A Space of Their Own Chapter Five The 'Ideal' Lunatic Asylum (original) (raw)
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A Space of Their Own Chapter Four The Changing Face of Insanity and the Rise of the Lunatic Asylum
As indicated in Chapter One, the lunatic asylum of the nineteenth century was not simply a collection of buildings. It was intended to be a curative institution supporting the treatment of the insane person, who would be returned to sanity and re-introduced into society. The idea of the lunatic asylum as a curative environment and as an appropriate place for the care of the insane is fundamentally linked to two emerging movements in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: moral treatment and non-restraint. Moral treatment focussed on the removal of the insane from their homes to an appropriate environment where, under the direct influence of the treating doctor 1 , the insane would be brought back to sanity. The non-restraint regime sought to replace chains and appalling living conditions with a new system of management that structured the lives of patients and used the attendant and treating doctor in such a way that restraints were no longer required (Hill 1838; Conolly 1856). These two treatment regimes required similar rooms and spaces and similar arrangements of the parts of the lunatic asylum to facilitate their operation. Moral treatment offered the hope of a cure in an appropriate environment away from the exciting causes of the home environment (Hill 1838: 6), while non-restraint, which also emphasised the appropriate environment, sought to make life within the asylum more bearable and humane. These two treatment regimes formed part of the background against which the concept of the 'ideal' lunatic asylum appeared.
The perception of psychiatric illnesses and the need for better institutions has been prevalent since the dawn of the "asylum era", dating back to the 18th Century. Prior to this, treatment of the incarcerated was a barbaric and unjust exercise in human welfare. Facilities provided were often unsanitary, with dozens of people sharing dormitories; many sharing beds with up to four others, or held captive to the floor with shackles. Although the days where the common misconception was that 'a lunatic can be cured only in an institution' have generally passed over its six hundred year history, it is still widely considered that facilities offered by psychiatric hospitals and centres are a contributing factor in the treatment of patients with mental disorders. From the early 'lunatic asylums' of Bethlem Hospital, to the 19th century investments in construction of healthcare buildings in England, addressing the need for psychiatric facilities has been a daunting task for both clinical practitioners and architects alike. Since the advent of the NHS in 1948, there have been calls for reform in public institutions; however, it wasn't until the late 1950s that a call for a new architecture was implemented by the World Health Organisation. Through analysis of existing scholarship on asylum design theory from the eighteenth-century to the present day, and the creation of a therapeutic environment through the manipulation of space and its location, this thesis aspires to discuss the importance and need to develop a safe and healing environment in the creation of architecture for the mentally ill.
inter-disciplinary.net
This paper seeks to examine the role of history in explaining madness and the problems associated with some historians' interpretations and representations of the asylum system. It seeks to address the following questions: firstly, have our current policies and thinking on mental health been influenced inadequately, incompletely and incorrectly by historical analysis, and secondly, what is the use of history to contemporary mental health care? The influence of 'historians' such as Michel Foucault and Andrew Scull on our understanding of nineteenth and early twentieth century asylum care for lunatics is interrogated. The paper draws upon the author's doctoral research on mental health care and treatment in Hampshire from 1845-1914 to provide an alternative perspective to that promulgated by post-modern or Marxist theorists. It argues that poor practice in historical research by those with significant bias has resulted in misinterpretation and misrepresentation of lunatic asylum care -painting a portrait of hegemonic abuse rather than beneficial relationships in a therapeutic environment. It does not deny that asylum care and provision deteriorated, but suggests that the period before the medical model dominated mental health treatment should not have been so vehemently maligned, and may, indeed, hold the key to recovery today. The paper also focuses upon the practice and power of historians in rewriting the past generally and concludes by evaluating whether historians of mental health practice or practitioner historians are better placed to contribute a more accurate representation of madness.
The patients of the Bristol lunatic asylum in the nineteenth century
2017
There is a wide and impressive historiography about British lunatic asylums in the nineteenth century, the vast majority of which is concerned with their nature and significance. This study does not ignore such subjects but is primarily concerned with the patients, and specifically those of the Bristol Asylum. It asks who they were, what their stories were, how they fared in the asylum, and how the patients’ experience of the asylum changed during the period 1861-1900. It uses a distinctive and multi-faceted methodology, including a comprehensive database - compiled from the asylum records - of all the patients admitted in the nineteenth century. Using pivot tables to analyse the data, the range and nature of the patients admitted according to social class, occupation, age, sex and diagnosis have been accurately assessed. This data dispels suggestions that the patients as a group represented an ‘underclass’. It has also been possible to determine in what ways the asylum changed and ...
The notion of 'Insanity'and the Mental Hospitals of the Nineteenth Century: A Study
reflectionedu.com
In 1897, during his visit to London celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the throne, Mark Twain observed, 'British history is two thousand years old and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together.' 1 Twain's remark captures the sense of dizzying change that characterized nineteenth century Britain. Several radical changes took place. The shift from a land based economy to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing was the most important aspect of the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the Victorian period, the Industrial Revolution had already brought about profound economic and social changes, including a mass migration of workers to industrial towns where they lived in new urban slums. The extension of the franchise resulted in widespread democratization. The century was also affected by challenges to the established religious faith. There was rapid advancement of scientific knowledge and progress was marked in all spheres of life.
The Kingdom in Miniature: Public Mental Asylums from the 1860s
Mental Health in Historical Perspective
The colossal building with its seemingly infinite rows of windows at the corner of the valley leans with its back to the forest-covered mountains stretching behind; from the heightened terrace, its facade proudly looks down on the valley and, beyond it, on the double town, 1 as if it wanted to say: "what the defective machine of your social life muddled up, I put in order." 2 This chapter captures the nineteenth-century milieu of public asylum life by focusing on doctors, patients and practices. It deals mostly with Lipótmező Royal National Lunatic Asylum and reconstructs different aspects of life and treatment within its walls. Through introducing Lipótmező's five directors in the period between 1868 and 1920, I first discuss asylum space, treatment, nursing, patient occupations and questions of escape and the use of coercion and restraint. Then, as a result of a systematic study of contemporary legal regulations of mental health issues, I juxtapose the ideal of admission, discharge and guardianship proceedings with the actual practice in asylums and hospital psychiatric wards. After its establishment, Lipótmező Royal National Lunatic Asylum 3 gave rise to powerful metaphors in psychiatric writings as well as in the public imagination. 4 Whether only in the asylum director Gusztáv
Structures of Confinement in 19th-Century Asylums
International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 2000
This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced copy of an article accepted for publication in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry following peer review. The definitive publisher