Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy also known as Deep Sleep Therapy was a psychiatric therapy that was prevalent in mid twentieth century. In this article, Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy will be explored though its history, its application, and the controversy that it has caused.
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Leslie shares her personal struggles with fatigue, stress, and the state of the world. She mentions her new job and the challenges that come with it. I’m your host Leslie Lopez PhD student in Psychology, nerd okay is it like just me but like I am just so beyond tired lately and I don’t know what it is. I like I know like everyone’s always is always so tired if it’s not one thing it’s another that’s for sure if our parents ever got one thing right it’s that quote if it’s not one thing it’s another.
Okay I don’t know if like I know I just started a new position at work which I am so happy about but like it’s a lot of stress right and then also just like the state of the world we live in you know we just went through a terrible election which you know that could that could that could take a strain on a lot of us also you know just global warming the economy CEOs getting out of nowhere just you know sometimes you just need to break and by break I mean like infinite hours of sleep right no suicidal thoughts or anything like that but do you guys know what I mean.
What is Deep Sleep Therapy?
Deep Sleep Therapy is a discredited form of psychiatric treatment where patients were kept unconscious for extended periods using drugs. The goal was to treat certain mental disorders. So if you’re a little bit insane in the membrane Like Me Get Cozy toy and let’s jump into it.
Now before we dive into the history of Deep Sleep Therapy let’s learn a little bit about what exactly is Deep Sleep Therapy because that sounds like something that I would gladly sign up for for free but like let’s not do that okay because Deep Sleep Therapy is a discredited form of psychiatric treatment in which drugs are used to keep mentally ill patients unconscious for a very long period of time.
I’m talking from days to even weeks at a time sometimes the name itself sounds nice right Deep Sleep Therapy sounds like you would just take a few extra gummies and you’re all cured the next morning by bye mental illness that would be so nice well not quite because the term deep sleep indicates a natural state where the body is like oh no I’m tired time to get some shut-eye and then you just like naturally wake up when the brain and the body are like okay I feel refreshed time to get up but Deep Sleep Therapy
is not like that because the procedure was not natural okay like the patient was forced to sleep under a cocktail of drugs and then the doctor was the one who decided when it was time to wake up.
Induction of deep sleep: Boss Patients would receive barbiturates including sodium amytal or sodium pentothal and other restraining drugs like chlorpromazine to put them into deep sleep. Proper dosage and drug combinations were tender with aim to provide particular level of consciousness – sedation.
Maintenance of deep sleep: Patients were maintained in a state of hypnosis for many hours as well as days and sometimes for weeks. At this time, they were frequently supervised by medical personnel and could only move when receiving an injection from the staff.
Awakening and follow-up: Upon the exclusion of the Bailey’s deep sleep state, the patients were gradually brought to consciousness and were recommended for further psychotherapy complementary with medication in order to accept the state of their new mental status.
History of Deep Sleep Therapy
The concept of using sleep for psychiatric purposes dates back to the early 1900s. Scottish psychiatrist Neil McLoughlin introduced the idea, but it was later popularized by Swiss psychiatrist Jacob Klaesi in the 1920s. The use of sleep for psychiatric purposes was first introduced by Scottish psychiatrist Neil McLoughlin in the very early 1900s essentially he used a chemical by the name of sodium bromide to induce sleep in some of his psychiatric patients he quickly gave up on the method
when one of his patients died. In 1915, an Italian psychiatrist by the name of GP Epifano tried his hand at barbiturate-induced sleep therapy at another psychiatric clinic in Italy. Barbiturates are like a cocktail of drugs that slow down the central nervous system and cause the patient to fall into a deep sleep. He started off strong with his little hypothesis of his but It ultimately gave him null results meaning he had little to no result positive or negative so he ditched it.
