Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health pp 519–537Cite as

Mental Hospitals and Deinsitutionalization

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

The mental hospital has been the pivot around which the care of the seriously mentally ill has revolved (Dowdall, 1996). Its study has been a central concern of the sociology of mental health. This chapter reviews selectively the work of sociologists and social historians on the mental hospital, particularly the state mental hospital, where most patients have been cared for, including its origins, the deinstitutionalization of its patients, and its present status. For more than a century, the state hospital was the primary institutional response to serious mental illness, and for the past several decades, it has been at the center of attempts to redirect public policy.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   74.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bachrach, L. L. (1976). Deinstitutionalization: An analytical review and sociological perspective. Washington, DC: National Institute of Mental Health.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachrach, L. L. (1978). A conceptual approach to deinstitutionalization. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 29, 573–578.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachrach, L. L. (1992). What we know about homelessness among mentally ill persons: An analytical review and commentary. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 43, 453–464.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bassuk, E. L., Gerson, S. (1978). Deinstitutionalization and mental health services. Scientific American, 238, 46–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Belknap, I. (1956). Human problems of a state mental hospital. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bockoven, J. S. (1956). Moral treatment in American psychiatry. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 124, 167–194, 292–321.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, P. (1985). The transfer of care. Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caudill, W. (1958). The psychiatric hospital as a small society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Center for Mental Health Services. (1996). Mental health, United States, 1996. R. W. Manderscheid M. A. Sonnenschein (Eds.). DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 96–3098. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Of-fice.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, J. V. (1988). Goffman’s legacy: The elimination of the chronic mental patient’s community. Research in the Sociology of Health Care, 7, 249–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, J. A., Wright, E. R. (1995). Medical sociology and the study of severe mental illness. Journal of Health and Social Behavior (Extra Issue), 95–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Council of State Governments. (1950). The mental health programs of the forty-eight states. Chicago: Author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennis, D. L., Monahan, J. (Eds.). (1996). Coercion and aggressive community treatment: A new frontier in mental health law. New York: Plenum Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch, A. (1948). The shame of the states. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dorwart, R. A., Epstein, S. S. (1993). Privatization and mental health care: A fragile balance. Westport, CT: Auburn House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowdall, G. W. (1996). The eclipse of the state mental hospital: Policy, stigma, and organization. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowdall, G. W., Marshall, J. R., Morra, W. A. (1990). Economic antecedents of mental hospitalization: A nineteenth-century time-series test. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 31, 141–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowdall, G. W., Pinchoff, D. (1994). Evaluation research and the psychiatric hospital: Blending management and inquiry in clinical sociology. Clinical Sociology Review, 12, 176–189.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dwyer, E. (1987). Homes for the mad: Life inside two nineteenth century asylums. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dwyer, E. (1988). The historiography of the asylum in Great Britain and the United States. In D. N. Weisstub (Ed.), Law and mental health: International perspectives (Vol. 4, pp. 110–160 ). New York: Pergamon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Estroff, S. E. (1981). Making it crazy. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Federal Task Force on Homelessness and Severe Mental Illness. (1992). Outcasts on main street. Washington, DC: Interagency Council on the Homeless.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, E. B. (1987). Editorial: Half-filled pages in mental health research. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 28, vi-vii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums. Garden City, NY: Anchor.

    Google Scholar 

  • Golden, J., Schneider, E. C.. (1982). Custody and control: The Rhode Island State Hospital for Mental Diseases, 1870–1970. Rhode Island History, 41, 113–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, H. H., Adams, N. H., Taube, C. A. (1983). Deinstitutionalization: The data demythologized. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 34, 129–134.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, H. H., Morrissey, J. P. (1985). The alchemy of mental health policy: Homelessness and the fourth cycle of reform. American Journal of Public Health, 75, 727–731

