ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Timeline of psychiatry

Okay kiddo, psychiatry is like a doctor who takes care of people's minds instead of their bodies.

A long time ago, people didn't really understand how the mind worked, so they thought mental illness was caused by bad spirits or demons. They would try to get rid of these spirits using things like exorcism, which was pretty scary and didn't really work.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, people started to study mental illness more scientifically. They tried to figure out what was going on in people's brains that was causing them to feel and act certain ways. They also started to open hospitals just for people with mental illnesses.

In the early 1900s, a man named Sigmund Freud came up with a new way of thinking about the mind. He believed that many mental illnesses were caused by things that people didn't even realize they were thinking about - like their dreams, or memories from their childhood. He called this the "unconscious mind." This idea became really popular and was called "psychoanalysis."

During the mid-1900s, people started to use drugs to treat mental illness. These are called "psychotropic medications." They can help people feel better by changing the chemicals in their brains that are causing problems.

Today, psychiatry is still changing and improving all the time. Scientists are always learning more about the brain and how it works. They are also finding new and better ways to help people who are struggling with mental illness feel better.