Core Values in Action: Therapeutic Farms for Persons with Severe Mental Illness

Abstract

The development of asylums in both Europe and the United States grew out of a social reform movement that sought to improve the living conditions of less fortunate persons and a belief that man could improve his condition by engaging with greater meaning with his social and physical environment. Accordingly, it was believed that mental health impediments could be overcome or removed by creating a healing environment that facilitates the sufferer's re-engagement into purposeful community life. Moral treatment, practiced in the United States and Europe during the period from 1815 to 1875, reflected this benevolent intent. This approach was intended to foster and sustain intimate, supportive relationships between the 'less fortunate persons' ("residents") and the staff through resident engagement in productive labor such as agriculture, resident respite in a peaceful setting away from the usual stresses of daily life, and the development of emotionally close and trusting relationships between staff, between residents, and between residents and staff. This therapeutic milieu, the 'asylums', ultimately could not be sustained over long periods of time due to growing numbers of mentally ill persons, diminishing financial resources, and increasingly diverse resident populations, ineffective organizational leadership and shifting political priorities. Therapeutic farms for mentally ill persons that are premised on the principles of moral treatment methodologies applicable to 21st century needs and resources have

Nurturing mental health and well-being using ordinary farms

“…Historically, onsite psychiatric hospital gardens and farms provided an early form of horticultural therapy for inpatients throughout the 19th and early 20th century, stemming from the moral treatment movement and recognition of the therapeutic impact of working outdoors (Stucker et al , 2015; Hine et al , 2008). Although this type of treatment fell somewhat out of favour in the 1950s, modern research confirms that engagement with nature has proven positive benefits to human health including stress management (Parsons et al , 1998; Kuo, 2001), improvements in cognitive functioning (Wells, 2000; Taylor et al , 2006) and faster recovery from ill-health (Travis and McAuley, 1998; Cimprich and Ronis, 2003) as well as fostering a sense of belonging (Kingsley and Townsend, 2006; Moore et al , 2006).…”

Invigorating Care Farm Ecosystem Based on Public Service Innovation: Case of South Korea

“…According to Loue (2016), the history of the modern concept of care farming is over 100 years old. Care farming has diversely developed as an alternative means for farm use or to intervene in people requiring severe mental and physical health treatments in Europe, although it has developed as a trend to maintain a moral treatment perspective for mental diseases.…”