Malformed

Malformed

Author: Alex Hannaford

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781576877081

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Hidden away in a storage closet deep within the bowels of Texas State Mental Hospital languished a forgotten but incredibly rare collection. A unique and exceptional assortment of extremely rare, malformed or damaged human brains preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Decades after they were hidden away, in 2013 photographer Adam Voorhes discovered the brains and became obsessed with documenting them.


Danvers State Hospital

Danvers State Hospital

Author: Katherine Anderson and Robert Duffy

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467127663

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Danvers State Hospital revolutionized mental health care for more than a century, beginning in 1878. Today, it's buildings still have stories to tell. Perched high on the top of Hathorne Hill in what was once the village of Salem, Danvers State Insane Asylum was, for more than a century, a monument to modern psychiatry and the myriad advances in mental health treatment. From the time it opened its doors in 1878 until they were shuttered for good in 1992, the asylum represented decades of reform, the physical embodiment of the heroic visions of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It would stand abandoned until 2005, when demolition began. Along with a dedicated group of private citizens, the Danvers Historical Society fought to preserve the Kirkbride structure, an effort that would result in the reuse of the administration building and two additional wings. Danvers has earned a unique place in history; the shell of the original Kirkbride building still stands overlooking the town. Though it has been changed drastically, the asylum's story continues as do efforts to memorialize it.


South Carolina State Hospital, The: Stories from Bull Street

South Carolina State Hospital, The: Stories from Bull Street

Author: William Buchheit

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 146714472X

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Nearly two decades after it closed, the South Carolina State Hospital continues to hold a palpable mystique in Columbia and throughout the state. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823, despite an operating budget that ranked forty-fifth out of the forty-eight states with such large public hospitals. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror and chaos. Author William Buchheit details this history through the words and interviews of those who worked on the iconic campus.


Asylum

Asylum

Author: Christopher Payne

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2009-09-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0262013495

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Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals. For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings—and the patients who lived in them—neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors—chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, “where one could be both mad and safe.”


Gracefully Insane

Gracefully Insane

Author: Alex Beam

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2009-07-21

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0786750367

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Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson prot'g' whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.


Mental institutions in America

Mental institutions in America

Author: Gerald N. Grob

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published:

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 1412828511

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Mental Institutions in America: Social Policy to 1875 examines how American society responded to complex problems arising out of mental illness in the nineteenth century. All societies have had to confront sickness, disease, and dependency, and have developed their own ways of dealing with these phenomena. The mental hospital became the characteristic institution charged with the responsibility of providing care and treatment for individuals seemingly incapable of caring for themselves during protracted periods of incapacitation. The services rendered by the hospital were of benefit not merely to the afflicted individual but to the community. Such an institution embodied a series of moral imperatives by providing humane and scientific treatment of disabled individuals, many of whose families were unable to care for them at home or to pay the high costs of private institutional care. Yet the mental hospital has always been more than simply an institution that offered care and treatment for the sick and disabled. Its structure and functions have usually been linked with a variety of external economic, political, social, and intellectual forces, if only because the way in which a society handled problems of disease and dependency was partly governed by its social structure and values. The definition of disease, the criteria for institutionalization, the financial and administrative structures governing hospitals, the nature of the decision-making process, differential care and treatment of various socio-economic groups were issues that transcended strictly medical and scientific considerations. Mental Institutions in America attempts to interpret the mental hospital as a social as well as a medical institution and to illuminate the evolution of policy toward dependent groups such as the mentally ill. This classic text brilliantly studies the past in depth and on its own terms.


Napa State Hospital

Napa State Hospital

Author: Patricia Prestinary

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1467131997

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Napa, because of its natural beauty and optimal conditions for "moral treatment," was chosen as the second site for a state hospital to ease overcrowding in Stockton Asylum. When the fully self-sustaining Napa Asylum opened in 1875, it quickly filled to capacity and became home to many people suffering from mental illness, alcoholism, grief, and depression. In 1924, Napa Asylum was renamed Napa State Hospital to reflect changes in the medical model and treatments for psychiatric patients. Covering the first 100 years of the hospital's history, this unique book tells the story of the institution and the people for whom it served as employer. Known locally as Imola, this beautiful site became an integral part of the community.


St. Louis State Hospital

St. Louis State Hospital

Author: Amanda Hunyar

Publisher:

Published: 2019-04-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781681062082

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While the St. Louis State Hospital dome has loomed over the St. Louis skyline for 150 years, the goings-on behind the closed doors of this mysterious complex of South City buildings has been the subject of speculation and curiosity for generations. This fascinating book takes readers beyond the gates on Arsenal and into an institution's unique history. It was through those gates in 1869 that 127 patients suffering from mental illnesses would pass to seek recovery through compassionate care. This richly illustrated volume presents their stories through a timeline of the hospital's history and gives an understanding of what life was like for these vulnerable, often poor and disenfranchised patients. Included are photos and anecdotes of weekly dances in the fifth-floor ballroom, card game parties, and long walks to newly opened Tower Grove Park. Straight from the carefully curated archives are the records of traditional lobotomies, experimental drug therapies, and electric shock"š€š"all prevalent treatments of their time. Author Amanda Hunyar takes readers behind the scenes and through the history of the iconic building with a complex tale to tell. Once the third largest hospital in St. Louis, and a place of healing and hope for thousands, its stories from generations past are finally ready to be shared. Even those with merely a passing understanding of its buildings can now come to appreciate its importance in the history of our region.


Asylum for the Insane

Asylum for the Insane

Author: William A. Decker

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781933926049

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Product Description: To establish the context within which the Kalamazoo Hospital came to be built, Decker begins the story in Europe in the previous centuries with historical antecedents, theories about mental illness and the treatment of mental disorders. These formative, primitive ideas were gradually adopted in this country where very little understanding of mental disorders existed. When the Kalamazoo State Hospital was founded, then named the Michigan Asylum for the Insane, in 1854, there were no private practitioners of psychiatry even in the largest cities. Psychiatry grew out of the exchange of information between the medical staff of these new public institutions. Dr. Decker gives readers a comprehensive view of Michigan s first psychiatric facility including the architectural style and plans, building descriptions and history, Legislative Acts regarding the operation and governance, personnel including Medical Directors, historical perspective on the causes of insanity, their treatment and services, noteworthy events and a complete bibliography and appendixes.