Talk:Lunatic asylum

Kudos

Aspro, Freekra, and The Anome collaborated and put excellent work into this article in November 2009

History section removed from Psych Hospital article

The following was removed from Psychiatric Hospital, and should be merged into the present article.

Scene of Bethlem Hospital from the final plate of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress.

The history of psychiatric hospitals dates back to the creation of insane asylums in the 16th century. Whilst there are historically examples of older institutions for the confinement of those deemed mad, the institutionalisation of the "insane" on a wide scale began in the nineteenth century in Europe. Initially, the treatment of the inmates of insane asylums was brutal. Recognition of the brutality of these regimes by successive reformers led to more humane treatment of inmates, and as developments in psychiatry led to greater understanding of mental illness, further reforms were made.

Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) was the first known psychiatric hospital in Europe, founded in London in 1547. It soon became infamous for its treatment of the insane. In the eighteenth century, outsiders would pay a penny to come and watch their patients as a form of entertainment. In 1700, the "lunatics" were called "patients" for the first time. Within twenty years separate wards for the "curable" and "incurable" patients had been established. The institution was still a coercive and brutal regime when William Battie criticized its practices in his treatise in 1785. By 1815 thousands of visitors were still being permitted in to view the "unfortunates" as they were by then called. At this time there was minimal understanding of mental health issues and treatment methods were in the early stages of development. Patients were often given, what today would be considered ridiculous treatments, which often resulted in fatality or outstanding injury.

For wealthy families, the practice was often to employ a keeper to watch over the family member that was in crisis. An example from fiction gets has an important part in Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre when Mr Rochester's places the care of ill wife Bertha under the watchful eye of Grace Poole. Alternatively, they may place their relative in the care of someone who makes a living by providing accommodation and care for the insane in private houses. These were simply known as "private asylums." The word "asylum" comes from the Greek for "refuge," because the place served as a refuge or sanctuary from the dangers that existed outside.

Phillipe Pinel (1793) is often credited as being the first in Europe to introduce more humane methods into the treatment of the mentally ill (which came to be known as moral treatment) as the superintendent of the Asylum de Bicêtre in Paris. A hospital employee of Asylum de Bicêtre, Jean-Baptiste Pussin, was actually the first one to remove patient restraints. Pussin influenced Pinel and they both served to spread reforms such as categorising the disorders, as well as observing and talking to patients as methods of cure.

In 1817, William Ellis was appointed as superintendent to the newly built West Riding Pauper Asylum at Wakefield. As a Methodist, he had strong religious convictions. With his wife as matron, they put into action those things they had learned from the Sculcoates Refuge in Hull which operated on a similar model as the York. After 13 years, as a result of their highly regarded reputation, they were invited to oversee the newly built first pauper asylum in Middlesex called the Hanwell Asylum. Accepting the posts, the asylum opened in May 1831. Here the Ellis's introduced their own brand of humane treatment and 'moral therapy' combined with 'therapeutic employment.' As its initial capacity was for 450 patients, it was already the largest asylum in the country and subject to even more building soon after. Therefore, the immediate and continuing success of humane therapy working on such a large scale, encouraged its adoption at other asylums. In recognition of all this work he received a knighthood. He continued to develop therapeutic treatments for mental disorders and always with moral treatment as the guiding principle.

Reformers, such as American Dorothea Dix began to advocate a more humane and progressive attitude towards the mentally ill. Some were motivated by a Christian Duty to mentally ill citizens. In the United States, for example, numerous states established state mental health systems paid for by taxpayer money (and often money from the relatives of those institutionalized inside them). These centralized institutions were often linked with loose governmental bodies, though oversight and quality consequently varied. They were generally geographically isolated as well, located away from urban areas because the land was cheap and there was less political opposition. Many state hospitals in the United States were built in the 1850s and 1860s on the Kirkbride Plan, an architectural style meant to have curative effect.

The development of psychosurgery in the mid 20th century was originally thought of as a humane advancement, but came to be regarded as a brutal and unneccesary treatment, leading to its abolition in the later part of the 20th century.

The late 20th century saw the introduction of new drug-based treatments, and futher reform movements that led to the introduction of a program of deinstitutionalization.

References

Ethnocentrism

Hello. This article is anglo-americano-centrist. Psychiatric Hospital was been existing in France under Louis XIV.--212.194.47.49 (talk) 11:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I think Charenton deserves mention. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 01:05, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Enlightenment connection

The following source connects the origins of moral treatment to the Enlightenment:

Bing, R K. (1981). Occupational therapy revisited: A paraphrastic journey. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 35,499-518 and possibly https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291700031962

-Sondra.kinsey (talk) 15:56, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

I propose that History of psychiatry be merged into this article. They seem very similar right now. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 17:37, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 June 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 16:07, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

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History of psychiatric institutions → History of psychiatric hospitals – Consistent with the article Psychiatric hospital. 2601:183:101:58D0:80D9:BD88:1B03:AE8D (talk) 11:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Johnbod queried the move request. –Ammarpad (talk) 17:11, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose This is EXACTLY the sort of thing that should not be hustled though here, especially by an anon IP, who only has 3 edits, all here. The hatnote at Psychiatric hospital says "This article is about today's psychiatric hospitals. For historical lunatic asylums, see History of psychiatric institutions." And where does lunatic asylum go? Why, to History of psychiatric institutions. There are two subjects and the "history" covers both. Johnbod (talk) 13:52, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 9 July 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. I am not sure this is an ideal title, but please initiate a new move request if you would like to move the page to a different title. Dekimasuよ! 18:32, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

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History of psychiatric institutions → Lunatic asylum – We should diverge and distinguish this article from the one covering modern mental hospitals (which only came into existence in about the 1920s), and refocus it squarely on lunatic asylums (which existed from medieval times to the 1900s). While there was a transition in care and an overlap in word usage (visible in this Google Ngram), there is a clear conceptual separation. The sections of this article called "20th century" and "Today" can be merged into the modern article post-move. Netoholic @ 03:07, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 04:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support, and clean up the lead to compensate. We should never use a "History of" title, except for a WP:SPINOFF that was split from a now WP:SUMMARY-style main article, or where the material does not lend itself to a plain noun. In this case, a bunch of "history of" verbiage has been crammed into the lead to try to re-scope the article, but it's just blather.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:27, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support Waddie96 (talk) 15:40, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Complete lack of specificity—reads like an antipsychiatry perpextive

“Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined to mental institutions and abused therein.”

“Nowadays?” Which countries? Which political prisoners? Abused in what way, in which institutions? —- None of this conveys any information, other than that some psychiatrists in some places sometimes abuse some people in some way.

“Psychiatrists around the world have been involved in the suppression of individual rights by states wherein the definitions of mental disease had been expanded to include political disobedience.[65]: 6  Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined to mental institutions and abused therein.[66]: 3  Psychiatry possesses a built-in capacity for abuse which is greater than in other areas of medicine.[67]: 65  The diagnosis of mental disease can serve as proxy for the designation of social dissidents, allowing the state to hold persons against their will and to insist upon therapies that work in favour of ideological conformity and in the broader interests of society.[67]: 65 “ 69.174.173.67 (talk) 03:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

What is the subject of this article?

It's very unclear what separates this article from other articles about mental hospitals. Eldomtom2 (talk) 14:16, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Lunatic asylums are closer to prisons than they are to hospitals. — al-Shimoni (talk) 11:39, 12 November 2024 (UTC)