In the last 50 years, there’s been tremendous progress in the development of medications and other treatments for people who suffer from mental health problems. Medicinal approaches to treating physical ailments have a long history; even ancient societies had cures for a variety of diseases. But treating conditions of the mind was an unknown concept. People looked at mental problems with great suspicion, even believing they were caused by witchcraft, dead spirits, and the like. There were no rehab centers, no mental hospitals that actually helped people rather than creating more problems for them. There were no alcoholism treatment centers. There was no scientific study of, let alone cures for mental conditions. In that respect, the progress in this field in the last 50 to 100 years can really be called the golden age of mental health treatment.

Although the real study of mental health problems started with Freud and his followers, they were psychoanalysts rather than psychologists, which meant that they tried to treat mental health without using medicine. As neuroscience has developed, so has an understanding of its bond with psychology. So, a number of drugs have been developed to treat mental illnesses.

Strangely, a great deal of this progress was the result of something as evil as the Nazi war machine. Nazi scientists were among the first to experiment with mind altering substances, like the so-called truth serums or scopalamines. A study of these strange substances gave scientists the notion that they could control and treat the mind using substances.

In today’s world, a number of highly beneficial drugs have been developed to treat mental illnesses. Although many people think that using drugs is not the best approach when it comes to mental health, all you have to do is talk to a patient who has found life-changing treatment through medications to understand the benefits of using drugs to treat the mind.