Explore the evolution in understanding, and the dramatic attempts across generations, to unravel the difficult questions surrounding mental illness people have grappled with throughout history: What causes it? And how is it best treated?
EPISODE 1
Mysteries of Mental Illness
Ancient conceptions of mental illness and the establishment of psychiatry; modern-day stories of mental illness, including an aspiring astrophysicist with schizophrenia and a boxer with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
EPISODE 2
The fight to develop mental illness standards rooted in empirical science rather than dogma; how science and societal factors mix with the ever-shifting definitions and diagnoses of mental health and illness.
EPISODE 3
The rise and fall of mental asylums in the U.S.; the largest de-facto mental health facility in the U.S., its detainees and the realities of care both inside and outside.
EPISODE 4
Cutting-edge treatments for mental illness; profiles of patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery, infusions of ketamine and modern electro-convulsive therapy.
