Weird Historical Psychiatric Treatments
This 1930s treatment intentionally induced repeated hypoglycemic comas in patients with schizophrenia.
What is Insulin Coma Therapy?
Patients could receive daily comas for weeks. Mortality rates were 1–5% before the practice ended in the 1950s.
This therapy focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns.
What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)?
Before antipsychotic medications existed, psychiatric hospitals like Massillon often relied on this combination of structured work, farming, and daily routines as therapy.
What is occupational therapy / therapeutic work programs?
(Massillon State Hospital had large farms where patients worked with livestock and crops.)
This class of medications is commonly used to treat schizophrenia and psychosis.
What are antipsychotics?
This psychiatrist developed the Hierarchy of Needs, often used in psychiatric and nursing care planning.
Who is Abraham Maslow?
Early versions of this treatment were performed without anesthesia or muscle relaxants, sometimes causing fractures.
What is Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)?
Fun fact:
Modern ECT is much safer and still used today for severe depression, catatonia, and treatment-resistant illness.
This crisis intervention technique involves validating emotions and reducing agitation through calm communication.
What is verbal de-escalation?
At its peak, Massillon State Hospital housed more patients than most small towns in Ohio, sometimes exceeding this number.
What is 3,000 patients?
This mood stabilizer is commonly used to treat bipolar disorder but requires monitoring of kidney and thyroid function.
What is lithium?
This nursing theorist created the Theory of Interpersonal Relations, making her known as the “mother of psychiatric nursing.”
Who is Hildegard Peplau?
This infamous procedure involved severing connections in the frontal lobe and was sometimes performed through the eye socket.
What is a lobotomy?
Psych history note:
The procedure became popular after Walter Freeman promoted the transorbital lobotomy in the 1940s.
This evidence-based therapy is commonly used to treat borderline personality disorder.
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)?
At its height, running Massillon State Hospital required a workforce comparable to a small city, including doctors, nurses, attendants, and support staff numbering around this.
What is 1,000–1,500 staff members?
Fun fact:
Many were trained on-site, since formal psychiatric nursing programs were limited in Ohio at the time.
his SSRI medication is commonly prescribed for depression and anxiety disorders.
What is sertraline (Zoloft)? (or fluoxetine/Prozac)
This Austrian neurologist developed psychoanalysis and emphasized the unconscious mind.
Who is Sigmund Freud?
Doctors intentionally infected patients with this disease to create high fevers believed to treat neurosyphilis.
What is malaria fever therapy?
Fun fact:
This treatment won a Nobel Prize in 1927 before antibiotics existed.
A structured therapy designed to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
(EMDR) is an evidence-based psychotherapy designed to treat PTSD and trauma by reducing the emotional charge of traumatic memories. Through bilateral stimulation—often guided eye movements—it helps the brain reprocess stuck memories.
Like all Ohio state hospitals, Massillon saw a dramatic drop in population due to this movement in the 1960s–1980s, emphasizing community-based care over long-term hospitalization.
What is deinstitutionalization?
Extra insight:
The hospital shifted focus to forensic, short-term, and specialized care, which is the Heartland Behavioral Healthcare of today.
Medications used to treat low mood, low energy, anhedonia, poor concentration, and/or sleep and appetite disturbances. Most common variation is known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.
What are Antidepressants?
In the 1800s, this reformer pushed for the creation of state mental hospitals after witnessing poor treatment of people with mental illness in jails and almshouses.
Who is Dorothea Dix?
Patients were kept in warm baths for hours or even days to calm agitation.
What is Hydrotherapy / Continuous Bath Therapy?
Interesting detail:
Patients were often wrapped in sheets to prevent slipping while remaining submerged.
Uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies to increase psychological flexibility.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Massillon State Hospital was originally designed to house patients in large self-contained buildings based on this treatment philosophy emphasizing light, air, and structure.
What is the Kirkbride Plan?
(Fun fact: Many Ohio state hospitals were Kirkbride-style.)
This potentially life-threatening reaction to antipsychotics includes fever, muscle rigidity, and autonomic instability.
What is Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS)?
This mental health advocate and former first lady helped reduce stigma around mental illness and supported the Community Mental Health Act.
Who is Rosalynn Carter?