The Rise and Fall of the Institution of Mental Health Across America

By Lynn A. Granata

An institution for mental health was located in every single state in the union, going back 50 -100 years ago.

These huge fortresses once housed the criminally insane. Despite that, they also were used to warehouse many unfairly committed members of a civilized society.

It's not like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In fact the movie is a laughing stock almost Disney Land compared to the reality of what an insane asylum truly was like inside and alas outside it's looming walls.

Long ago, sanitariums or asylums were known as snake pits. Because of the number of such unspeakable atrocities going on inside them.

ECT and insulin shock therapy and then later came the short lived lobotomy or psycho surgery. It wasn't until the early 1950's until drug therapy came to save the day.

Thorazine arrived and when it did, the need for long-term mental health treatment was changed forever.

The 1960's and the Civil Rights Movement came then the deinstitutionalisation of mental health hospitals started to gradually take place. Just a pointer, don't believe that President Ronald Reagan did it, either.

The gradual closings of large public mental hospitals started soon after Thorazine was discovered. President Reagan's idea wasn't until a good 30 years later.

President Reagan ended federal funding to the states to help stop public mental hospitals from abuse. States were then unable to sustain them on taxpayer dollars alone. As a result they closed and many of these dinosaur brick asylums were left abandoned completely. Leaving so many vacant buildings to become dangerous to children who played within their horrid walls and Kirkbride style underground tunnels.

An abandoned Kirkbride style tunnel.

As a result the very last of them had shut down and were boarded up by the time President Reagan took office. These were expensive entities and were no longer sustainable.

An abandoned mental hospital.

In favor of community mental health centers the public asylums ended. Taxpayers were spared the burden of funding these long gone houses of Barbary. Advocates for the rights of the mentally ill had won a long standing battle.

An abandoned American asylum with the entrance to it's tunnel.

Today, unfortunately there are some remaining homeless individuals that were affected by the deinstitutionalisation movement. However, there are now better places they can go for humane treatment without risking losing their civil liberties, such as the outpatient community mental health centers, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens.