The future of mental health care

The origin of mental hospitals, with their mission of delivering human medical care, dates back well before the TB sanatoriums: Asylums, as they were first called. The mental hospitals started in the late 1700s abroad and in the early 1800s here in the USA. At first, they were true to their mission. Over time, they were not true to their mission because of their intent or the dedicated people who worked in them. Instead, patients, families and doctors came to realize that dependent, institutional living typically undid a person’s abilities to function as did their extraction from family and everyday life.