Presumed Curable: An Illustrated Casebook of Victorian Psychiatric Patients in Bethlem Hospital Review

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(More customer reviews)I have read this book about a couple of times. The book gives fascinating account of psychiatric patients in the Victorian Era.You get a nostalgic feeling as you read case by case, the real illnessess of real patients with stark similarities to todays psychiatric patients.The delusions and hallucinations have a victorian feel to them too!. What I feel is if these patients were present in the current days, life for them would have been a lot more different ,with todays cutting edge psychiatric drugs and therapy and social and occupational rehabilitation. I give 5 stars out of 5 for this book .A must read for all psychiatrists and anyone in mental health profession.

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Thousands of unique human stories lie within the historic records of Bethlem Hospital, an institution just outside London dedicated to the treatment - and cure - of mental illness since medieval times. Around sixty of these stories are told in this book, accompanied by beautiful, moving photographs taken over the course of a decade near the end of the Victorian era. They speak eloquently of experiences of distress and recovery, of life within and outside hospital walls, and of contemporary attitudes and therapeutic approaches. Their voices deserve to be heard.

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Life at the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, 1857-1997 (Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University) Review

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(More customer reviews)I first read this book when I was working at Austin State Hospital. Sarah Sitton does an exemplary job of explaining the politics behind the founding of the original "Texas State Lunatic Asylum" through the current incarnation of the institution as the "Austin State Hospital."
The book serves not only as a history of one institution, but as a chronicle of changing attitudes and beliefs around the issue of mental illness. She documents the forward-thinking attitude of the original founders as they envisioned a "home away from home" for people who were having difficulties facing life; as well as, the decline into a warehouse for people who didn't "fit in."
Sarah Sitton brings the stories of the patients alive with accounts of their histories, as well as those of the reformers who fought for the right to treatment during the sixties. Texas heroes stand out in the book; most notably, Mrs. M.E. Holdsworth Butts, who sent prison-style dishes (used in the asylum) to members of the Texas State Legislature to urge more humane treatment of "inmates."
To this day Texas and every state in the union (perhaps, every place in the world) continues to stigmatize people with severe symptoms of mental illness. This book is not only the chronicle of one asylum, it is the story of mental healthcare and how it is subject to the winds of political whim.


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Acts of Conscience: World War II, Mental Institutions, and Religious Objectors (Critical Perspectives on Disability) Review

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(More customer reviews)The men whose brave actions Steven Taylor traces give a new meaning to the phrase "the greatest generation." I'd love to see _Acts of Conscience_ adopted as the choice of colleges or towns that do those "on the same page" programs encouraging everyone to read and discuss the same book. We need moral exemplars like the ones Taylor remembers.

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In the mid- to late 1940s, a group of young men rattled the psychiatric establishment by beaming a public spotlight on the squalid conditions and brutality in our nation's mental hospitals and training schools for people with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities. Bringing the abuses to the attention of newspapers and magazines across the country, they led a reform effort to change public attitudes and to improve the training and status of institutional staff. Prominent Americans, including Eleanor Roosevelt, ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, author Pearl S. Buck, actress Helen Hayes, and African-American activist Mary McLeod Bethune, supported the efforts of the young men.These young men were among the 12,000 World War II conscientious objectors who chose to perform civilian public service as an alternative to fighting in what is widely regarded as America's "good war." Three thousand of these men volunteered to work at state institutions, where they found conditions appalling. Acting on conscience a second time, they challenged America's treatment of its citizens with severe disabilities. Acts of Conscience brings to light the extraordinary efforts of these courageous men, drawing upon extensive archival research, interviews, and personal correspondence.The World War II conscientious objectors were not the first to expose public institutions, and they would not be the last. What distinguishes them from reformers of other eras is that their activities have faded from professional and popular memory. Steven J. Taylor's moving account is an indispensable contribution to the historical record.

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Diary of a Medical Student: Hospital of Horrors Review

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(More customer reviews)This book should be required reading for anyone entering the helping professions, particularly medical, nursing, psychology or sociology students.
The setting is, sadly, a major state-run mental institution. The author allows us to see through the eyes of the idealistic student that he was, and to experience his stunned and repulsed reaction to what he found to be the reality of psychiatric medical care.
But you don't have to be in the psychiatric profession to find this book both fascinating and revelatory. It's a first-person historical record, in a very readable style, of the often heartless and "stab-in-the-dark" treatment that the mentally ill endured, and though we'd like to think it was in the distant past, it's really not so long ago.
And, on my honor, I am simply a reader of the book. My enthusiasm is genuine and untainted by any motivations except to see this wonderful tool-of-a-book discovered and utilized.

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THE TRUE MADHOUSE DAYS Having lived through the true Madhouse days, I can tell you an amzing story not recorded elsewhere. It is about the snake-pit era of the 1950s when our state hospitals like Manteno were reaching their peak populations. At the time our society swept the mentally ill into institutions thought of as benign and benevolent. But in fact they were not so kind and benevolent. Very few people knew about it at the time. But I knew, because I was there. As an idealistic medical student, intent on helping patients with serious mental illness, I went to live at Manteno for three life altering months. Here is what happened...

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A Mind That Found Itself: A Memoir of Madness and Recovery Review

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(More customer reviews)This book instantly became a classic when it was released. A Mind That Found Itself described the ravages of mental illness. Written as an autobiography, it tells the story of a young man who had his life ruined by a psychosis. His family that only wanted the best for him committed him to a number of mental hospitals where he was mistreated and began to lose his sanity. Thanks to the strength of his human spirit, he finally escaped and made a recovery.


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In the groundbreaking book, Clifford Beers tells what it was like to be institutionalized at a time when mental illness received little attention or respect. "A Mind that Found Itself" is Beers' own story, as one of five children who all suffered psychological distress and were all confined to mental institutions at one time or another. Beers, who wrote the book after his own confinement, gained the support of the medical profession and was a leader in the mental hygiene movement. "A Mind that Found Itself" has been an inspiration to many mental health professionals in their choice of a profession. It also did much to help the rest of the world see mental health issues as a serious disease. "A Mind that Found Itself" is an excellent read for anyone seeking to better understand, or treat, mental illness.

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A Mind That Found Itself Review

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(More customer reviews)Clifford Whittingham Beers, 1876-1943, was the American founder of the mental hygiene movement, born in New Haven, Conn., grad. Sheffield Scientific School, Yale, 1897.
After the publication of this book, A Mind That Found Itself (1908), which is an autobiographical account of his confinement in a mental institution, he had the support of the medical profession and others in the work to prevent mental disorders. He was a leader in the field until his retirement in 1939.
This book is an amazing account of what it was like to be institutionalized at a time when mental illness received little attention or respect.
A groundbreaking effort towards the acceptance of mental health as a serious disease.
Simply an awesome read.


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In the groundbreaking book, Clifford Beers tells what it was like to be institutionalized at a time when mental illness received little attention or respect. "A Mind that Found Itself" is Beers' own story, as one of five children who all suffered psychological distress and were all confined to mental institutions at one time or another. Beers, who wrote the book after his own confinement, gained the support of the medical profession and was a leader in the mental hygiene movement. "A Mind that Found Itself" has been an inspiration to many mental health professionals in their choice of a profession. It also did much to help the rest of the world see mental health issues as a serious disease. "A Mind that Found Itself" is an excellent read for anyone seeking to better understand, or treat, mental illness.

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