Profs & Pints Baltimore: Bedlam and Bad Cures

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Bedlam and Bad Cures,” on the troubling past of efforts to treat mental illness, with Brittany Trexler, licensed professional counselor, sex therapist, psychology instructor at Anne Arundel Community College, and scholar of the history of mental-health treatment.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating.]

The history of mental-health treatment is a masterclass in confidence without evidence, as doctors often possessed alarming certainty but little reliable data in dealing with serious mental illness. 

Psychological problems have been blamed on the shape of craniums, imbalances of “humors” in the blood, and the suspected movement of uteruses throughout women’s bodies. Lobotomies were embraced widely as a cure.  

Come to Baltimore’s Guilford Hall for a talk that explores how misguided theories about the mind inspired wrongheaded but widely accepted medical practices, many of which were defended as humane, progressive, and scientific while…