Asylum psychiatry, neurology, social work, and mental hygiene: An exploratory study in interprofessional history

Abstract

The author proposes that an adequate appreciation of the American mental health movement will require, ultimately, an appreciation of the concurrent developments in the histories of related professions (e.g., asylum psychiatry, neurology, social work, and public mental health). In this exploratory review, the author demonstrates some reciprocal influences between these professions which were significant determinants for their present positions. Suggestions are offered for other needed interprofessional historical studies in this area.

History, Memory, and Profession: A View of American Psychiatry Through APA Presidential Addresses, 1883–2003

“…According to the work of psychologists and psychiatrists of the time (66), a large number of these recruits were measured (based on intelligence tests) to be mentally unfit for duty (67) and others suffered from neuropsychiatric difficulties because of the war. Psychiatrists after the war took up the task of trying to improve the mental fitness of the nation and engaged in a widespread and ambitious program of mental hygiene (68)(69)(70). During this period, the organization changed its name for the last time to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 1921.…”

History and the topsy-turvy world of psychotherapy.

“…The mental hygiene movement was a progressive-era effort among some psychiatrists to break out of the constrictions of the asylum and extend their reach into the community. This was a foundational moment in the history of Western psychiatry, and very good histories have been written about it (e.g., Grob, 1983;Jones, 1999;MacLennan, 1987;Pols, 1997Pols, , 2010Quen, 1977;Richardson, 1989). Psychotherapy was one of the principle tools of mental hygiene-social workers largely practiced it under psychiatrists' watchful eyes, but some psychiatrists also practiced it-as did the rare clinical psychologist and general physicians who ran sanatoriums-to try to prevent maladjusted youth from sliding down the slippery slope into madness and to offer guidance to adult patients with unexplainable pains.…”

Forty Years of Progress in Community Mental Health: The Role of Evidence-Based Practices

“…The first cycle of reform in the early 19th century introduced moral treatment and the asylum [5][6][7][8]. The second cycle in the early 20th century was associated with the mental hygiene movement and the psychopathic hospital [9][10][11][12][13]. Each innovation proved successful with acute and milder, not chronic, forms of mental disorder, yet failed to eliminate chronicity or to fundamentally alter the care of the severely mentally ill.…”