The Maimonides mental health regime (1138-1204)

Nine centuries ahead

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is a fundamental component of a healthy lifestyle. Currently this notion has become universal and has permeated the public consciousness, society and the political agenda of public health programs. In Spain, as a result of the pandemic due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), this health issue has been revived and has also been the subject of parliamentary debates. This idea is not new because within the Greco-Roman medical tradition continued by the Arabs, all the great authors included in their texts chapters on general hygienic-dietary norms to lead a healthy life, their own medical genre called “health regimen”. In Al-Andalus, the Jewish doctor Maimonides (1138-1204) was nine centuries ahead of the concept of mental health or hygiene of the soul and its disorders, topics now included in the field of psychology, psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. Maimonides drew up a body of doctrine on mental disorders and systematized a complete management of them from a comprehensive view of the patient as a person, based on four preventive and therapeutic measures to achieve mental balance: a) a general health regime; b) mental and emotional re-education; c) measures to reduce anxiety; and d) specific antidepressant medication. These recommendations are the most original made up to then, even many of them are still valid today due to their modernity. In this historical context, Maimonides constitutes a scientific bridge between the Middle Ages and our era.