Comparing the treatment provided to the mentally ill in two hospitals from The Ottoman Empire and britain during the 15th-19th centuries: Edirne Sultan Bayezid II Dar al-Shifa' and London Bethlem Hospital

Psychology was founded as a modern science at the end of the 19th century to study human mind and behavior in a scientific way. However, the studies related to the human mind and spirit is much older than this exact date. Before the 19th century studies on human spirit, behaviors and treatment methods of the mental illnesses have varied according to different beliefs, cultures, civilizations, time and place. Thus, while examining the psychological studies during the history, many different factors and effects of different beliefs and cultural representations should be taken into consideration. For this purpose in this thesis, methods of Edirne Sultan II. Bayezid Dar al-Shifa' and London Bethlem Hospital during the 15th -19th centuries were examined comparatively. Thus the history, methods and practices of these two institutions founded in different cultures- one in Muslim civilization and the other in Western civilization- were compared and two different perspectives were put forward to show how psychological diseases can be perceived and treated differently based on different beliefs and cultures. In this sense, this study presents a multidisciplinary research example related to different fields such as psychology, history, medicine and religion.