Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (Mit Press)

If you want a big creepy photo essay coffee table book that might actually be picked up and looked at this is it. You won't find this book on just any old coffee table. Nah you have to be just a bit on the cutting edge side to dare putting this on your coffee table. The writing is ok not great but ok. The writing does not give much insight to the buildings and areas shown just enough to be useful not much more. However the strength of this book is not the writing its the pictures. The pictures are right out of the movie snake pit or one flew over the coo coo's nest. You can almost hear the somber "Medication Time" music playing as hordes of lobotomized, electroshocked inmates amble up to a half door as some well meaning sadistic hachet chinned crone dispenses medication with all the love and caring of Nurse Rachett.The other awesome thing about the pictures in this book is the sheer beauty of the archietecture. The buildings are magnificent and it is so sad that they are largely being destoryed or neglected. I drool over the abject beauty of some of these old hospitals especially the large ones. I wish I had tons of money because, I would love to convert some of these buildings into condos or apartments. They are in such idealic locations in many cases because; mental patients like prisoners were often kept out of sight and out of mind of the general "normal" populations.You look at some of these hospitals and think of all the suffering patients endured as doctors tried to cure them of madness using the most barbaric methods imaginable. Ice water shock baths, insulin therapy, electro shock, lobotomy to name just a few tortures inflicted on the mentally disturbed all in hopes of shocking the poor devils back into sanity. These were hospitals in name only what they really were are warehouses for the involuntary containment sick minds. The pictures are so crisp clear and compelling you can almost smeel the faint aroma of urine, feces cleaning solution and alcohol that seems omnipresent in such institutions. You look at the peeling pain old radiators acient medical equipment and you can hear the plaintive yelps of people unwillingly being lead to "treatment!"Some of the institutions have an Addams Family quality about them. Others look just like the human warehouses for insane minds they were designed to be. This book with its big empty decaying former mental institutions makes you think about the plight of the mentally ill today and that is not a bad thing. These institutions now dead and rotting away unseen makes you think about their former residents asking where are they now. Unfortunately those we once locked away as mental ill in hospitals shown in this book and many others we now know as "Homeless People!" Many but not all of the "Homeless People" rpaming our urban streets are the mentally ill who would have in earlier times filled the walls of these old hospitals to the bursting point.Now the mental ill are FREE of their mental hospital prisons. Yes thanks to deinstiutionalization and psychiatric wonder drugs mental patients formerly locked away in huge mental hospital prisons are free to liter our urban landscape. Free to sit in dark dank alley ways muttering to themselves, off medication because; drug side effects often make then vulnerable to street predators. The community help proposed to help deinstitutionalized mental patients never materialized so sick minds roam the streets in search of food, drug, drink and home, hope lost full of despair. These huge mental hospitals were prisons of the mind with their horrific stories that set the stage for the story we witness today whenever we see a mental patient homeless ill fed, ill clothed and lost to the mean streets. This book of pictures of evils past is a direct connection to evils present if one bothers to think about the real meaning of all the empty hallways, bed chambers and medical bays. Oh yes with deinstiutionalization life for the mental patient changed profoundly as all these rotting hulks of former mental hospitals attest but upon witnessing the results of the homeless but mentally ill who are leigion on our streets was this change for the better. The real message of this book begs us to think about those who once called these places home are they better off for having been set FREE! That answer is yours to ponder after looking through this book!

Asylum: An institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.The asylums of the past were not all torture chambers. Most were built with good intentions. This book shows the uninformed the graceful statuesque places designed to help heal people with mental illness. These are not crowed and dark, but elegantly designed buildings with extensive gardens. It was thought being outdoors and surrounded by beauty was good for the mentally ill. It is.These were self-sufficient communities. Those able worked for the greater good of the community. They grew and cooked their own food, made clothes and shoes, maintained the facility, etc. Working gives people, both the mentally ill and the imprisoned, a sense of self-worth and purpose. This also lowers the overall cost of the hospital. Clueless "do-gooders" pushed for legislation to ban working in hospitals. These beautiful healing centers were no long cost efficient and fell to ruin.Worse, with nothing to do, patients are left in lounges to watch TV and play chess (sarcastic, but true). There are people who would be more comfortable staying in a safe supportive place like these small towns. Today, there are places similar, places where the 'patients' live in a mostly self-sufficient community. These no longer receive state funding and most are expensive.Activists for 'human treatment' etc. have done tremendous damage to this Country. This is just one of many attempts for people "know what is best for us", to prove they don't. When these places were built, did people have more respect for the mentally ill? Today we push people into crowded, locked, hospital wards -- not a place to feel safe and supported. Is it a representation of a society who focuses on money and fears any financial help for the less fortunate or "entitlements" are wrong?Today, if it isn't my problem, I don't want anything to do with a solution. Ultimately, this book was sad, we have lost so much of what was good.....

The media could not be loaded.  The history of mental health care, and especially the asylums, is filled with enigmas.Once the asylums closed, it is estimated that 1/3 of the homeless population suffers from schizophrenia. Based on the American Psychiatric Association’s website, one in five of prisoners of our expensive prisons are seriously mentally ill. Many of the severe and persistently mentally ill people had no place to go when the asylums closed---thus, they ended up homeless. Many got into trouble and ended up in our expensive and non-therapeutic prisons.I worked as a clinical psychologist at an older asylum that was originally constructed in 1854. I decided to write an Archie Bunker version of mental health based on my experiences—TWO DAYS AT THE ASYLUM. It was supposed to be a bizarre novel about the happenings within an asylum. During the writing of this politically incorrect novel, I realized society must return to the asylums or at least provide therapeutic housing for the severely and persistently mentally ill. It is crazy that our contemporary society does not do to help people who are psychotic.

Beautiful photography but I found the compositions to be not insightful towards the patient's experiences, lots of corridors and sinks and plumbing but not enough patient's rooms and the personal viewpoint. I think the photos would have worked better in colour. The overall effect is quite distant and cold and more about the building structure than about the psychology of being a resident.It is a nice reference book for an art library.

I fell in love with the beauty within this book,the atmoshere created through photographs,images that gave us the lives that had been kept hidden, were now stripped bare, among the peels of paint and sounds of voices waiting to be heard. Thank you Christopher and Oliver, who with your perfect combination, have given me their world.

I have always been fascinated by derelict landscapes and buildings so investing in this book to add to my collection of derelict photography books is a great addition to my home library!! Learnt some fascinating history about Asylums in America that i wasn't aware of which was an added bonus!

I bought this as a gift and he loves it. The book is of a decent sizes and hardback with many different images in. Well worth the money to see the smile of his face

Fantastic book, great photos and written text about the history of American Asylums.