Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill

The Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill

The homeless- found on city park benches, street corners, and subway grates. Where did all of these people come from? One third, to one half of the homeless suffer from a mental illness. A lot is said about the homeless-mentally ill, but what their plight says about us may be more significant. We still have not found a place for those who are both poor and insane. Once there was a place for them; the asylum fulfilled the basic needs of thousands for decades, but now these institutions lay empty and in ruin. Has the hope to heal the mentally ill also been abandoned? Is there once again a need for the asylum? The disbandment of the asylum was the first step in ending segregation for those with mental illness, but we have yet to accomplish integration.

The concept of the asylum was originally meant to be a place of retreat for a sorely troubled individual. Appalled by the treatment of the insane, a woman by the name of Dorothea Dix set out to persuade legislature to establish thirty-two new asylums in several states across the country. This included the monumental government hospital, St. Elizabeth’s, in D.C. Dix believed that the most deranged individuals would recover from their illness if they were treated with kindness and dignity. These hospitals were set apart from the community and were made to provide a place of retreat from busy city life, a place for healing. The hospital grounds were peaceful and relaxing. With this environment and a structured day complete with evening entertainment it was thought that a patient would need only a few months to heal. The first patient arrived at St. Elizabeth’s in 1855. Dorothea Dix once said, “If the person’s insanity was detected soon ...

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...We must learn how to accept those who are needy and provide all that we can as a society to move toward integration.

Works Cited

Taylor, Steven J. "The continuum and current controversies in the USA." Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability 26.1 (2001): 15-33. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Apr. 2011.

Mansell, Jim. "Deinstitutionalisation and community living: Progress, problems and priorities." Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability 31.2 (2006): 65-76. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Apr. 2011

Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America. Dir. Sarah Mondale. Stone Lantern Films, Inc. 1988. Film.

Paulson, George. "Death of a President and his Assassin—Errors in their Diagnosis and Autopsies." Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 15.2 (2006): 77-91. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Apr. 2011.