Patient Work before World War I

Abstract

AbstractFreebody situates the origin of using work as a medical therapy in moral treatment, which emerged during the early nineteenth century. Work was incorporated as an integral part of moral treatment, which provided the medical and managerial framework for the asylums of England and France. Work was believed to help patients develop self-control and boost their self-esteem. As faith in the efficacy of moral treatment waned in the second half of the nineteenth century, the nature of patient work changed. From work programmes designed to suit the needs of individual patients, work became routinised and bureaucratised. While still percieved as beneficial for the mentally disordered, the financial value of patient work to institutions could outweigh its therapeutic value for patients, as the French psychiatrist Auguste Marie emphasised in 1905. Freebody demonstrates how the evolution of patient work highlights changing medical perceptions of mental disorder as well as prevailing socio-economic conditions.