Schizophrenic Patients Under Trial Visit: A Study of Ten Schizophrenics Receiving Tranquilizing Medication and Supervised by the New York Regional Office of the Veterans' Administration, Who Were Able to Maintain Community Adjustment, Jan. 1, 1955 to Jan. 1, 1958
Abstract
It has become increasingly evident that with the advent of chemotherapy, in the form of tranquilizing drugs, many mental patients have been released from the chains and bondage of their illness. No longer must patients spend many years on the road to recovery, ostracized from family, friends and community. Tranquilizers have also afforded marked changes in hospital routine and practices, of which the most striking is the "Open Door Policy". Now patients are permitted more freedom within the hospital, with the corresponding effect of the concentration of staff away from the task of complete supervision of activities, to increased attention to therapy. The results of this new policy are remarkable; where once shouting, screaming, aggressive and assaultive patients peered through tarred windows of our mental hospitals, today these same patients can be observed peacefully and quietly performing their tasks and freely participating in the various therapies offered by the hospital. Of course, it is admitted that other treatment techniques such as electro-shock treatment (ECT), insulin treatment, psychotherapy, hydrotherapy, et al and even the psychological effect of the very nature of an "Open Door Policy" also have made a contribution to the improvement in mental patients. Doctor Herman B. Snow, in an article appearing in the November, 1957 issue of Mental Hygiene News cites a combination of all therapies as the reason for the decrease in excitability of mental patients. However, others have held up tranquilizers as the miracle of the century in the treatment of mental illness," and the most outstanding assault of this monstrous problem since Phillippe Pinel and later Dorathea Lynde Dix marched on the bedlams of this eras."
Subject Area
Medical imaging|Mental health|Social work
Recommended Citation
Langenfeld, Nicholas J, "Schizophrenic Patients Under Trial Visit: A Study of Ten Schizophrenics Receiving Tranquilizing Medication and Supervised by the New York Regional Office of the Veterans' Administration, Who Were Able to Maintain Community Adjustment, Jan. 1, 1955 to Jan. 1, 1958" (1958). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30509628.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30509628