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, H. H., Taube, C. A., Regier, D. A., Witkin, M. (1983). The multiple functions of the state mental hospital. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 296–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, M. S. (1979). The sociology of mental health and illness. Annual Review of Sociology, 5, 381–409.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grimes, J.M. (1934). Institutional care of mental patients in the United States. Chicago: Author.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grob, G. N. (1966). The state and the mentally ill: A history of the Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts, 1830–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grob, G. N. (1973). Mental institutions in America: Social policy to 1875. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grob, G. N. (1983). Mental illness and American society, 1875–1940. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grob, G. N. (1991). From asylum to community: Mental health policy in modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grob, G. N. (1994). The mad among us. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gronfein, W. (1985a). Psychotropic drugs and the origins of deinstitutionalization. Social Problems, 32, 437–454.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gronfein, W. (1985b, September). Incentives and intentions in mental health policy: A comparison of the Medicaid and community mental health programs. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 26, 192–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gronfein, W. ( 1989, August). Down but not out: State mental hospitals, deinstitutionalization, and social control. Paper presented to the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gronfein, W. (1992). Goffman’s Asylums and the social control of the mentally ill. Perspectives on Social Problems, 4, 129–153.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hadley, T. R., Culhane, C. P., Snyder, F. J., Lutterman, T. C. (1992). Expenditure and revenue patterns of state mental health agencies. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 19, 213–233.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hadley, T. R., McGurrin, M. C. (1988). Accreditation, certification, and the quality of care in state hospitals. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 39, 739–742.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hilgartner, S., Bosk, C. L. (1988). The rise and fall of social problems. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 53–78.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isaac, R. J., Armat, V. C. (1990). Madness in the streets. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jencks, C. (1994). The homeless. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, A. B. (1990). Out of Bedlam: The truth about deinstitutionalization. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health. (1961). Action for mental health. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiesler, C. A., Sibulkin, A. E. (1987). Mental hospitalization: Myths and facts about a national crisis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Fond, J. Q., Durham, M. L. (1992). Back to the asylum. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamb, H. R. (1984). Deinstitutionalization and the homeless mentally ill. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 35, 899–907.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamb, H. R. (1997). The new state mental hospitals in the community. Psychiatric Services, 48, 1307–1310.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerman, P. (1982). Deinstitutionalization and the welfare state. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McEwen, C. A. (1980). Continuities in the study of total and nontotal institutions. Annual Review of Sociology, 6, 143–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mechanic, D. (1980). Mental health and social policy ( 2nd ed. ). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mechanic, D., Rochefort, D. A. (1990). Deinstitutionalization: An appraisal of reform. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 301–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey, J. P. (1989). The changing role of the public mental hospital. In D. A. Rochefort (Ed.), Handbook on mental health policy in the United States (pp. 311–338 ). New York: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey, J. P., Goldman, H. H.. (1984). Cycles of reform in the care of the chronically mentally ill. Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 35, 785–793.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrissey, J. P., Goldman, H. H., Klerman, L. V. (1980). The enduring asylum. New York: Grune Stratton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rochefort, D. (Ed.). (1989). Handbook on mental health policy in the United States. New York: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rothman, D. J. (1971). The discovery of the asylum: Social order and disorder in the New Republic. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rothman, D. J. (1980). Conscience and convenience: The asylum and its alternatives in progressive America. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schinaar, A. P., Rothbard, A. B., Yin, D., Lutterman, T. (1992). Public choice and organizational determinants of state mental health expenditure patterns. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 19, 235–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scull, A. T. (1977). Decarceration: Community treatment and the deviant: A radical view. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scull, A. T. (1984). Afterword: 1983. In A. T. Scull (Ed.), Decarceration ( 2nd ed., pp. 161–189 ). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scull, A. T. (1988). Deviance and social control. In N. J. Smelzer (Ed.), Handbook of sociology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scull, A. T. (1989). Social order/mental disorder: Anglo-American psychiatry in historical perspective. Berkeley Los Angeles: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheehan, S. (1982). Is there no place on earth for me? Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheehan, S. ( 1995, February, 20, 27). The last days of Sylvia Frumkin. The New Yorker, pp. 200–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C. J., Hanham, R. (1981). Deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill: A time path analysis of the American states, 1955–1975. Social Science and Medicine, 15D, 361–378.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staples, W. G. (1991). Castles of our conscience. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stan, P. (1982). The social transformation of American medicine. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steadman, H. J., McCarty, D. W., Morrissey, J. P. (1989). The mentally ill in jail. New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, L. I., Test, M. A. (1980). Alternative to mental hospital treatment. Archives of General Psychiatry, 37, 392–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sutton, J. R. (1991). The political economy of madness: The expansion of the asylum in Progressive America. American Sociological Review, 56, 665–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taube, C.A., Mechanic, D., Hohmann, A. A. (1989). The future of mental health services research. Rockville, MD: National Institute of Mental Health.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomes, N. (1984). A generous confidence. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F. (1988). Nowhere to go. New York: Harper Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F. (1997). Out of the shadows: Confronting America’s mental illness crisis. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F., Wolfe, S. M., Erdman, K, Flynn, L. M (1990). Care of the seriously mentally ill: A rating of state programs ( 3rd ed. ). Washington, DC: Public Citizen Health Research Group and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F., Wolfe, S. M., Flynn, L. M. (1988). Care of the seriously mentally ill: A rating of state programs ( 2nd ed. ). Washington, DC: Public Citizen Health Research Group and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F., Stieber, J., Ezekiel, J., Wolfe, S. M., Sharfstein, J., Noble, J. H., Flynn, L. M. (1992). Criminalizing the seriously mentally ill: The abuse of jails as mental hospitals. Washington, DC: Public Citizen’s Health Research Group and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ward, M. J. (1946). The snake pit. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winerip, M. (1994). 9 Highland Road: Sane living for the mentally ill. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, F. L. (1947). Out of sight, out of mind. Philadelphia: National Mental Health Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19131, USA

    George W. Dowdall

Authors
  1. George W. Dowdall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, 90095-1772, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Carol S. Aneshensel

  2. Division of Sociomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, Columbia University, 10032, New York, New York, USA

    Jo C. Phelan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Dowdall, G.W. (1999). Mental Hospitals and Deinsitutionalization. In: Aneshensel, C.S., Phelan, J.C. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36223-1_25

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-36223-1_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-32516-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-36223-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation