Mental Patients in a State Hospital: An Historical Study of the Institutional Care of Patients With Emphasis on the Social Service Department at Fairfield State Hospital, Newtown, Connecticut, 1931-1957
Abstract
Methods of caring for the mentally ill person have been changing over the years. Mental illness however, has a tendency to be thought of in a different light then some "ordinary" disease by the average person. Time was (and still is) that having a person in a family stricken with mental illness meant disgrace and the ill person was shut away from the rest of the world. Treatment of the mentally ill has varied widely in different cultures and this is true of both primitive and civilized societies. The answers to some of the problems has come from the establishment of Mental Hospitals. Hospitals for the mentally ill with few exceptions had their inception in the second, third and fourth decades of the last century. They were established with a great deal of evangelical enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was derived in part from the lay public and in considerable part from certain inspired members of the medical fraternity. The pioneering work of Dorthea Dix in the nineteenth century, and the important contribution of Clifford Beers in the early part of the twentieth century, contributed to a steady improvement in the care and attitude towards this illness.
Subject Area
Mental health|Health care management|Social work
Recommended Citation
Laskowski, Edward Stanley, "Mental Patients in a State Hospital: An Historical Study of the Institutional Care of Patients With Emphasis on the Social Service Department at Fairfield State Hospital, Newtown, Connecticut, 1931-1957" (1958). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30557622.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30557622
