe OCD? Initial signs are promising.

As asylums were deemed inhumane and closed down, the social commitment to community care disappeared, and monies were allocated elsewhere. So began the mass incarceration of the mentally ill as, with nowhere to go, they wound up homeless, or in nursing homes or jails. The irony is that they have not been deinstitutionalized, and their treatment resembles the punitive systems of the past.

For 8 years, Matthew Rosenberg has dealt with a debilitating form of OCD. He hyperventilates throughout the day and is in near-constant pain. having tried numerous therapies and medicines with no results, his last hope is the high-tech surgery he’s waiting for, where electrodes will be transplanted into his brain.

Black men with mental health problems are more likely to be incarcerated than white men. 50,000 people pass through Cook County Jail each year and 90% are black. One inmate, Jeremiah Robinson, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, anxiety, bipolar and PTSD, and has been arrested 15 times since high school. How did prisons and jails become a frontline treatment for the mentally ill?

A look at today’s most cutting-edge treatments, based on the latest scientific understanding of the biological underpinnings of mental illness, with profiles of patients undergoing a variety of vanguard treatments. These include Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, modern electro-convulsive therapy, and MDMA-assisted therapy, also known as ecstasy or molly to treat PTSD.

Fear and misunderstanding have created a stigma around ECT or Electroconvulsive Therapy, but today it’s done with targeted current, anesthesia, and muscle relaxants, making it much safer with fewer side effects. Cynthia has been hospitalized for depression five times and tried many treatments, with little success, before turning to ECT.

Some 30,000 patients came through the Mississippi State Hospital for the Insane, and many never left. The asylum cemetery was recently discovered by construction workers, and approximately 7,000 burials were discovered. Not a single one has been identified, but records in the State archives reveal why many were admitted and how they died.