History of Mental Health Care in the United States

This specialized history of how the mentally ill were seen throughout history, and how they were treated, follows the development of the treatment and mistreatment of persons afflicted with a mental illness throughout the centuries. Care varied, sometimes better and sometimes worse, depending both on whether it was thought the mentally ill were victims or being punished for some cause. This history follows this uneven care to the forms of care in current use in the United States. The book moves quickly through the care provided the mentally ill in Europe and in the early American colonial care to the treatment models developed and provided for mental health treatment in twentieth century Europe and the United States. Tabulated data and chronologies are provided as explanatory information. The appendices provide short articles on services of the Vera French Community Mental Health Center in metropolitan Scott County, Iowa, during the second half of the Twentieth Century.