Administrative Psychiatry 1942–1962

Abstract

The last twenty years have seen great changes in British administrative psychiatry. Jones (1955, 1960) has described how the mentally ill began to be assembled into special institutions for their own good (and society's protection) some 150 years ago. The humanitarian revolution associated with the names of Pinel and Tuke and the philanthropic enthusiasm of Shaftesbury and the other early Commissioners in Lunacy led to the widespread building of asylums, especially after the Acts of 1845 and 1853. This was a period of great interest in administrative psychiatry, or asylum management, as the writings of Conolly (1847, 1856) and others show. During the latter half of the nineteenth century the enthusiasm was lost and the asylums became custodial. The consolidated Lunacy Acts of 1890 and 1891 fixed a pattern of humane custody scrutinized by Lunacy Commissioners which persisted little changed for 50 years. Custodial decline was also seen in the United States and some causes of it have been discussed by Bockoven (1956) and Ozarin (1954). In the last 20 years, however, and especially since the end of the 1939–45 War, there has been a marked change in the conditions of the mentally ill.