Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, or informerly and oftentimes incorrectly, asylums are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative identity disorder, major depressive disorder, and others.
The Meteor was an internal newspaper written, edited, printed and published by the patients of the Alabama Insane Hospital, soon renamed as the Bryce Hospital after superintendent Dr. Peter Bryce, from 1872 to 1881.
Amariah Brigham was an American psychiatrist and, in 1844, one of the founding members of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, which eventually became the American Psychiatric Association. While serving as the first director of the Utica Psychiatric Center, Dr. Brigham launched and became the first editor of the Association's official journal, The American Journal of Insanity.
The Athens Lunatic Asylum, now a mixed-use development known as The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients including Civil War veterans, children, and those declared mentally unwell. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities.
Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital referred to both the former psychiatric hospital and the historic building that it occupied in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Built in 1876, the facility was built to alleviate overcrowding at the state's only other "lunatic asylum" located in Trenton, New Jersey.
The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, also known as Kirkbride's Hospital or the Pennsylvania Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases, was a psychiatric hospital located at 48th and Haverford Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. It operated from its founding in 1841 until 1997. The remaining building, now called the Kirkbride Center is now part of the Blackwell Human Services Campus.
The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, also known as The Superintendents' Association, was organized in Philadelphia in October, 1844 at a meeting of 13 superintendents, making it the first professional medical specialty organization in the U.S.
The New York State Inebriate Asylum, later known as Binghamton State Hospital, was the first institution designed and constructed to treat alcoholism as a mental disorder in the United States. Located in Binghamton, NY, its imposing Gothic Revival exterior was designed by New York architect Isaac G. Perry and construction was completed in 1864. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997. In 2015, Binghamton University announced it had taken stewardship of the building and will proceed with plans for rehabilitation of the building.
The Opal (1851–1860) is a ten volume journal written, edited and printed by the patients of the Utica State Lunatic Asylum, circa 1851. On its more than 3,000 pages, writers talked of their experiences and world views, giving great insight to the environment of New York's premiere state-operated Asylum, in Utica, New York. Themes that continuously arose in the poetry, prose, political commentary, and articles about insanity include issues concerning medication, restraint, seclusion, human rights, liberty, overcoming oppression, and support.
Asylum architecture in the United States, including the architecture of psychiatric hospitals, affected the changing methods of treating the mentally ill in the nineteenth century: the architecture was considered part of the cure. Doctors believed that ninety percent of insanity cases were curable, but only if treated outside the home, in large-scale buildings. Nineteenth-century psychiatrists considered the architecture of asylums, especially their planning, to be one of the most powerful tools for the treatment of the insane, targeting social as well as biological factors to facilitate the treatment of mental illnesses. The construction and usage of these quasi-public buildings served to legitimize developing ideas in psychiatry. About 300 psychiatric hospitals, known at the time as insane asylums or colloquially as “loony bins” or “nuthouses,” were constructed in the United States before 1900. Asylum architecture is notable for the way similar floor plans were built in a wide range of architectural styles.
The Hudson River State Hospital is a former New York state psychiatric hospital which operated from 1873 until its closure in the early 2000s. The campus is notable for its main building, known as a "Kirkbride," which has been designated a National Historic Landmark due to its exemplary High Victorian Gothic architecture, the first use of that style for an American institutional building. It is located on US 9 on the Poughkeepsie-Hyde Park town line.
Florida State Hospital (FSH) is a hospital and psychiatric hospital in Chattahoochee, Florida. Established in 1876, it was Florida's only state mental institution until 1947. It currently has a capacity of 1,042 patients. The hospital's current Administration Building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, established in 1892 as the Matteawan State Hospital by an 1892 law, functioned as a hospital for insane criminals. It was located in the town of Fishkill just outside the city of Beacon, New York; today its buildings form part of Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Kew Lunatic Asylum is a decommissioned psychiatric hospital located between Princess Street and Yarra Boulevard in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Operational from 1871 to 1988, Kew was one of the largest asylums ever built in Australia. Later known as Willsmere, the complex of buildings were constructed between 1864 and 1872 to the design of architects G.W. Vivian and Frederick Kawerau of the Victorian Public Works Office to house the growing number of "lunatics", "inebriates", and "idiots" in the Colony of Victoria.
St. Brendan's Hospital was a psychiatric facility located in the north Dublin suburb of Grangegorman. It formed part of the mental health services of Dublin North East with its catchment area being North West Dublin. It is now the site of a modern mental health facility known as the "Phoenix Care Centre". Since the official opening of the Richmond Lunatic Asylum in 1815 the Grangegorman site has continuously provided institutional facilities for the reception of the mentally ill until the present day. As such the Phoenix Care Centre represents the continuation of the oldest public psychiatric facility in Ireland.
Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital was a hospital for the treatment of mental disorders located in Middletown, New York. It opened on April 20, 1874, and was the first purely homeopathic hospital for mental disorders in the United States. The hospital, which served "mentally ill patients from Orange, Sullivan and Ulster Counties". employed a number of new techniques for the treatment of mental disorders, most notably the use of baseball as a therapy.
Jesse Montgomery Mosher, M.D. (1864-1922), an American physician, practiced psychiatry in Albany, New York and served as editor to medical journals. He was credited with establishing the first psychiatric ward within the organization of a general hospital.
George Alder Blumer, M.D. (1857-1940) was a physician, a mental hospital administrator, and a journal editor. He was a leader in the provision of humanitarian care for mental hospital patients.
Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center is a state-run psychiatric hospital located in Utica, New York.
Mendocino State Hospital, formally known as Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane, was a psychiatric hospital located in Talmage near Ukiah, California. It was established in 1889 and in operation from July 1893 to 1972. The hospital programs included the rehabilitation of the criminally insane, alcoholic and drug abuse rehabilitation, a psychiatric residency program, industrial therapy, and others. The property now is part of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas community.
