Tag Archive: mental health

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Finding Headspace: Embracing Eastern Meditation Practices in Western Culture

The practice of meditation, which originated between 600-500 BCE, in recent decades, has experienced a wave of global popularity, contributing to wellbeing, and helping many people deal with stress, depression and anxiety problems, so common in the 21st century. However, the orientalist discourse has attached a stigma to spiritual practices, especially those not founded by the West. This interesting article discusses the practice of meditation with roots in oriental Buddhism and the tendency of adapting it to the Western world, bringing to the fore a discussion of how platforms such as Headspace can raise awareness of its oriental Tibetan roots, possibly helping to decolonise it.
AUTHOR: HARRIET VICARY

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Between the Asylum and the Workhouse: Mental Illness and the Victorian Poor Law

Before the 19th century, it was customary for people suffering from mental health conditions and for the intellectually disabled to be accommodated in private licensed houses. This situation started to shift with the 1808 Asylum Act, when the public asylum began to develop. The 1845 Lunacy Act and County Asylums Act extended this development, making pauper asylums compulsory for each county. This important article, written for the Disability History competition 24/25, sheds light on the interesting fact that, despite public asylums were already in place, paupers still found themselves institutionalised, in the majority of the cases, in workhouses.
AUTHOR: OLIVIA BOYLE