4. Branding and Spinning Were Common (and Torturous) Treatments
The history of mental health treatment is rife with horrifying and torturous treatments. The early 20th century was no exception. Asylums employed many brutal methods to attempt to “treat” their prisoners including spinning and branding. Spinning treatment involved either strapping patients to large wheels that were rotated at high speeds or suspending them from a frame that would then be swung around. It is unclear why on earth anyone thought this would help the mentally ill aside from perhaps making them vomit.
Branding is exactly what it sounds like: patients would be burned with hot irons in the belief that it would “bring them to their senses.” While these treatments, thankfully, began to die off around the turn of the 20th century, other horrifying treatments took their place including lobotomies and electric shock therapy. In 1941, John F. Kennedy’s sister, Rosemary, was subjected to a lobotomy after having been involuntarily committed for mood swings and challenging behavior. The lobotomy left her unable to walk and with the intellectual capabilities of a two-year-old child. It also caused a loss of speech and permanent incontinence. The surgery was performed at her father’s request and without her consent.