Dr. Harry Bailey and Deep Sleep Therapy
Dr. Harry Bailey, an Australian psychiatrist, became interested in Deep Sleep Therapy in the 1950s. He believed that longer periods of sedation could be more effective in treating mental health disorders. Dr. Harry Bailey was a 28-year-old psychiatrist who from a very young age was fascinated by the study and the treatment of mental illness kind of like me. He started his career in the early 1950s in one of Australia’s oldest and better-known psychiatric hospitals.
Look at him go as I mentioned Dr. Harry Bailey’s his interest was in the treatment of mental illness okay well this was early in the 1950s and the treatment was still wildly new in the field of medicine it depends from whose point of view you see it it was either a good or a bad thing for the patients this was obviously not such a good thing I mean when you’re sick the last thing you want is for doctors to guess what is wrong with you and just try and guess how to fix it.
Controversy and Criticism
However, after becoming a must-have for some time, there are controversies surrounding Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy. Critics argued that the therapy was:
Bailey’s work was criticized for its lack of innovation and excessive use of sedation. Many patients died under his care, and it is suspected that the actual number of fatalities was higher than reported. The condition of low blood oxygen levels to the brain is called cyanosis
which can be fatal if not treated immediately and properly this was quite common in Dr. Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy Ward not just the cyanosis but the death by cyanosis in other cases there are a number of patients who died in their coma after being sedated too heavily. Bailey’s methods were also criticized for being unscientific and for lacking any real understanding of the human brain.
Bailey’s Methods and Complications
Bailey’s methods involved inducing comas in patients using a cocktail of sedatives. Patients were also subjected to electroshock therapy while in a coma. Complications arose, including bladder issues, infections, and death. During his treatment patients were heavily sedated for long periods of time with the intention of resetting their brains like I mentioned earlier of course some patients were a bit skeptical you know as they should be but Bailey explained to them that they would have nothing to worry
about okay like they should just view it as a very long nap. Bailey’s patients were given a mixture of sedatives including barbiturates and other medications that would keep them asleep for days or even weeks. The patients were then monitored closely and given electroshock therapy while they were still in a coma.
Bailey’s Patients
One of his most famous patients was a 17-year-old girl whose father forced her to undergo treatment for premenstrual mood swings. Bailey’s patients were notoriously held in a drug-induced coma for what he called a “holiday for the brain”. Bailey used electroshock therapy on patients as if that wasn’t bad enough he believed that if the patient was already comatose
they didn’t need the anesthetic but insurance companies didn’t need to know that so he still charged for the use of anesthetics without using them. The girl’s father had been concerned about her mood swings and had taken her to see Bailey in the hopes that he could cure her of her symptoms.
The Demise and Afterwards of Deep Sleep Therapy
Indeed, during the 1970s and 1980s, Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy had started to become unpopular, and for quite obvious reasons. In addition, the emergence of new psychotropic drugs and psychotherapeutic techniques – cognitive-behavioral therapy – caused the abandonment of the practice of artificial deep sleep therapy.
Today, deep sleep therapy is not considered as popular as it used to, when it comes to treating mental diseases. Nonetheless, the practices of Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy have continued to be researched concerning the part of sleep in mental health and other new therapeutic procedures like sleep therapy as well as chronology for the enhancement of improved mental health status. You can contact us here.
Investigation and Aftermath
An investigation into Bailey’s methods was launched and it was discovered that many of his patients had died under his care. The investigation also revealed that Bailey had been falsifying medical records and had been charging patients for treatments that they did not receive. Bailey’s medical license was eventually revoked and he was forced to retire from medicine. The incident led to a major overhaul of the mental health system in Australia and led to increased scrutiny of psychiatric treatments.
Conclusion
Bailey’s Deep Sleep Therapy was a psychiatric treatment given in mid-1900s which was introduced I believe was discredited due lots of controversies. However, being an example of a theoretically derived treatment approach,
it lacked empirical support for its principles and posed dangers to patient safety. However, the influence of deep sleep therapy can still be observed in contemporary scientific discussions about the function of sleep in psychological disorders treatment, on the postvention of sleep disruption treatments.
