1. A history of Oak Forest Hospital up to 1962 can be found in an article by the former Medical Superintendent, Dr. Eugene J. Chesrow, “A Transformation from a Country Alms Home to One of the World's Largest and Most Renowned of Geriatric Hospitals,”National Geriatrics Society, Convention Issue, April–May 1962. A history of the various chaplaincy programs at Oak Forest has just been published by a former Oak Forest Chaplain, Rev. Anthony A. Tinklenberg,The Chapel Voice (New York: Vantage Press, 1975).
2. There is a large body of literature dealing with institutionalization and depersonalization. Erving Goffman'sAsylums (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1961) is, of course, the foundational study of “total institutions” and their effects on “inmates.” Nancy Anderson, in her “Institutionalization, Interaction, and Self-Conception in Aging” (chapter 16 inOlder People and Their Social World, ed. Arnold M. Rose and Warren A. Peterson, Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Co., 1965, pp. 245–57) argues that it is not simply institutionalization but changes in patterns of interaction that cause depersonalization. See also Rodney M. Coe, “Self-Conception and Institutionalization,” chapter 15 in Rose and Peterson,Older People, pp. 225–43.
3. For an outline of various treatment modalities, a good summary explanation of reality orientation, and a good bibliography, see Elanor K. Barns et al., “Guidelines to Treatment Approaches,”Gerontologist 13 (Winter 1973):513–27.